About a Boy - and a girl
Pavilion Theatre, 2 May 8.30pm
As Fielding read from the hilarious Bridget Jones' Diary, there were whoops of recognition from female members of the audience. And one man laughed really, really heartily at the description of a drunken Bridget eating Tirimisu with her fingers.
Hornby followed with a couple of chapters from his Hi-Fidelity follow-up, About a Boy. Hearing the words read out emphasised the poignancy of Hornby's novels, which are much less carnivalesque than Fielding's.
The two have been grouped together by the media as representatives of modern-day/thirty-something male and female consciousness. They seem happy with these labels. According to Fielding, all men think Bridget Jones is mad, while Hornby's confessional tales leave women wondering what planet men are on, observations I wouldn't entirely go along with.
Fielding seemed more guarded than Hornby, although she did offer some wise words on how men and women deal differently with life's confusions. Bridget Jones, for example, would set about on a doomed quest for self-improvement, while a Hornby anti-hero would dig his head in the sand and categorise his record collection!
It got better when the microphones were sorted out and the audience asked questions.
Fielding was quick to point the differences between her and Jones, namely that:
I'm wasn't sure how much two minds being lumped together would work, but it did, on the whole. After all, there are similarities in subject and style and a genuine rapport between the authors. But the discussion really relied on the zeitgeist; the "men are from Mars" and "women from Venus" mentality. Taking such generalisations with a pinch of salt, it was the funniest hour and a half I'd had in a while.
Fielding is a virgin who never drinks. (You saw it here first, folks!)