Book Club: Diary of a Nobody

Mr Pooter is an office clerk and upright family man in a dull 1880s suburb. His diary is a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle classes. It sends up contemporary crazes for Aestheticism, spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody.

The Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith is just that... a diary of a nobody. Mr Pooter, as per the blurb and title is an ordinary middle-class, white male - there's nothing particularly special about him and nothing out of the ordinary really happens.

As a result, I can't really decide what my final thought is on this book. I can't say there was an amazing twist or a unusual character or even exquisite writing because its whole purpose was to be anything but extraordinary. For this reason, the characters aren't particularly likeable; they are all realistically flawed and some are on the cusp of caricatures that Grossmith puppets, largely to poke fun at the middle classes.

What I really liked about the novel was the humour, exposing the ridiculous in the banalities of everyday life and the eccentricity and honesty of our own internal dialogues. I couldn't help but laugh every time Pooter relayed an occasion when he delivered a truly exceptional joke, especially when it's clear from his diary that no one around him found it that funny... story of my life.

The satirical aspects did keep me reading but did it do quite enough to make this an exceptional reading experience? Not really, but being original serialised in 1892, it's not surprising I didn't relate entirely. Saying that, there are, surprisingly, still some relevant social observations in this novel for the modern reader.

As an exploration of the 'ordinary man', this novel reminded me quite a bit of Dickens' Sketches by Boz, helped I'm sure by the similar line drawings that illustrate Pooter's diary throughout. Also,The Diary of a Nobody, like a number of Dickens' works, was first published as a serial in Punch magazine. I couldn't say that this was quite as intricate as anything of Dickens' but, despite being a little dry (as is inevitable when focussing a whole book on the 'diary of a nobody'...) it should probably be read.

I give it a 5/10