The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
by Alan Bennett
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Book Reviews of The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
Book Review: An Unlikely Reader
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought a few books in London this week and while packing for the flight back home I put The Uncommon Reader in my bag simply because it is a slim book. I was holding the book while walking down the aisle to my seat, and this man smiled widely at me from his seat, pointed to the book, and said (in Hebrew): "This is the funniest book in the world". I told him I haven't started reading it yet, and he said: "lucky you!". So when I sat down in my spacious EL AL economy-class seat and opened the book, expectations were high.
Alan Bennett is the author of known West End plays, most recently "The History Boys". In this book he weaves an exquisitely lovely and quintessentially British story about Queen Elizabeth II becoming an avid reader in her old age. Chasing her dogs on a walk through the palace grounds, she stumbles upon a travelling library van, where she meets Norman, who works in the royal kitchens. The young boy introduces Her Majesty to the world of books and becomes her confidante in the matter of reading, after the Queen promotes him from the kitchen to become her personal assistant. She struggles through the first book - which she borrowed from the library van only out of her "sense of duty" - but quickly enough she starts devouring books at a brisk rate.
Reading eventually interferes with her duties as Queen and people around her conspire to return things to normal. She embarrasses the Prime Minister and other dignitaries by asking them about their literary preferences, only to discover most of them do not read. The book builds to a crescendo when the Queen decides to dabble in writing herself and takes the necessary (and logical) step to allow her to do so.
This book is a love poem for reading, so any reader will love it. The humour is good and I did laugh out loud a couple of times (to the consternation of my fellow travellers). Even though I wouldn't necessarily label it as "the funniest book in the world", it is a book I recommend with all my heart.
Book Review: Uncommon Reader
Summary: 4 Stars
The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett is a witty look at how the Queen of England's love of reading impinges on her duties and helps her evolve as a human being. There is a great deal to love about this small volume.
At first, the Queen of England isn't sure what to make of the traveling library that she runs across at the palace. Once she begins reading, she can't stop and takes it upon herself to appoint a kitchen boy as her amanuensis, a writing assistant to conduct research and perform secretarial duties, named Norman. He helps her select books from the traveling library and from the London Library.
"[Norman] came back full of wonder and excitement at how old-fashioned it was, saying it was the sort of library he had only read about in books and had thought confined to the past. He wandered through its labyrinthine stacks marvelling that these were all books that he (or rather She) could borrow at will. So infectious was his enthusiasm that next time, the Queen thought, she might accompany him." (page 19)
She becomes so engrossed in her reading that she begins carrying books with her in the carriages and to official functions and begins to look upon her normal daily activities, like being briefed on the events of the government and world, as the "antithesis of reading" (page 21). Her speeches before Parliament became tedious and "demeaned the very act of reading itself" (page 33).
It's interesting to watch how certain members of the staff react to her reading habit and how they conspire to eliminate it. Despite all of the government's machinations, however, the Queen perseveres. Readers will adore the end of the novel and how it turns the rest of it upside down.
Book Review: "Once upon a time ...
Summary: 5 Stars
"It was the dogs' fault."
The Queen (aka "One") met Norman Seakins and books in a van parked near the garbage bins.
One "read of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people."
One is thorough: "Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate."
Norman becomes her amanuensis (and more); he "was unaffected by her because she seemed so ancient, her royalty obliterated by her seniority."
Except with Norman, One is unable to discuss books:
The President of France "looked wildly about for his minister of culture."
Her driver "opened the glove compartment and took out his copy of the `Sun'."
Asked what they were reading: "To this very few of Her Majesty's loyal subjects had a ready answer (though one did try: `The Bible?')."
Her staff: "I'm afraid Her Majesty is getting to be what is known as a handful."
Or One is disinclined: "Harry Potter, but to this the Queen (who had no time for fantasy) invariably said briskly, `Yes. One is saving that for a rainy day.'"
Even authors "she found were best met on the pages of their books."
So the Queen decides to join her ancestors and relatives - Henry VIII on heresy, Victoria with Leaves from a Highland Journal, the Duke of Windsor with A King's Story - and become an author herself.
To the consternation of her ministers -- the Queen has a "terrible sense of duty" -- she announces "One must not talk about it or it will never get done."
And they all lived interestingly ever after.
Robert C. Ross 2008
Book Review: Filled with charm, humor, and deep insight into the joys and consequences of reading
Summary: 5 Stars
This little 121-page novella is a comic jewel in which Alan Bennett speculates what might happen if a very well-known person were to read a book...and actually enjoy the experience.
If Queen Elizabeth II hadn't chased her Corgis 'round the back of Windsor Castle and stumbled across the bookmobile parked outside the kitchens, none of this would've happened. But the Corgis did, and she did, and the Queen checked out a book-- just to be polite. Who'da thunk she'd actually read it and go back for another?
"Books did not defer. All readers were equal, and this took her back to the beginning of her life. As a girl, one of her greatest thrills had been on VE night, when she and her sister had slipped out of the gates and mingled unrecognized with the crowds. There was something of that, she felt, to reading. It was anonymous; it was shared; it was common. And she who had led a life apart now found that she craved it. Here in these pages and between these covers she could go unrecognized."
Turning such a world figure into a reading fiend is a stroke of comic genius as the reader rides along in the state carriage while Her Majesty learns how to wave and read at the same time or watches the servants learn to cope with a formerly punctual monarch who now wants to wait until she's finished the chapter she's reading.
The Uncommon Reader isn't all fun and games. On a deeper level, Bennett shows how the world opens up to anyone who chooses to read for both enlightenment and enjoyment. Whether we realize it or not, reading transforms us.
Read it for the humor. Read it because you're a fan of the royals. Read it because of the truths it contains. For whatever the reason...
...read it!
Book Review: A delicious bonne bouche
Summary: 5 Stars
This charming and witty little book (just 121 small pages) imagines Queen Elizabeth II, some fifty years into her reign, coming upon a travelling library parked next to the royal kitchens. Out of politeness, she borrows a book at random. She has never had any time or inclination for reading anything other than state papers, though she has met many famous authors with whom she had exchanged small talk. The first book, by Ivy Compton-Burnett, is hard going, but she has known since childhood that it is her duty to finish what she has started. Then she borrows another book, and soon she is hooked on reading, initially quite undiscriminatingly, to the incomprehension of the Duke and the active hostility of the palace officials. She feels she is doing her duty to find out "what people are like", and she is not shocked by anything she finds. There is an innocence about her, but also a shrewd and down-to-earth intelligence in her appraisals of literature. It appeals to her that books address the highly and the lowly placed alike, for "she was a genuine democrat, perhaps the only one in the country". What had been seen as a duty becomes a pleasure, and then a passion. It makes her impatient of small talk and of the clichés she has to utter in the speeches that are written for her. Soon she has a sense of history which her prime minister sadly lacks - but by that time the prime minister has been in office long enough no longer to listen to what the Queen has to say at his weekly audience with her.
Around this affectionate portrait of the Queen, Alan Bennett's imagination has woven a number of delicious incidents, gently satirical, and all in his crystalline prose and unmistakable voice.