Friday, April 11, 2014

Sue Townsend - RIP

Adrian Mole is one of the funniest characters I have ever read. His obsession with his book 'Lo! The ...Flatland', the chap at the BBC who writes back to him, his intellectual girl friend Pandora, the bully at school who becomes known as a sensitive poet while Adrian is languishing in literary anonymity are stuff one will never forget. I also bought her 'Queen and I' and marvelled at the way she took shots at the Queen. In India the author would have been dragged to court, face blackened, stones thrown at, cases filed by people whose sentiments would have been hurt, IT raids ordered and some other similar tactics we reserve for those who dare make fun of us. I am glad Sue Townsend lived in UK and continued to write about all that she wanted to write about.

Reading about her life I wondered how she wrote so funnily. There is nothing funny about her life. Here's a link to an article I read.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/11/sue-townsend-dies-aged-68-adrian-mole

I feel a special bond with those who made me laugh in my life - be it books, funny people, comedians, friends.I feel a loss when one of those passes on and so I feel with Sue Townsend. I will, as a tribute, revisit her books and certainly read some of the later ones that I missed out on. For all the wonderful times, those laughs, thanks so much.

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