Telling Tales (Radio Collection)

You can hear Bennett's voice as you read these 'talks' (now there's an old-fashioned word) for television/radio. A slim volume; I read it an evening, so Yorkshire men might be inclined to quibble about its 'value' compared with other heftier volumes of Bennett's autobiography. He wouldn't hold it against you, as his opening remark is that he dislikes squandering his anecdotes on the cheap on chat shows.
'To be brought up in Leeds in the forties was to learn early on the quite useful lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere... Even the war turns out to be quite dull.'
This is a loving memoir to Bennett's Mam and Dad. (Where are they now, these solid, decent English people, with their gentle sense of fun and shameful anxieties? Have they been Ikea-d into neutral? ) They embarrassed Alan. If he embarrassed them, they were too kind to show it: 'What a strange creature they have nurtured ... still at fourteen looking like a boy of ten, never away from church or the library, and given to furtively scrubbing their false teeth? ... The best plan is to say nothing and hope it will pass.'
It's a Bennettish compliment - but this would be a perfect gift for someone in hospital, light to hold and short chapters. I wish I'd happened upon it time to read it with my mother.

Telling Tales (1/1 people found this helpful)

Yet another "well worth it" buy. You don't really expect anything else from Alan Bennett though do you?. Can't say enough how much I enjoyed it. BUY IT!!

Telling Tales (0/0 people found this helpful)

Wonderful Bennett. Little stories that make you smile and even though I am not quite as old I remember from my childhood some of the people he talks about. They are still with us. I just wish I could put it down in writing and I just wish when I am sat in the Doctors/Dentist/Hairdressers - where ever - I didnt feel like laughing out loud!!

A saving grace (35/35 people found this helpful)

I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales (20/21 people found this helpful)

In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

Telling Tales (Radio Collection)

Alan Bennett

Reader Reviews:

Voice of Alan Bennett (0/0 people found this helpful)

Telling Tales (1/1 people found this helpful)

Telling Tales (0/0 people found this helpful)

A saving grace (35/35 people found this helpful)

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales (20/21 people found this helpful)

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