Belle de Jour: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl

The tale of the happy hooker is nothing new. John Cleland portrayed one in 1748 with his remarkably modern and emotive Fanny Hill; but something about Belle smacks of disingenuousness. Perhaps it's just insecurity, but she seems too insistent about her cleverness: concluding the tale of one steamy liaison she says, "We discussed Iris Murdoch, and I left". And she is often unconvincing when she pretends to shock: "I swear if someone ever got hold of transcripts of my phone calls, they'd probably think I was a - oh wait, I am".

Whore bore diary of porno Bridget Jones

But I didn’t like this book, with its spoiled-girl braggadocio: “The first thing you have to understand is that I’m a whore,” reads the first sentence. I found the idea of a pampered, middle-class girl going into prostitution out of laziness icky rather than intriguing: falling into it faute de mieux is one thing; coming to it via comfortable indolence another (though it is hardly as novel or as noteworthy as the author seems to think it is). And really, how much of a show-off do you have to be to volunteer a free blog about your life? There is something about Belle’s relentless me-me-me tone throughout that reminds me of how every woman who gives birth imagines herself to be the first person to experience motherhood, and thus imagines herself to be rather more fascinating than she actually is.

Autobiography: Belle de Jour