The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"'[...] briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading it opens it up.'"

A short review of a very short and uncommonly charming book about the pleasures of reading. Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader (2007), a novella which illustrates the transformative power of reading, could serve as a symbol what Goodreads is all about.

The Queen of the United Kingdom (the author clearly refers to the actual Queen), when looking for a stray dog of hers, happens upon a travelling library. She feels like checking a book out and so begins her love affair with reading, the affair that first amuses and then annoys the royal circles and particularly her numerous handlers. During that first encounter with the mobile library the Queen also meets another patron, Norman, a lowly kitchen worker in her Majesty's service. Norman, whom the Queen has promoted to the position of a page, becomes her literary guide, and she even takes to calling him her "amanuensis." Gradually, the high-level members of the Queen's entourage begin trying to channel the Queen's new passion into more "productive" domains or to discourage her from reading, which, inevitably, leads to a dramatic conclusion with a superb twist on the last page.

The Uncommon Reader is a feather-light book with wonderfully feather-light prose. It is also strongly inspiring, particularly to all of us here on Goodreads as it validates our love for books and reading. It is also hilarious and the reader will often giggle or laugh out loud as I did upon reading, for instance, the following sentence:

"Men (and this included Mrs Thatcher) wanted show."

A fabulous read!

Four stars.

I have a language question related to the book and addressed to native British English speakers. I had learned British English as my second language before I began using the U.S. version, so the impersonal form "one should" instead of "you should" or "people should" sounds natural to me. However in the novella the Queen uses the impersonal "one" particularly often when referring to herself: "One is relieved to hear it," "Are you suggesting one rations one's reading?" Is it a convention that a British monarch refers to herself or himself as "one"? Google has not helped me with finding an answer.




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