Product Description

"Untold Stories" is Alan Bennett's first collection of prose since "Writing Home" and takes in all his major writings over the last ten years. The title piece is a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Also included are his much celebrated diaries for the years 1996 to 2004, as well as essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences ranging from childhood trips to the local cinema and a tour around Leeds Art Gallery to reflections on writing, honours and his Westminster Abbey eulogy for Thora Hird. At times heartrending and at others extremely funny, "Untold Stories" is a matchless and unforgettable anthology.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42020 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

Sunday Telegraph, 25th September 2005
'Alan Bennett, with his combination of pitiless observation and gentle understatement, is perhaps the best-loved of English writers alive today.'

Daily Telegraph, 1st October 2005
'This thick book is so full of good things they could sell it for twice the price.'

John Carey, Sunday Times, 2nd October 2005
'I have never read a book of this length where I have turned the last page with such regret.'

Customer Reviews

Nice book, shame about the typeface
It may seem a minor point but no reputable publisher should be allowed to get away with print this small - it's about half the size of 'Writing Home' and severely marred my reading pleasure. Given the likely average age of the readership for a book like this you'd think Bennett in particular would insist on something big enough for his Gran to read. Why do they do it? Profit? Laziness? It certainly shows contempt for the reading public, but then I forget, this is Faber & Faber so that is to be expected. 'Bit small, eh? Well, screw up your eyes and be grateful - it's high art is that'.

Humour and insight
Alan Bennett is one of the great cornerstones of the arts in Britain and to read an autobiography is always going to be interesting and informative. His achievement is all the greater coming from such a humble background and it must have been all the more difficult for him mixing with contemporaries who were mainly upper class ex public school types, and you do detect a hint of bitterness. He does however go into great detail about his family and upbringing leaving no secrets unrevealed. As with all the other sections of the book it's recalled with great insight and humour. Being such a stalwart of English literature I felt compelled to read it and I wasn't disappointed, despite it's huge size. I just wish he would accept the knighthood he richly deserves.

Laughter in the Confessional
If you know Alan Bennett's work through his plays or have enjoyed the memorable collection Writing Home in the 1990's, you might wonder what this current anthology has in store. Well the short answer is that it is the same only different. The customary Bennett humanity, acute observation, keen intelligence and wry humour are much in evidence in the diaries from 1996-2004 included here, and in several of the shorter book reviews and essays. However, it has to be said that this volume like the second set of Talking Heads takes on a much darker hue focussing on issues that the writer has only alluded to before. The first long piece is a detailed account of the mental illness suffered by his mother and aunt and pulls no punches in its depictions of the institutions they attended or the impact this had on the wider family and how their conditions indirectly led to the discovery of a family secret. Similarly, recent years have seen A.B becoming more relaxed about his sexuality and this comes over in the article Written on the Body and contented accounts of domestic bliss with partner Rupert. Then there is an increasing anger in his comments on social and political matters especially his bitter denunciation of the Iraq war. Finally there is his perceptive account of facing a life threatening battle with cancer where the title is instructive of his attitude- An Average Rock Bun. Yet even as the content becomes more hard-edged, the quality of the prose remains as pleasing as ever: Bennett remains the master of the telling phrase, his deployment of vocabulary always apposite. Consequently, we are offered a rounded portrait of this famously secretive man far more illuminating than Alexander Game's empty biography of a few years ago. Above all you will be delighted to know, Bennett is as funny as ever whether he is talking to the local coal merchant: `you're not a patch on your dad' or commenting on the men who changed a tyre in ten minutes: `I feel I want to ask them home so they can take charge of my life'. The key to the genius of Bennett is that so often you smile in recognition at the truth of his observations having seen similar yourself, only he expresses them twice as fluently and with three times the humour.