The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett - 11 out of 10

 The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

11 out of 10

 

 

What a perfect joy this glorious, very short novel is and how perfectly timed, coming for the under signed just as he found it hard to cope with The Ragazzi by Pier Paolo Pasolini…though it should be no surprise that The Uncommon Reader is phenomenal, seeing that History Boys http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/history-boys-by-alan-bennett-really.html 40 Years On http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/09/40-years-on-by-alan-bennett-iridescent.html Kafka’s Dick http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/kafkas-dick-by-alan-bennett-outre-but.html not to mention The Madness of King George are all glorious works by the wondrous Alan Bennett…

 

The Uncommon Reader is…Her Majesty, The Queen, and it is an exquisite, exotic, hilarious, but also very deep, instructive, insightful and playful, informing the readers about a long list of authors, one being Jane Austen – whose ‘essence lies in the minute social distinctions’ which makes her a more difficult read for the monarch, who is so high above the commoners, or at least she had used to be before taking up reading, that she could not see from her stratosphere the small differences between her subjects that gave spice to Pride and Prejudice and the other magnum opera, albeit we can see in Capital in the 21^st century that the connections between the various Austen characters would have been impossible in a reality where the rich and the poor were so far away as if they had been from different planets.

There are also very poignant observations on…us, readers and the transformations we suffer when we take this as habit, which makes people see other worlds, get in touch with other lives, albeit at one stage, this is also called ‘not doing’ - which is somewhat sad for yours truly, who tries to ‘do’ a lot of reading and is mentioning it as an activity when the spouse accuses him of laziness and laying about – and what might succeed for an avid reader could be writing – fortunately, the under signed has tried to engage in this activity and there are some stories that have happened to him on the blog http://realini.blogspot.com/ …alas, the skill with which these tall tales are told is still less than what would be required for me to suggest looking them up.

 

At the beginning of this superb, delightful magnum opus, her majesty is the host of the French president – when she mentions Genet to him he has no idea who he is and the same thing happens quite often, when she refers to different writers, even if it is someone of the magnitude of Marcel Proust, he prime minister, cabinet members are at a loss to see who she means and eventually, they oppose her late fondness for reading and then talking about what she is reading, seeing this as a distraction, the result being a certain dereliction, insisting on the need for the monarch to engage equally with artists, scientists  when she wants to have a soiree with writers and generally trying their hardest to obstruct her royal highness- when she tries to take books with her on a visit to Canada, they send them to the wrong destination, they take a volume she has hidden under her seat and pretend they have blown it away, suspecting it could be an explosive device and finally removing Norman, the former kitchen employee that she promotes to an upstairs position as a page, and sending him to university, so that what they see as his nefarious influence could be blocked and the monarch returned to more boring habits.

 

It all happens when the queen happens to enter the traveling library, just as her corgis bark like mad – apparently they are quite unpopular, she has had about one hundred and forty of them and during the narrative they will destroy quite a number of volumes, because their master, who used to be very busy in throwing sticks and thus entertaining them is now enthralled by reading those books that they loath and try and manage to eliminate from the landscape – and meets with the librarian and a red haired young man, Norman, who would help her with reading lists, once this becomes a ritual and a late discovered Joy.

This late blooming is called opsimath and the monarch is lucky to have met quite a few of the writers she is reading – however, when she has her soiree, some are just rude and pretend not to hear her when she tries to talk to her, while the others are quite shy and do not look very interesting, if at all…there is one quote though that comes to mind…’one does not get the inspiration, one has to go out and grab it’ or something like that – and one of them is the Divine Anthony Powell http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/hearing-secrets-harmonies-by-anthony.html who referred in front of her majesty to ‘writers as needing to be human beings’

 

The satire is harsh and jocularity is the order of the day, though reading is an intellectual, honorable, erudite occupation – unless of course we are talking about the Sun, which is what her driver reads, after he had said to his employer that one hardly has the time for books – the entourage of the queen, her prime minister – only one in her past was a devoted reader, Macmillan, if I am not mistaken – are set absent this when they feel it interferes with her plans – they have a ridiculous habit, when they meet the queen for the first encounters, they tend to be more restrained, but as they get used to the monarch, they do not listen anymore and tend to act as if they are in front of a political audience, much like the deposed very stable genius seems to do, only on a smaller scale – and they contact Kevin, the New Zealander, to express their displeasures and require action and a stop to, well, reading.

Whereas her majesty had used to ask her subjects about ‘how far they had had to travel’ when she had been in that ultra-boring position of monarch who does not read, now that she has found such new worlds, she is asking what do they read – and most have no answers, are embarrassed, if so amusing, try and say the bible, but gradually they are instructed by the assistants as to what they should try and say – and then she is mentioning the multiple works she has been or is reading at the moment, creating some situations where her staff feel that her age is begging to show and that senility may be around the corner.

 

There is indeed one comical moment wherein the queen reads Henry James – was it, anyway he is a bit criticized for his tendency to digress, albeit there is the amateur reader of the first period, who gives way for a more experienced one, that is able to enjoy more difficult, refined, complicated, writers – and she says ‘oh, do get on with it’ and that makes the woman that had her tea run away in seconds – the monarch follows, something she had not done before her reading period, to assure the woman – the queen used to think of them as servants, now they are human resources – that she was not talking to her…