Louise Rennison’s novel
for teenage girls, Angus, Thongs and
Full-Frontal Snogging, is a complex and challenging novel for me to review,
for a number of reasons. Thus I have deemed that it is probably best viewed in
relation to a superior work of fiction. In this case I decided to compare it
alongside Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry
Caterpillar, another beloved tale from a previous generation. So here it
goes.
Synopsis:
Angus, Thongs and
Full-Frontal Snogging is a novel set in the form of a diary by a fourteen
year old girl named Georgia Nicolson. Her escapades with her friends and her
endless desire to get a really hot boy to date her take up most of the plot,
and her attempts to balance Home Vs School life at the busy turn of the
Millennium make this an... interesting historical document.
The Very Hungry
Caterpillar is a complex narrative involving the titular caterpillar and
his desire to satisfy his ever-present hunger. His eating of a variety of
foodstuffs over the course of the week lead to a number of pitfalls, before he
finally succeeds in his goal and is rewarded with a changed persona.
Character:
Georgia Nicolson is a vain, rude, sex-obsessed teenager who,
as far as I can determine, has absolutely no redeeming features. Considering
that she is narrating her own story and therefore controls our perception of
her own world, she does not actually present us with a very flattering picture
of herself. She continuously blames, insults and belittles her parents, her
teachers and her friends, holding them responsible for her incredibly
superficial problems, while her attempts to thrust herself on older boys,
acquire and wear as much make-up and provocative clothing as possible and
attend various parties gives her as much depth as a baking tray.
The caterpillar is hungry. This immediately calls upon the
reader’s sympathies, for we have all been hungry. He eats a variety of healthy
and unhealthy foods, and ends up feeling a bit unwell. This is also something
with which we can identify. This means that the caterpillar is a character with
whom we can all relate.
Style:
Angus, Thongs and
Full-Frontal Snogging is in the format of a diary, with regular entries
throughout the day. The time of the entry is always recorded, allowing the avid
reader to see how much time has passed since the last entry. Often just a few
minutes have passed since the previous one, and it’s during these times that
Georgia is simply complaining about her lot in life, venting about one thing
and then a few minutes later venting about it again. Some of the longer entries
begin by mentioning what has happened to provoke the entry – e.g. a boy kissed
her, more often than not – and then she goes on to explain how this happened,
in lurid detail. As a way of trying to lure the reader in, and then tell us
about the episode, well... it’s just not that interesting. It’s difficult to
care about this character.
The Very Hungry
Caterpillar is told using both words and a vivid graphical style. Some of
the major innovations made by Eric Carle in this book are pages of differing
but regular widths, to aid the reader in following what item of food and how
much of it the caterpillar has consumed, while
regularly-spaced holes punched into these pages to mimic the sort of hole a
caterpillar might burrow through an item of food also reinforces the message.
In getting the reader to learn how to count, I suppose this is a good enough method.
Excerpts:
Here is an excerpt from Angus,
Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging:
“Friday October 2nd
4:00 p.m.
Party
Time!!! I don’t know why I’m so excited as S.G. [Sex
God] is not even going to be there. But
maybe I’ll be able to try out my new snogging skills.
Jackie Mathews has got a huge lovebite
on her neck. She’s put about six centimetres of concealer on it and is wearing
a scarf... how inconspicuoso!! It’s HUGE! What has she been snogging with – a
calf? I think it’s so common. Why would you let someone bite you?
The
day dragged by. I really am going to complain about Miss Stamp – she should be
working in a prison. I’m sure she has done before. Even though it was icy
outside she insisted that in our games period we ran round the hockey pitch.
You could see your breath. She found Jackie and Alison hiding in the showers
having a fag and made them change into their sports knickers and do the circuit
twice. Which is almost a reason to have her as a teacher. It was hilarious!
Jackie might look OK when she’s dolled up in some dark nightclub, but you
should see her from behind in big navy knickers!!”
[Rennison, HarperCollins: 2005. pg. 82-83]
Wow.
What a novel.
Now here’s an extract from
The Very Hungry Caterpillar:
“The next day was Sunday again.
The caterpillar ate through
one nice green leaf,
and after that he felt
much better.”
[Carle, Penguin:
1970. pg. the one with the Green Leaf and 5 holes on It]
Verdict:
Is
this what so many teenage girls actually think like? Of course we mustn’t assume that all teenage girls are like this – to the
contrary, they are not a different species, and in fact I’m certain most such
individuals have a great deal more to them than unending vanity, libido and an
infantile sense of humour. This then is the great crime of Louise Rennison’s
novels; that a series aimed at young women, ostensibly as comedies (though not
once did it actually succeed in making me laugh), forces its readers to follow
the fortunes of this most irritating and unpleasant of characters, whose only
care in the world is in how she appears to boys and when her next cheap snog is
going to happen.
In essence, Georgia Nicolson is a terrible role-model,
being moody, vindictive, mildly homophobic, and having a propensity for
throwing herself at any boy who crosses her path; the story of her life is
shit, and I find nothing of worth in reading her innermost thoughts – if thoughts
they can be called. This novel by Louise Rennison is genuinely bad, and it
makes me question the very foundations of the modern world. At the very least,
it can be read in under a week.
The Very Hungry
Caterpillar is all right for a story aimed at very small children, and has
one or two important life-lessons to teach. This book by Eric Carle is decent
enough, but I wonder why it has received such championship status. Is it really
that good? At the very least, it can be read in under a couple of minutes.
Bibliogging
Rennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. London:
HarperCollins. (2005 [First Published 1999]).
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. London: Penguin. (1970).
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