The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett
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Book Reviews of The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
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.
Book Review: A Clever Fantasy
Summary: 5 Stars
I suppose we all have a bit of curiosity about the most public/private person in the world. Alan Bennett has given us a plausible fantasy about how becoming a reader in later life might affect the Queen. In the process he reminds those of us who love to stick our head in a book and lose the rest of the world for awhile how seductive the tales within those pages are. How we might let pots on the stove boil over or burn dry because we can't stop turning pages. The Queen might be tempted to do her duties rather peremptorily, with the wish to get back to her book.
Bennet makes The Uncommon Reader, the Queen, very human, desirous of knowing more about a world in which she has seen more than most, but still regrets she didn't know something of the works by the writers she has met along the way in her duties. She discovers a whole new way of perceiving the world, and learns that those around her don't see this as the proper thing for her to do. It might even be elitist. If she isn't an elite, who is?
Though the book is short, Bennet makes it possible for us to know and care about the characters, though the Duke (the Queen's husband) is handled rather tersely, probably due to his reputation for not being warm and fuzzy.
We get a picture of what it might be like to be visited by every prime minister since Churchill. And her awareness that people often can't say to her what they like because they are overawed in her presence.
Bennet's book is charming, funny, and lively. A tiny book that can be read on a short flight or an evening at home, but will leave the reader with fresh ideas on the monarchy, the adventure of reading and its impact on the rest of our lives.
Once you've read it, pass it on.
Book Review: Are not we all uncommon readers?
Summary: 5 Stars
I received this charming novella from a friend. Can I just tell you? There can be no more perfect gift for the bibliophile in your life. What a joy!
The story is simple. The Queen of England has some very bad corgis. One day on a walk through the grounds at Windsor, the dogs start barking their heads off at a mobile library. (What I'd call a bookmobile.) Neither the Queen, nor the dogs apparently, had ever noticed it parked by the castle before. Propriety being everything, the Queen pops her head in to apologize for the corgis' behavior, but then feels compelled by that same sense of propriety to borrow a book while she's there. (It would be rude not to.)
She asks for help selecting a book from the librarian, and also consults with a young man who happens to be picking out a book of his own. It turns out that the young man, Norman Seakins, works in the castle's kitchen. So begins an odyssey that changes the monarchy, because quite by accident the Queen discovers that reading is the great passion of her life.
Not that everyone is happy with the Queen's new, all-consuming pursuit. She has to deal with Kiwi private secretaries and the Prime Minister, among others. This slim book is the story of an extraordinary friendship between a Queen and a dish washer. It explores the camaraderie of the literate. There are ruminations on books, and ruminations on writers--and why the latter are more enjoyable on the page than at a party.
The Uncommon Reader is short, sweet, funny, smart, and utterly delightful! It's just the thing to stuff into a stocking or give to a bookish friend "just because." Or, even better, just give it to yourself.
Book Review: The Uncommon Reader
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was a delight. As a fan of the Royal Family and most especially the Queen. The book brought to life the life of the Queen and how her Government tries to hold her close to the vest to even restrict her level of intelligence to prevent her from raising the level of intimidation she causes. It is also sad to me that she has no one close to her to express herself and to tell her amazing story. When someone like Norman gets close the government removes them to increase their power. What I liked was that the book showed a side of a woman who has been so removed from the world that if the opportunity was created for her to gain insight to "normal" life, she would not hesitate to experience it. The book is very real by the examples of both The Queen and her Consort sneeking out at night to just have a night together with "common folks". Also with the push to place William on the throne as the Queen approaches her 60th year there, it is feasible that she could write a book about her amazing life her point of view.
The book immediatly grips you and tugs at the strings of your heart for the sacrifices the Queen makes in her position. It also grabs at her fiestiness and awareness of her role she is an expert and far smater than she is given credit. Mr Bennett grabs all of the splendor and power of being a royal as well as its isolation, and how something as simple as a book can open a world undiscovered by the reader and feed the mind with lives yet unrealized. The book is a beautiful testament to the joy of reading from Royal to serf and the doors that are unlocked through books.
Book Review: Uncommonly Good Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Alan Bennett's charming, clever, witty The Uncommon Reader is a novella which begs for the accessibilty of a nearby pencil and pad of paper; there are such astute observations on the transformative power of reading that most avid readers will want to ponder and share all the author has woven into the plot of this very funny book.
The story is straight and to the point: the Queen of England has developed a love of reading. So what? Well, if you've ever succumbed to the Harry Potter virus - meaning, you've let every last shred of housework, relationships, and personal hygiene fall to the wayside while you plow through another year at Hogwart's with Harry - then you know how reading can both enrich your world and simultaneously pull you out of the reality of it. But what if you weren't the housewife or the co-worker or the school librarian, but the QUEEN OF ENGLAND? What do you suppose would happen while you're holed up in the den, sequestered in your newest adventure? Yes, the stakes are a little higher for a Royal Reader.
It's not just the international ripple which results from Her Royal Highness' reading that makes the book so funny - it's also the amazing voice that Bennett has given to the Queen. She is touching and thoughtful; the feeling you get while reading is so microscopic and almost intimate. I couldn't help but imagine Helen Mirren while I read this book, mostly because she did such a fabulous job humaninzing HRH in The Queen. Whomever I was meant to imagine while I read, by the time I finished I could certainly picture this fellow reader as a friend.