This collection of Bennett’s writing covers
the 1980’s and 1990’s with the bulk of it being in the form of diary entries.
Some are lifted out of the general chronology and presented as concentrated
narratives, notably the section on ‘The Lady in the Van’.
These episodes relate his brushes with the
eccentric old lady who took up residence in his garden where she parked her
decrepit mobile home after Camden Council banned it from the streets.
Similarly entries covering periods of
rehearsals for his plays or filming of his screenplays are separated out to
give an interesting insight into how each moved forward and how the process
affected his relationship with the work.
Even in the other (non-diary) works –
prefaces to plays, reviews of books and authors, and eulogies of friends and
celebrities – much of the content is as much a reflection on his own life and times
as that of the subject.
The content is witty, wise and whimsical, sometimes
bitter and bitchy, and never conventional. Bennett always has an unusual take
on things, tending to bring the overblown back down to earth and raise the mundane
to meaningful.
The 400 pages provide a treasury of prose
that is a pleasure to dip into, with every word conjuring up the author’s flat
North-country vowels and dead-pan delivery.
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