Smut by Alan Bennett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Standard sexual intercourse was a procedure with which even Mrs Donaldson was relatively familiar though pursued here with more vigour and variation than she had ever experienced herself."

Note: I apologize for overuse of the word 'hilarious' and its derivatives in this review.

My wife highly recommended Alan Bennett's Uncommon Reader, which right now is checked out in my library, so I took some other titles by the author and am delighted to have done so. Smut (2010) is a wonderfully light, intelligent, and extremely funny read. A jewel of typically understated British humor. In addition, it is a very short book (only 152 small-format pages): what could ever be better? Everything became clear when I checked the author's biography and learned that this is the same Mr. Bennett who was one of the creators of British TV show Beyond the Fringe, a precursor of Monty Python Flying Circus, the best show in the history of television.

Smut contains just two short stories: I am unable to decide which one is better. They are both similar in that they both have a hilarious premise, funny plot, and non-trivial yet also hilarious ending. In the first story, The Greening of Mrs Donaldson, we meet 55-year-old Mrs. D., a widow, who supplements her income and fills her time by serving as a Simulated Patient, a part-time demonstrator for medical school students. She also rents rooms to students in her three-bedroom apartment. As hilarious as the patient simulation is, the lodgers inability to come up with rent money at the end of the month provides the readers with even more entertainment. The students come up with a novel way of providing service in lieu of the rent, which helps Mrs. Donaldson acquire "certain boldness" after the incident. The ending of the story, again dazzling with hilarity, is perfectly fitting for Goodreads: the pleasures of reading top any other type of pleasure in life.

The protagonist of the second story The Shielding of Mrs Forbes is Graham Forbes, "a handsome man" who chooses to marry someone not nearly as good looking as himself and even slightly older." But the reader is up for a surprise: the night before his wedding Graham is - as usual - in bed with a young man: they talk about Graham's upcoming marriage during intermissions in their sessions of carnal delights. Well, some readers may be surprised but the marriage works perfectly and Graham truly enjoys sex with his wife even though for him she is not of the right gender. The enjoyment seems to come from the novelty and

"[...]unfamiliarity with the geography of the region and the function of its components. Women, he found himself thinking, had to be investigated."

To me the funniest aspect in the second story is that amid all this hilarity the author proudly conveys wholesome and didactic messages such as:

"... how much better... how much healthier... had all these persons, these family members, been more candid with one another right from the start."

The reader will enjoy delightful twists at the end of the story and the interesting character of the younger Mrs. Forbes. Smut is not a great work of literary art but an extraordinarily entertaining read. I can't wait to read more from the "grandfather" of Monty Python.

Four stars.




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