The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett
English
121 pages
Faber and Faber
ISBN: 978-1-84668-133-2
First line: At Windsor it was the evening of the state banquet and as the president of France took his place beside Her Majesty, the royal family formed up behind and the procession slowly moved off and through into the Waterloo Chamber.
Back cover blurb:
Led by her yapping corgis to the Westminster travelling library outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen finds herself taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Duff read though it is, the following week her choice proves more enjoyable and awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours work by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen’s literary odyssey to a close.
Thoughts: This book is made of awesome and that’s a fact. I read it in just a little over an hour and I kind of wish I hadn’t read it yet, so I could read it again for the first time.
I love the ending. I think it was absolutely fab. The rest also. I laughed out loud more than once and giggled madly about three times that.
There was a paragraph—well, not actually even a whole paragraph really, but a bit of a paragraph— at the beginning of the book that made me shout with glee. This, to be exact:
[...] he was largely self-taught, his reading tending to be determined by whether an author was gay or not.
Because I have a tendency to do that. Well, not exactly. More like I tend to turn towards books that I know have gay characters, even if maybe they don’t sound terribly exciting otherwise. I am hooked on boy on boy, okay? IT IS AN *AFFLICTION, BUT I AM NOT ASHAMED! (I am, however, operating on about four hours of sleep and um, it’s starting to show?) Almost, without fail, if a book has a gay character, he will be my favourite. I am terribly predictable about this, but there it is. (And it doesn’t apply to females. Because most of the time I couldn’t care less about the womenfolk. Which is, err, not so great, actually.)
Aaaaanyway, then I finished the book and read the blurb about the author. And I realised I was well daft and that Alan Bennett of The Uncommon Reader is Alan Bennett of The History Boys, which set my gaydar off big time. Because there were certain elements in The Uncommon Reader and there were also elements in The History Boys (very cute elements. V.v. cute elements! Adorable, even! I should read the play. Like, yesterday) and sometimes I have a functioning gaydar.** After a quick Wikipedia check, I had all the confirmation I needed.
And that’s when I cracked up about the quote again. Because it shouldn’t matter, and it doesn’t, but it does. (One day I will show you the little symbols I use in my little black book of books and you will laugh at me.) HI, I’M SHALLOW AND I LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS.
I think I might have got a bit sidetracked there. Y’know, just a smidgen. The Uncommon Reader gets an A grade, because it’s brilliant, but not because it has boy on boy (it doesn’t. Really) or because my gaydar worked on the author, but because it is about books and about reading and it’s funny and quirky and I LOVED IT!
Um, I think I should go to bed now…
*Being hooked on it, I mean. Not the boy on boy. Never!
**Which would be useful, except it only works on authors and fictional characters, more’s the pity.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A, English, Fiction | 3 Comments »
The Read-a-thon’s over and I’m sitting here with pasta with blue cheese, a cup of tea and my little black book of books.
I enjoyed the whole experience ever so much and next time I intend to participate again, only that time I hope to be able to do the full twenty-four hours (why must there be such a thing as work? Why, oh why?). And next time, I hope my blog doesn’t die on me right in the middle of it. Do you have any idea how excruciatingly annoying that was?
I wish I’d had more time for visiting all the other participants. I did try at the start of it, but then I hardly got any reading done, so I stopped after a while. There were a couple of people I did check in on regularly, but I was a poor commenter to be sure.
Let’s have some numbers then!
8 books finished
2 books dabbled in
1,550 pages read
12.4 hours spent reading
6.5 hours spent sleeping/watching Doctor Who
4 hours (approximately) spent blogging/visiting other people’s blogs
10 cups of tea consumed
1 cup of (shoddy) coffee consumed
Next time I want to spend less time sleeping, more time reading, and hopefully break the 2,000-page barrier. I wasn’t that far off this time, all things considered. (Eva kind of scares me, though. I think she must be superhuman…)
In the photo below you can see eight of the books I picked up and read at some point during the Read-a-thon. Only six of those I finished, though. The other two of my completed reads were e-books, which makes it a tad difficult to include them in the photo.
Post-event survey from Dewey:
1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
Hour 22 and 23, definitely. I wasn’t very tired, exactly, but my eyes were finding it a little hard to focus on the text.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
My last hour I spent on The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, and I wish I’d started it a little earlier, because it’s a very fast, very fun, read and I would’ve liked to have finished it during the Read-a-thon.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Not really, I think it was fab the way it was! What do you mean, next year, though? ;D
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
I really loved the mini-challenges and the cheerleading. I know I didn’t participate in many of the mini-challenges (I meant to for a lot of the later ones, but then my blog stopped working so I couldn’t, and some of the earlier ones I missed because I’d gone to bed), but they are a very nice touch to keep people interacting with each other. And the cheerleaders were gold!
Another thing is I read a lot of kid’s fiction/YA, which helped move things along (even though I felt a bit like I was cheating at times, reading such “simple” stuff).
5. How many books did you read?
I finished eight and read parts of two more.
6. What were the names of the books you read?
Finished: Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune, Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson, Melka: The Story of an Arab Pony - Joan Penney
Dabbled in: A Game of Thrones - George R R Martin, The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
7. Which book did you enjoy most?
See my answer to question 2. I really liked Travels in the Scriptorium too, though, as well as Gaiman’s The Kindly Ones.
8. Which did you enjoy least?
I liked them all, or I would’ve put them straight down. I can say that A Game of Thrones was perhaps not the best choice for the Read-a-thon. I was already more than half-way in by the time the ‘thon started, but I felt it was a little heavy and really slowed down my pace, so I didn’t read that much from it.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
n/a
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
I should like to participate again very much! Same role as this time, except I hope I’d be able to stay awake the full twenty-four hours.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Title of book(s) read this hour: The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
Number of books read since you started: 8 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune, Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson, Melka: The Story of an Arab Pony - Joan Penney)
Pages read: 94
Running total of pages read since you started: 1550
Amount of time spent reading: 47 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 12 hrs 25 mins
I ended up not going with the Hitchcock short stories after all. I had it in my hand and everything, but then I glanced at my copy of The Uncommon Reader, tried a page and just had to go on. I didn’t quite finish it, but as I’ve only got about twenty-five pages to go, I dare say I will later tonight.
And that’s the end of that. I had heaps of fun and will be posting an entry summing things up in a tick.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Title of book(s) read this hour: Melka: The Story of an Arab Pony - Joan Penney
Number of books read since you started: 8 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune, Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson, Melka: The Story of an Arab Pony - Joan Penney)
Pages read: 95
Running total of pages read since you started: 1456
Amount of time spent reading: 53 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 11 hrs 38 mins
One measly hour to go, but it does look as though I’ll manage my not-really-set goal of 1500 pages. My eyes don’t feel as tired now as they did an hour ago, which is certainly nice. I think I’ll round off with some Hitchcock short stories.
A big, huge thank you to Dewey for arranging the Read-a-thon. She’s brilliant!
Another big, huge thank you to all the cheerleaders! Your comments have really brightened the whole experience, and if I had gone for the full twenty-four hours, I’m sure I would have appreciated them all even more.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Title of book(s) read this hour: Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson, Melka: the Story of an Arab Pony - Joan Penney
Number of books read since you started: 7 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune, Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson)
Pages read: 85
Running total of pages read since you started: 1361
Amount of time spent reading: 47 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 10 hrs 45 mins
My eyes are starting to get really tired, but it’s only two hours to go now and I’d really quite like to reach 1500 pages if I can, so I’ll keep on trucking!
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Well, finally! I don’t know why it happened, but it was certainly exceedingly ill-timed. At least the domain is back up now, after being down nearly six hours.
Hour 21:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson
Number of books read since you started: 6 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune)
Pages read: 93
Running total of pages read since you started: 1276
Amount of time spent reading: 45 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 9 hrs 58 mins
Hour 20:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune, Good Luck to the Rider - Joan Phipson
Number of books read since you started: 6 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman, Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune)
Pages read: 106
Running total of pages read since you started: 1183
Amount of time spent reading: 52 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 9 hrs 13 mins
Hour 19:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Lad, a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune
Number of books read since you started: 5 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman)
Pages read: 100
Running total of pages read since you started: 1077
Amount of time spent reading: 56 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 8 hrs 21 mins
Hour 18:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman
Number of books read since you started: 5 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft, Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman)
Pages read: 108
Running total of pages read since you started: 977
Amount of time spent reading: 42 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 7 hrs 25 mins
Hour 17:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman
Number of books read since you started: 4 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft)
Pages read: 127
Running total of pages read since you started: 869
Amount of time spent reading: 50 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 6 hrs 43 mins
Hour 16:
Title of book(s) read this hour: Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman
Number of books read since you started: 4 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft)
Pages read: 71
Running total of pages read since you started: 742
Amount of time spent reading: 26 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 5 hrs 53 mins
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Title of book(s) read this hour: Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft
Number of books read since you started: 4 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, Teena går til filmen - Ria Tofft)
Pages read: 107
Running total of pages read since you started: 671
Amount of time spent reading: 48 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 5 hrs 27 mins
Other participants visited: Mrs. B, Chris, Word Lily and Eva.
I’ve read Teena går til filmen before, but it was a long time ago. It’s quite a funny book. It’s written in the late 50’s/early 60’s sometime, so it’s quite dated, but very cute.
One thing that interests me, however, is that it takes place Stockholm, Sweden. I suspect that in the original (it was written in Danish orginially, and I read it in Swedish), it’s set in Copenhagen and everyone is Danish, but the translation has changed everyone to Swedes (including changing names, I don’t doubt) and all the place names mentioned are Swedish. Do they still do that in translations? If not, when did they stop and how common was it?
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Title of book(s) read this hour: Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar, A Game of Thrones - George R R Martin
Number of books read since you started: 3 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar)
Pages read: 144
Running total of pages read since you started: 564
Amount of time spent reading: 47 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 4 hrs 39 mins
And I’m properly back in the game with that. Speaking of games, A Game of Thrones is quite good, though at first I was a little annoyed by the way it keeps swapping perspectives (there are six or so main characters, and so far there hasn’t been two chapters in a row with the same character’s perspective). Actually, I still am, but now that I’m 600+ pages in, I’ve got to know them all, so it doesn’t bother me quite as much.
Interestingly enough, the main family, the Starks, has the direwolf as their sign. I thought direwolves were completely made up, but then I went to the Natural History Museum in London, and they had a dire wolf on display. Apparently they actually existed, thousands of years ago, though much smaller than George R R Martin has made them in the book.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Title of book(s) read this hour: Drömponnyn - Pia Hagmar
Number of books read since you started: 2 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray)
Pages read: 32
Running total of pages read since you started: 420
Amount of time spent reading: 8 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 3 hrs 52 mins
Cups of tea/coffee:1 cup of Gevalia Daim Cappuccino
I overslept a little, I’m sorry to say. I meant to get up by six am, but when my alarm rang, I stayed in bed for an extra half an hour. Still, considering I didn’t get to sleep until 2 am, it’s not too bad.
Once I was out of bed, I went to make myself a cup of coffee to wake me up further. I used my last sachet of instant Irish Cream cappucino and then noticed that it was clumping more than it usually does. No wonder — the kettle wasn’t plugged in and the water hadn’t actually been boiled. ::facepalm:: I had to resort to the Daim Cappucino instead, which I hate, but is slightly less vile if you remove the excessive foam on top.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Title of book(s) read this hour: The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray, A Game of Thrones - George R R Martin
Number of books read since you started: 2 (Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster, The Rose and the Ring - William Makepeace Thackeray)
Pages read: 49
Running total of pages read since you started: 388
Amount of time spent reading: 32 mins
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 3 hrs 44 mins
Cups of tea/coffee: 1 cup of tea
I love Thackeray to tiny little pieces. He’s so clever and funny and his illustrations crack me up. The Rose and the Ring has nothing on Vanity Fair, of course, but it’s still an entertaining book. I must admit to a smallish crush on Giglio, to be honest. Again, he has nothing on Dobbin, but then there are degrees of awesome.
It’s getting late here (it’s past midnight now), so I’m going to take a break—to sleep and to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who (I am hopelessly addicted to new Who, and that’s a fact!). I’ll be back in six hours or so. I wish I could stay up all night reading, but I start work again on Monday and I need to be wellrested then, which is not going to happen unless I go to bed now. I’d risk it, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s the Euro 2008 final tomorrow night and I wouldn’t miss that for the world, so…
Posted on June 28th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: June 28th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
