In Which I Write A Little More About One Day

Yep, still working on this one. Should have the final wrap-up sometime tomorrow. But as I'm sitting here in my obligatory writerly coffeehouse on a Sunday morning, here comes the review for the second third of One Day, still written by David Nicholls.

With each passing chapter, I am disliking Dexter Mayhew more and more. As a character he is super-flawed (not always a bad thing), but he has officially crossed over into "downright unlikeable." At first, following the disastrous drunk-dials of 1993, it seemed as though he was as much a victim of circumstance as his own personality-- a television star struggling for relevance in the '90s was sure to want/need copious amounts of drugs and alcohol in the name of industry. But one would think that after ruining his final time with his dying mother, and then his relationship with Emma, he would have learned. Something. Anything.

Meeting Sylvie seemed as though it should have been his saving grace (the woman is too stern and humorless to tolerate anything like drunkenness, let alone drug use), but instead he's just gotten better at hiding it. In the most recent year, 2000, Dex is left at home with his daughter while his wife goes for a hen night. He gets drunk. He smokes. He drunk dials old girlfriends. And at a certain point I was genuinely afraid that his daughter's life was in danger, if only because of his lack of control of his situation. I'm really hoping that Dexter can pull himself together, because right now I want nothing to do with him and Emma together. He's not good enough for her.

Because for every notch Dexter has fallen in my estimation, Emma has gone up. Sure she had an affair with a married man, and sure she is not accomplishing all that she could in this life, but she is trying. With each year that passes she is making strides in her life; she quits the horrible Tex-Mex restaurant, she gets her teaching degree, she leaves teaching to pursue writing full-time, which is something she has always wanted. Now in the year 2000 she is considered an "old maid," acting as godmother to numerous friends' children, and not particularly caring that she doesn't have a man in her life.

"The problem" between Dexter and Emma is that he has never quite grown up enough to admit the depth of his feelings for her, or to acknowledge the depth of her feelings for him. It's easier to marry "an ideal" (Sylvie), loving the idea of her, than it is to sober up and try to be good enough for Emma. I genuinely hope for Dexter's redemption, both because it would make for a more compelling story (How many times have we seen the heroine hung up on the asshole when there is a perfectly wonderful man right in front of her? Too many. At the moment Emma isn't holding out for Dexter as much as for herself, but it's time to reform the rake or get off the pot, Nicholls!)

One Day is really picking up now that we're nearing the end, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing evening of finishing this thing up (and having a lovely time with a certain Boy Scout). More later.