Untold Stories, by Alan Bennett
A collection of pieces by AB, which I must have taken me over a year to get
through, because I was dipping into it every so often. The writing was very
good. Some bits I highlighted
- Of his mother, who had been hospitalised for severe depression and was
medicated: "Are you my taxi?" she would say to anyone who came near,
though this persistent expectation of departure did not necessarily mean
she was dissatisfied with her circumstanes, and there are after all worse
ways to live than in a constant readiness to depart. The irony was that it
would only be when she stopped thinking that she was on the point of
departing that she would be pronounced cured and allowed to do
so.
- this reminded me of David Nobbs: Typical was the wedding photograph
of Uncle George and Aunty Flo, taken around 1925. Uncle George is in a
suit, wing collar and spats, Aunty Flo in a white wedding dress and veil,
the folds of her dress carefully arramged to cascade down the sooty steps
of St Mary of Bethany, Tong Road, where Uncle George sings in the choir,
and watched off-camera by their respective families, the Rostrons and the
Bennetts, and also by anybody who happens to be waiting this Saturday
morning.
- On another occasion when they had actually been asked out to
drinks and gone in great trepidation Mam rang up in some
excitement. "Your Dad and me have found an alcoholic drink that we really
like. It's called bitter lemon"
- When he talks about looking at paintings in art galleries: Having
struck it lucky once with Jesus, it's understandable that Mary Magdalene
should thereafter never go anywhere without her pot of ointment, so when
she's reading, in the painting by Roger van der Weyden, she has the pot
ready just in case there are more unexpected feet to annoint. And
approaching the sepulchre in Savvoldo's painting, once again she's taking
no hanges, and the pot doesn't jar because it's generally quite
discreet.
- The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a
thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought
unique and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a
person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if
a hand has come out and taken yours - yes!
- he says the Queen is an "Indian Giver" which was an expression I'd
never heard before - means someone who gives a present but later wants it
back.
- When he's in a private hospital for chemotherapy, complaining about he
food: The nurses assured me that their food was even worse, but he
irony of crusading for better conditions for some of the richest patients
in the world was not lost on me, and eventually I took to having most of
my food brought in, a practice I'd thought confined to the inmates of
Turkish prisons.
- But there's no doubt that knowing that one day (provided there is a one
day) you may write about what is happening to you (or just write it down)
is a solace not on offer to patients unblessed by a similar instinct. For
a writer, nothing is ever quite as bad as it is for other people because,
however dreadful, it may be of use. (there was a similar feeling
expressed in Unexpected Lessons
in Love)
Completed : 06-Jun-2018
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