The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

As I struggle to keep to my self declared and in all probability only self followed and self tracked challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks (yikes I am already lagging behind!), I decided to cruise through an immensely enjoyable book “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” (hence referred to as TGPAM) even as I was reading (and let me add enjoying) “Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I knew TGPAM would arm with enough material and inspiration to write a quick, short and hopefully funny review of the accurate, poignant and humorous account of Adrian Mole’s teenage existential angst.
I had read the first book of the Adrian Mole series and had instantly fallen in love with the protagonist Adrian Mole the serious, earnest and inadvertently hilarious British Teenager, who like teenagers all over the world is struggling to understand and “fit in” to this world that dysfunctional adults seem to be handing over to him.
I was looking for a breezy but not mindless, funny but not silly book and “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” did not disappoint me.
The book is a compilation of Adrian’s Mole diary as he painstakingly writes about the trivial and not so trivial incidents that seem to plague him in his 15th year. Action does not seem to be missing in his life and one cannot help but laugh out loud (no literally I did laugh out loud) as Adrian writes about the significant and scandalous changes in his household and parent’s marital relationship. What endears him is the fact that Adrian Mole writes from the vantage point of being a self occupied teenage, with dysfunctional parents being in charge he is mostly struggling to keep himself above board without pondering too much about the morality, righteousness or sometimes sheer injustice of his circumstances.
Adrian Mole displays true teenage schizophrenia as he plays the following roles extremely effectively:
(Frustrated) Intellectual: Adrian is disdainful of his fellow high schoolers who seem to not know or care too much about the Falkland War or Jack Kerouac. He writes poems (of course they don’t rhyme) and unfazed by rejection keeps sending them over to the BBC in hopes of a creating a program dedicated to his poems. He loves using words like “nihilistic” and pines for the day he becomes a famous author.
(Fatherly)Son: Adrian is undoubtedly the most responsible of all the Moles, he isn’t upto too many untowardly shenanigans and very valiantly takes care of his pregnant mother and baby sister while his father is forced to abandon the family. Even in the best of times his parents don’t seem to help his flailing self confidence, at the slightest provocation go to great lengths describing what they imagine their perfect son to be (believe me he is nothing like Adrian), don’t seem to notice his impending nervous breakdown and much to his chagrin don’t get hysterical when he runs away!
(Enthusiastic) Care Giver: Unlike selfish teenagers Adrian really cares about the nonagenarians Bert and Queenie and does his best to lend a helping hand, strike thoughtful conversations and take their smelly vicious dog Sabre out for walks, however in typical Mole style also finds it “funny to think that old, smelly, unattractive people can be sentimental”.
(Doting) Brother: Adrian Mole is completely adorable as the 15 year old brother who dreads his sister’s arrival but totally and nonchalantly falls in love with Rosie (who he claims has a “split personality; calm one minute screaming like a maniac the other”) so much so that the love of his life Pandora tells him that his “sister’s feeding pattern isn’t of great interest to her”.
(Unrequited) Lover: Pandora is the love of Mole’s life, the perfect combination of beauty and brains (strangely for a clever she can’t spell his name right even after a year of being together). Adrian’s raging teenage hormones come in the way of their relationship and his psychiatrist classifies Pandora as “insoluble problems”
(Surprised) Consistently Mediocre: He struggles and studies conscientiously and is sure that there is a mistake when yet again he is only somewhere in the middle of his class.
Poverty Stricken Teenager: Due to the marital and moral upheavals the Mole household finds itself in, there is a perpetual money crisis compounded by the inefficiencies of the Welfare Department. Adrian’s mom, Pauline in her inimitable style stages an abandoning and gets the government to work for her. Adrian watches and writes with bated breath about how he needs money desperately, notably to pay two month’s library fines.
Renegade Gangster: Adrian is charmed by the ignorant bliss that Barry Kent and his gang members seem to be living in, takes a fancy to being a part of the “gang” presumably been driven to it by his “existential nihilism” however soon bores out of it but isn’t sure he can get away from the gang alive.
(Eager to return) Runaway: In a last desperate bid to grab his parents attention (who are busy watching Rosie develop manual dexterity) Adrian plans to run away. Meticulously makes a list of all things he might need on his escapade, escapes and then leads the police to discover him.

What makes Adrian Mole and his Growing Pains a delightful read is the fact that Adrian is not emotionally constipated, deals with his not so ordinary circumstances with a wry English wit, writes about details that only interest and affect him, is wisely naive and while trying too hard to be an intellectual is thrilled by the number of Valentine cards he gets. The reader is forced to “guffaw” (out loud may I add) at his brilliant one liners and come backs. My AHA (or rather HA HA HA ) moment in this book was not just one but all of his liners (and the book has many).
The book is not just a casual read, not a mindless “chick lit” dealing in fantastical fantasies. This book is real and is rife with political and social innuendos. Adrian Mole and his escapades are highly highly recommended for this is Calvin and Hobbes, The Family Guy and Wonder Years all rolled into one sweet 200 hundred page 300 odd entries book.