Adrian Mole - The Cappucino Years
---------------------------------
Sue Townsend

Like a lot of people who grew up in the England of the 1980s, I've
been following the life of Leicester's most famous unpublished
novelist and diarist for almost as long as I've been reading books
with more than 100 pages. Adrian Mole is around six years older than
me, and has, at the age of 32, now had no less than five volumes of
his diaries published.

The height of Mole-mania came in the mid-eighties, when having been
hanging quietly around for a couple of years and making no great
impact, "The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4" suddenly
exploded in popularity. My own paper back copy of "Secret Diary" was
passed around Class 13 of Milverton Combined School until it
eventually came back to me in a battered state, with the missing rude
words that were asterisked out in the original helpfully filled in.
The second volume of diaries was published in 1984, followed by a TV
adaptation (theme song helpfully supplied by Ian Dury) and a stage
musical.

Little more was heard from Adrian until 1989, when a relatively brief
extract from his diaries was featured alongside those of a teenage
Margaret Hilda Roberts and those of the author herself, but the next
full-length volume was 1993's "Adrian Mole - The Wilderness Years".
Adrian had grown up with his readers, and the note of optimism this
book ended on is quickly squashed when Adrian's story is taken up
again at the beginning of this latest volume. It is now 1 May
1997. Since the last time we heard from him, Adrian has been married
and is now seperated, and at the age of 30 is still working in the
restaurant at which he spent much of "Wilderness Years". Admittedly,
he's now head chef, but his novel has not been published, he is not a
celebrated writer, he has a threateningly thinning patch on his head,
and is a single parent. And to top it all off, his heart still only
belongs in a rather unrequited manner to Pandora Braithwaite, now the
newly elected Labour MP for Ashby-de-la-Zouch and up-and-coming figure
in the government.

There are still more things to worry about - his concept of a comedy
about a serial killer isn't finding too many backers in the television
industry, a possible paternity suit is rearing its ugly head, and his
mother appears to be on the verge of a clandestine affair. To make
matters worse, his father is more or less bed-ridden with depression,
his teenage sister can't stop swearing, and Adrian's son is living
with his grandparents as a flat above a Soho restaurant isn't really a
suitable place to bring up a child.

What other woes will befall Adrian? Will things even, maybe, get a
little better? These are the kind of questions which make the rare
arrival of a new book in this series a major event for the Mole fan -
as far as I'm concerned, a new Adrian Mole book is something to buy
immediately, and the rest of the world can pause for a breather until
I've finished reading it. The 6-year wait since the last book has been
well justified. Sue Townsend has a marvellous ability to get under the
skin of her characters, and her most famous character has a depth and
a realism in this book that hasn't been seen before.

The Adrian in this book has lived, he has matured. Gone are most of
the petty paranoias of the past, and in their place is a more sober,
adult outlook on life as he comes to terms both with fatherhood and
the advent of his thirties. The only thing that irks me somewhat is
his continuing love for Pandora - this must be passion indeed for it
to have survived fifteen years of rejection and humiliation, and my
feeling is that it's an issue he would have got over by now in the
real world.

The other characters in the book are real and well developed as well -
space is made for all of them, and there are numerous subplots
covering almost every aspects of family life in the nineties. It's
fascinating watching Adrian's interactions with them, and knowing a
character so well it is often these smaller things that give the
greatest clues to the character of this older, wiser Adrian.

Through the 390 pages of "Cappucino Years", good things happen and bad
things happen, but more importantly, Adrian lives and learns. The
essential humanity and gentleness in his character shines through,
painted in gorgeous detail by Sue Townsend's superb writing, lyrical
and poetic even in its description of the mundane. It's also very
funny, but the comedy has less of the slapstick feeling of the earlier
books and now carries a drier, more mature wit.

All in all, this is the best Mole yet, and well worth waiting six
years for. I hope this isn't the end of the road for the character,
as I'd love to see how some of the loose ends left by the book's 
surprising ending work out.