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Title: The Clothes They Stood Up in by Alan Bennett ISBN: 0375503064 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08
Rating: 5
Summary: Poignant, Amusing and Insightful
Comment: Ever since his days as part of 'Beyond The Fringe' in 1960, Alan Bennett has continued to hold a valued position in the affections of the British public. His 1987 collection of monologues, 'Talking Heads' are classics of the genre and in 1995 he was even nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay, 'The Madness Of King George'. 'The Clothes They Stood Up In' is a further testament to his popularity. Appearing first in 'The London Review Of Books', Bennett later read the story on Radio 4, a performance later released on cassette. Now it has been published in a volume of its own. Like much of his other work, it is a comic story with elements of tragedy. The title refers to all Mr. and Mrs. Ransome have left after they return home from a night at the opera. To the horror of this middle class couple, everything in their flat has gone missing including the telephone, the toilet paper (Mr. Ransome has to use his program from the opera), the light bulbs, and Mr. Ransome's prized Mozart collection. The comic situations developing from this crisis are improbable yet curiously still believable. Communication problems and individual idiosyncrasies propel the humour along in these hilarious sequences, with Bennett's observation making the farce seem all the more real. Social workers, the police and daytime television shows all find themselves on the receiving end of Bennett's gentle (albeit razor sharp) wit. The cold Mr. Ransome, painfully aware of his impression on others, begins to crack now his respectability is threatened. His wife on the other hand discovers her independence. Bennett has admitted he finds it easier to write through female personas, and he succeeds in showing Mrs. Ransome's gradual growth as a human being and disenchantment with her cosy, starched, pre-theft lifestyle. Bennett's irony gets many opportunities to manifest itself in this story, as does his ability to juxtapose incongruent ideas. His elegant writing style is littered with lavatories and dog excrament. When the Ransomes find an audio tape with two people having sex on it, Mrs. Ransome says "It sounds like custard boiling". The story's message seems to be a warning against suppressing the true self and not living life to the full. The latter part of the book is particularly scathing towards Mr. Ransome's stiff and awkward outlook. One suspects that Bennett is intervening, using the opportunity to attack pompous middle class behaviour. The climax is a poignant but positive ending to what is an amusing, moving and insightful story.
Rating: 4
Summary: Nice Little Fable -- But Wildly Overpriced
Comment: I first read this story back in 1996, when it appeared in the London Review of Books and was somewhat surprised to see it as a tiny book some five years later! Let me just say at the outset that it's well designed, but small, and should cost about half of what it does. With dry British satire, Playwright Bennett recounts the story of the Ransomes, who return from the opera to find their flat stripped totally bare--even the wires are clipped flush with the wall. They are middle-aged, middle-class, childless, and totally fail to connect with each other. Life has obviously been quite empty for both of them as they have their little routines (hers seem to revolve around pleasing him), but no friends or family. Once the shock of the bizarre burglary wears off, they must attempt reinvent their home from scratch. Fortunately this does not become a new agey lesson on how our possessions actually possess us, but rather a fable about starting over. Mr. Ransome looks to recreate his previous existence (albeit with higher-end stereo equipment), while Mrs. Ransome is forced to frequent daring new shops (a Pakistani grocer's, a thrift shop!). As she takes these small steps into the broader world, she is reawakened to life's possibilities. The bizarre mystery of the theft is finally revealed, and things end happily, if rather predictably. A neat little tale that takes about an hour to read--shame the publisher so wildly overpriced it.
Rating: 2
Summary: A Couple of gems mixed in with pebbles.
Comment: I have sometimes thought that if a tornado destroyed all my possessions, I would not be entirely sorry. Never before have so many people had the opportunity to realize how burdensome belongings can be. People sometimes find themselves the bewildered inheritors of collections of valuable things that they don't want and can't figure out how to get rid of gracefully. For this reason, parts of this novella resonate powerfully with me. When the Ransomes come home to find that everything in their flat, (including the oven and casserole warming in it) has been stolen. The likable and sweet-natured wife, Rosemary, finds a sense of liberation in this unasked-for opportunity to rethink her life. The thread of her thoughts as she reconstructs her life, feeling a certain relief at the loss of some things and a certain dismay at the return of everything, is the very best part of the novel.
Unfortunately, the story goes downhill from this intriguing beginning. The book, outside of Rosemary's musings, becomes very contrived, silly, cliched and dull. For such a short book, there is an amazing amount of extraneous and tedious detail: the caretaker's night school, the trip to the Aylesbury, bowel movements, etc. Social trends in the UK and the US don't necessarily move in lockstep, of course, but this book feels like something from the 1970s. Rosemary in particular seems to have stepped through a time warp: more a timeless stereotype of a sixtyish woman than a plausible woman born around 1940 and growing up after World War II. At one point Bennett even intrudes into the narrative to explain his theme, just in case the reader hasn't managed to figure it out.
This explanation is the worst of the book: "... what he is being condemned for here is for not having got out of his shell ... ." What is it to me or to anyone if he hasn't? Why bother joining Busybody Bennett in standing in judgement over Maurice Ransome or anyone like him? If a cranky misanthrope has the grace to be a recluse, who is being bothered by him? He strikes me as an undesirable husband, but Rosemary seems to cherish some affection for him and if she doesn't, well it's not like divorce isn't pretty common these days. I could understand it if Bennett had turned his ire against Paloma, that aggressive evangelist of rigidity who was behind the bizarre burglary. (I have just had a vision of the relentless Hyacinth Bucket, arrogant meddler par excellence of the British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances" adding the Ransomes to her list of persons to be bullied and terrorized into her vision of a well-led life.) Alas, real life is full of people who intrude on others, even complete strangers, with unsolicited advice on how to cease being oneself and become more like the unwanted advisor. Those who do it in the name of freedom and individualism never do seem to get the irony.
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Title: The Laying On of Hands : Stories by Alan Bennett ISBN: 0312290519 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett ISBN: 0563206225 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: February, 1993 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett ISBN: 0571204716 Publisher: Faber & Faber, Inc. Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett ISBN: 0812969650 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet by Eugene Walter, George Plimpton, Katherine Clark ISBN: 0609809652 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 23 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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