Untold Stories: Alan Bennett
I love Alan Bennett's plays, I particularly liked his Talking Heads, the monologues read by, among others, Patricia Routledge and Thora Hird. The gritty Northern dialogue suits me. It was with that in mind that I started to read Untold Stories and I wasn't dissapointed. The book is autobiographical and features, initially, an account of his upbringing in Leeds and subsequent life as an Oxford student. He has little self pity and views hardship dispassionately.The middle bit of the book, where I am up to at the moment, is his diaries from 1996 to 2005. They are fascinating and give an insight into how damned clever he is! He talks about art, literature and includes many anecdotes of his peers, again in his frank non-gossipy way. Although much of the in-depth historical and artistic conversation goes right over my head it still makes good reading.
As an undercurrent the diaries are also set against a fascinating political backdrop with his comments reflecting the climate in the UK about many social and political happenings.
Well worth a read.
A Winter Book: Tove Janssen
Please don't ask me what this beautiful book is about!
Do you remember the Moomins? This is a remarkable book of short stories by the woman who created them. She didn't start writing until she was in her fifties and wrote fiction for adults as well as her stories for children.
I can't describe this book adequately. The stories are mainly written from a child's viewpoint and they are about everything and nothing at the same time. Take the first one, the story of a girl who finds a huge rock that is full of silver; enough silver to make her and her family rich. The story tells how she rolls it home and loses it off the balcony where it smashes into bits: that's it; but that's far from it! I've read it three times now and it's different every time.
I can't tell you how or why this writing is so cool: but it is.
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