Laughs in an Empty Room

Easy to understand why the British consider Alan Bennett a national treasure. It started in 1960, when with a group of friends he achieved almost instant fame with the satirical West End review Beyond the Fringe. Bennett has always been as comfortable on stage as he is in the writer’s chair, appearing in plays and television shows too numerous to list, and writing at least fifteen plays that have been produced in either London or New York. He also writes stories, novellas, essays and memoirs that delight readers everywhere.

My first reading of Bennett was his novella Smut, a surprise that suddenly lit up the room. The Uncommon Reader came next, another of his novellas and that one put his name permanently on my library and bookstore ‘look for’ list. Last Friday I hit upon another one and snatched it off the shelf in a flash—a small volume with two more novellas, The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van. Reading the second will come later, but about The Clothes They Stood Up In I offer a warning that reading it in a public place will draw the stares of people around you because it’s a story guaranteed to make you laugh long, often and loudly.

Maurice and Rosemary Ransome are a long married couple living in north London, in a spacious and comfortable flat that has been home for many years. Theirs is a marriage that has settled into convenience and silent resolve to make life quietly agreeable despite his unsmiling stiffness and her diffidence. One night the two go out for an evening at the opera and return to find their flat has been burgled. But this is not the ordinary burglary where certain things are missing; their home has been stripped down to an empty shell leaving nothing but the standing walls. The telephones, the wall-to-wall carpeting, the toilet paper, the casserole in the oven—every sign of occupancy is gone, the only thing left being the clothes they stand up in.

As bad as it sounds, the disappearance of their domestic setting has some positive results that come in the wake of confusion and a laissez-faire lack of concern by the police. Mr Ransome views the burglary as an opportunity to get a better stereo sound system through the insurance claim while the effect on his wife is deeper, gradually leading her to find new life in the absence of all possessions. There isn’t much in it to ruffle the brusque ways of her husband, but in replacing the bare essentials, Mrs Ransome discovers a new and for her unheard of freedom.

Some weeks pass before a letter arrives directing Mr & Mrs Ransome to an address some distance away. They find there a large storage facility containing their north London flat recreated down to the smallest detail and filled with all their possessions. The young man hired to stay there and look after things has no idea of who or why, but has followed the written instructions of an unknown employer. Of course, they are free to reclaim their belongings, with the comical addition of a few tokens from the temporary caretaker and his girlfriend.

Once everything is put back in place and life slips back to its pre-burglary humdrum routines, Mrs Ransome finds there is something less than satisfying about the return of her old life and all its clutter. She has learned (mostly from newly discovered daytime talks shows on television) during their post-burglary days that she and her husband have not been connected for too long. The earlier lack of confidence is gone and she makes the decision to effect a change in the unfeeling relationship with her husband. But then comes the next blow.

The Clothes They Stood Up In is a short and charming evening’s read. Whether it’s this one or another, give yourself the treat of an Alan Bennett book.

Laughing with the Queen

Alan Bennett could easily become a habit. In the past couple of weeks two of his books have brought pages of laughter and pleasurable reading, and here I am scanning the list looking for a third. An earlier post several days ago, described Bennett as familiar to many as a playwright. Aware of his success in that field, I am only now coming to know him for his long stories and novellas. Completely charmed by two stories published together under the title Smut, a small book that had me laughing on every page, I read the last page and without missing a beat clicked on Amazon looking for more Alan Bennett. Having now raced through Bennett’s 2007 novella The Uncommon Reader, once again my hand moved automatically to the online buy-a-book button. I sit here impatient for the next delivery.

Alan Bennett has been described by more than one critic as among England’s most celebrated writers. He has written nineteen plays that have been produced on the West End and Broadway, sixteen television plays, six screenplays, three books of autobiography and six books of fiction in the form of stories and novellas. There seems no end to the stories of his prodigious imagination or the ink in his pen, and let us all be thankful for that. The Uncommon Reader was only the second Bennett book in my experience and it may well have been the best of all possible choices.

One day while trying to corral her romping corgis, the Queen comes upon a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace. Unfamiliar with such a thing, she investigates and after speaking with the driver-librarian and feeling it would be unkind to do less, she borrows a book. From this chance encounter she discovers a previously unknown joy of reading, and in no time begins to read widely and intelligently. Working her way through a range of popular titles, histories and classics her view of the world gradually begins to change, and with increasing impatience in her role as monarch she begins to question the prescribed order of her life. The palace staff is alarmed, puzzled over the changes in their Queen, seeing her as having grown dotty and assuming it is a sign of Alzheimer’s—all leading to comic consequences.

The book is of course a fairy tale, but one that captures the reader on its first page with Bennett’s knack for dialogue and his ability to find polite humor in someone as staid as the Queen of England. Through Mr Bennett’s eye humor is of the humane brand, never rude or insulting, and his uncommon protagonist Queen comes across as a thoroughly likeable woman. Basically a witty meditation on the subversive pleasures of reading, The Uncommon Reader is sharp-witted amusement.

Tea Cup Kama Sutra

An amusing story from English writer Alan Bennett…

In 2010, Bennett described being mugged by two women who sneakily splashed him with ice cream in Marks & Spencer, Camden Town. As they made a show of wiping off the ice cream with tissues, the two stole from his coat pocket £1,500 cash he had withdrawn from the bank a short time earlier. Initially grateful the women had helped clean his coat Bennett said later that the experience made him less likely to believe in the kindness of strangers.

Though not working on anything in particular right now, Bennett continues to write everyday, always in longhand. He bought a computer not long ago but hasn’t yet taken it out of the box. “It sits in the corner of my study like an unexploded bomb,” he says. “I’m not looking forward to using the display though…when you’re typing and you see it going up on the screen, it’s finished, but I don’t regard it as finished at that stage.”

On my bedside table this past week was the latest book (2010) from Bennett, two longish short stories published together in a slim volume called Smut. Bennett says the title is meant to give his readers a little rattle, but really should be taken with an understanding that what’s inside will not be obscene, if a little racy. Actually, this book of two stories is a good healthy laugh from beginning to end and rather than smut, much more about people’s misconceptions about themselves and the masquerades they act out in covering up who they really are.

The main characters in each story are British matrons, Mrs. Donaldson and Mrs. Forbes. Bennett credits his ability to get into the mind of a middle-aged woman to his childhood years of listening to his aunts talk endlessly. And he replicates that quality with great panache in these two stories.

In “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson” a recently widowed mother finds that she has need for a little more money, as well as company. To this end she rents out a room in her house and takes a job at a hospital demonstrating medical conditions to students. Mrs Donaldson says of her new occupation, “It’s a way of not being yourself.” It isn’t long before Mrs Donaldson becomes a hospital Meryl Streep, acting out a sundry of gripes and afflictions. Her repertory includes the role of a depressed daughter of a demented mother, a stroke victim, and finally going as far as a male patient in drag with a bad knee. Her life at home takes a less dramatic but different form of role playing when her student lodgers propose an unusual form of rental payment—watching the two of them make love in Mrs Donaldson’s own bed. But she makes for an odd sort of voyeur, distracted by dust on the floor, comparing sexual positions to vases she’s seen at the British Museum and in one shaky moment, reaching out from her chintz-covered bedside stool to steady the headboard in an effort to prevent a lamp falling to the floor. Such farce might seem contrived or excessive, but Bennett is challenging the expectations of both his characters and his readers.

The second and shorter story is "The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes" in which Mrs Forbes’ son Graham is mostly gay and in the closet but marries Betty for her money, who in the mother’s eyes is an unsuitable bride. After his marriage Graham continues to carry on with Gary, who blackmails him. At the other end is the browbeaten father, Mr Forbes who takes a liking to his daughter-in-law Betty who reciprocates, leading to some clandestine business with them. Graham’s ‘friend’ Gary finally connects with Mrs Forbes and that relationship too leans toward the unusual. The whole is a witty comedy of repression, role-playing, transgressive sexuality and blackmail.

A close look at the photo of the Picador paperback above reveals a cleverly designed cover showing three rows of paired white teacups, each pair joined in a pose from the Kama Sutra.

Random Book Babble

Despite the wide open spaces surrounding my four walls here on the edge of America, a familiar closing in kind of mood crept up yesterday, signaling that a few hours escape to Daytona was in order, a drive to help blow away the metaphoric cobwebs. Daily views around home are unfailingly those of distant vistas, panoramic swaths of deep blue and sandy white and people at either at rest or play. Infrequently it’s good to get away from a day of losing oneself in cloud formations and sandy sculptures, to jump into the liveliness of people hustling about their daily work or on errands in crowded shops and streets.

All that is probably just an excuse for me to spend some time in the big Barnes & Noble store in Daytona. I tried a temporary fix the other day by visiting the local Bookland store (a small bookstore owned by Books A Million), but it’s the mini-stop of bookstores and more often than not a waste of time, a useless placebo for book junkies. So it was off to Daytona and the big B&N.

The past two weeks have been a designated re-read period for me, and while keeping up with what’s new on bookstore shelves and in related newsletters, focus has been more on a second look at three books read over the last few years. Not an unusual plan, being one who enjoys returning to a book after a passage of years, this time it was a Julia Glass book from 2002, Three Junes, Haruki Murakami’s novel, Kafka on the Shore (2002) and Edward Rutherfurd’s 2009 historical novel, New York. As it happened, a pre-ordered new release arrived in my mailbox and I squeezed it in between the Murakami and Rutherfurd books; that was Michael Connelly’s latest, The Drop.

Three Junes is a book I would recommend to anyone unreservedly—a fine, fine book. The wonder and skill of Murakami’s latest book 1Q84 is precisely what sent me back to his earlier Kafka on the Shore. Another one to recommend without hesitation. Before the third book on my reread list, I took a couple of days to work my way through the latest Michael Connelly featuring his long established Los Angeles detective, Harry Bosch. Such economic writing from Connelly, not a wasted word or phrase that doesn’t propel his story. Stories about New York, be they old, fictional, historical, contemporary or non-fictional are right down my line. I have always liked the epic books of Edward Rutherfurd and his 2009 book, New York is another historical novel, surpassingly picturesque and studded with fascinating facts concerning the city’s development.

Tuesday in Barnes & Noble was rewarding as usual. There was really only one book on my mind as I entered the store, but you know how that goes. Read the other day on NPR an excerpt of the new Alan Bennett book Smut, and was hoping to lay my hands on that. Took some digging but it was there between two distracting stacks on an out-of-the-way table. On a nearby shelf I came across a book unheard of, unmentioned, or at least in my world; a small 2011 hardback release by Lou Beach titled 420 Characters: Stories. The first thing that caught my eye was a quote from Jonathan Lethem: “Holy sh*t! These are great!” Each of the stories is limited to 420 characters, including letters, spaces and punctuation. Sound familiar? They we're each written as a status update on the author’s Facebook page. One example…

‘The storm came over the ridge, a rocket dropped rain like bees, filled the corral with water and noise. I watched lightning hit the apple trees and thought: “Fritters!” as we packed sandbags against the flood. There was nowhere to go that wasn’t wet, the squall had punched a hole in the cabin roof and the barn was knee-high in mud. We’ll bury Jess later, when the river recedes, before the ground turns hard again.’

That’s it; the end. A haiku-like story that leaves the reader to fill in the blanks.

The last was a totally unexpected find, a new release of Haruki Murakami’s popular 1987 novel, Norwegian Wood. I read this book at the time of it’s first release when I was living in Japan, a time when Murakami was still undiscovered outside of Japan. Since reading 1Q84 I have been thinking again of this and other Murakami books. The new release is in conjunction with the release of a new movie version of the novel. It is a Japanese production, but has been released outside of Japan recently.