Toddled Dredge

Feel led to keep a diary. A sort of spiritual log for the benefit of others in the future. Each new divine insight and experience will shine like a beacon in the darkness!

Can’t think of anything to put in today.

Presented as a diary, Plass’s novel depicts an ordinary man in an evangelical church in England with a gift for making a fool of himself, and a lovable obliviousness to his own flaws.

Plass’s title is a spoof of Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, so some comparison between the two is inevtitable. Mole is the better novel, with fuller characters and a subtler manipulation of its readers, but (probably through my own quirks) Plass made me laugh harder. I suppose I have trouble enjoying whiny adolescent males enough even to laugh at them. Well-meaning, pretentious, self-pitying adult men, however, I can laugh at for hours.

The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 3/4 is written for a much smaller audience. A reader has to be familiar with evangelical beliefs and subculture to get the jokes. THe humorous treatment of evangelical church life is affectionate and honest, and the family life, while including conflict, is more obviously loving than that found in Adrian Mole. To fully sympathize with the characters, the reader has to understand and appreciate their desire to evangelize, but the book avoids saccharine spiritual resolutions.