Untold Stories Paperback – March 20, 2007

I like Bennett's writing because he turns what often is the simple and mundane into things one can identify with. He adds more depth in this series of events from his past, giving us frank and honest accounts of experiences that have gone towards making him the character he is. Always scattered with amusing and informative observations on British life as well as comments on his family's idiosyncracies, I enjoyed Untold Stories from start to finish.

A most enjoyable book beautifully written.

Mr. Bennett is perfectly charming and his works are worth a read!

I sent this book to our American friends who were thrilled to receive it. They particularly like Alan Bennett so it was the perfect Christmas gift.

Utterly enchanting.

lan Bennet has never been boring before.

Love Alan Bennett. He is a treasure.

It's a collection of reminiscences and essays that, taken together, form an autobiography of Alan Bennett. The account of his Yorkshire childhood and family is at the beginning, and that of his bout with colon cancer at the end, but the cobbling together is slightly random, so that some pieces are just tipped in anywhere, and there are occasional verbatim repetitions of quite long passages. I wouldn't recommend starting at page one and reading through the whole six hundred and fifty-three pages but it's addictive to dip into.Many of the references to the British theatrical and television scene will be mysterious to Americans. A short test follows on which you may allocate yourself scores as a potential reader:Lived in Britain before 1970 (6 points)From Yorkshire (3 points)Gay (1 points)Interested in one of the following: Good writing (3 points) Beyond the Fringe , Monty Python, and the 1960's English satirists (3 points)Treatment of depression.(1 point)Treatment of cancer (1 point) London theater (3 points) Painting (1 point) Old English churches (3 points) Dealing with the homeless (3 points).Anyone with a score of 9 or more should read it.He is opinionated, with left-wing but often reactionary views. His account of the social changes in Britain over the last fifty years is perceptive and informative. (Some of the ground in the Beyond the Fringe etc reminiscences is covered by Humphrey Carpenter's "Great Silly Grin.") He's very humble and self effacing (but manages, in the nicest most modest way, to drop in stuff about his Oxford scholarship and first class degree, and being offered a knighthood, and how the Prince of Wales liked his play). At the end I felt quite brash and materialistic and arrogant.

I read Allan Bennett with his Yorkshire drawl sounding in my head; this way the pace of the script is illuminated and how it would flow from the author's pen. Alan writes with brutal honesty at times,; always with humility, intelligence and a fair sprinkling of witty humour. Autobiographical in content we see the world from the man who never set out to achieve very much but found fame and fortune along the straightjacketed path from Leeds. From the man who doesn't' like any spother (sic) his work is worth making a fuss over but don't tell Alan.

I make no apology in describing Alan Bennett as one of the top ten writers working today. Maybe even the best under a system which gives marks for range, scope and simple entertainment. Going from Oscar nominated scripts to throw-away journalism which says something important about the times we live in.Those who have read and loved Writing Home (I book I rate as one of the best ever written) will have no difficulty picking this one. Indeed it is really more-of-the-same. More out-of-the-closet than this previous edition, but really nothing more than continuation and, at times, a revision.The book starts with a rather depressing passage concerning his parents and relatives sad end. Although well written and moving, starting a book off on such a downer seems a risk. Despite his Winnie The Pooh front Bennett is a bit of a cold fish who can report on personal tragedy with a total detachment few can achieve.(You ask questions to the page though. If he really did love his mother why did he park her so far from his home in her final nursing home days?)Certainly he seems unconcerned with the reputations of others. Bald people seem to annoy him (he sports a full head of hair to this day) and results in several snide remarks. The problem with baldness (unless it is the subject itself) is that is rarely paired with anything good. Here he is snide about Alec Guinness's hairless head in a way which smacks of being personal.The one thing which irritates (and sometimes cuts against his image) is his insistence on his own early intelligence. This is backed up by achievement (he went on to both Oxford and Cambridge!) but I prefer praise to be mouthed by others. A physically immature man/youth he could have (as an actor) played school yard parts until he was 20. The enclosed photographs show that he sprouted quite well and even became somewhat handsome in his shaggy kipper-tie prime.What does the author do in his spare time? Visit churches and monuments it seems. Writes well about them, even though this isn't an interest of mine. His views on painting and art rarely go beyond like/dislike and given that he seems to have no specialist knowledge on the subject (and claims non) can't be critiqued. Unlike one-time partner Dudley Moore he doesn't have other strings to his bow.(His views of his specialist subject - medieval history - are strangely muted. As if it was something of a random subject rather than any burning passion.)The thing which is false is the sense that his diaries are really that: Diares. They are not. You don't write recollections of famous people in it. You write about what has happened. Certainly his wanderings (often unexplained in the "how come" sense) take in schools and even high security prisons. Places where they check someone isn't coming out pretending to be Alan Bennett!In his opening pages AB writes that his family could never "quite be like other people" indeed he continues the condition. Still working and still being of interest long past retirement he remains a one-off and certainly not like everybody else.

Moved to dig this out and reread it as AB comes up to celebrate his 80th birthday (which he hopes everyone will forget). This volume of diaries, family history and general chronicle of his life and times appeared at a time when he had an intense awareness of his own mortality, having been diagnosed with bowel cancer. So the most striking part of the book, his reaching back into his Yorkshire upbringing, the detailing (sometimes painfully and embarrassingly so) of the idiosyncrasies and decline of the dominant women in his life (his mother and her two sisters, and his maternal grandmother) attempts to memorialise them and through that give AB's downbeat but humorous take on the human condition. These untold stories, along with ABs diaries and his personal fulfillment with his partner Rupert, are a riveting account of ordinariness - and quite extraordinary.

The most beautiful, honest writing about Alan Bennett's childhood and young age. He is one of the best contemporary writers, with outstanding wording and clarity, as well as sincerity.He wrote the book when he was convinced it would become posthumous by the time it was published, after his cancer was diagnosed. Thankfully, he was treated successfully, and he is still with us, but this shy person achieved a level of candour a modest person, as he is can only attain, if they think, they would never have to face inquisitive questioning. His subtle sense of humour shines through, while you feel moved and fully engaged with every page.LOVED it and bought it for every member of my family for xmas.

You either love Bennett or he leaves you cold. I'm from Leeds too, more or less the same generation, so much of his remembered childhood is very close to home (as was, for example, Keith Waterhouse's). I'm not sure how much appeal these sections of the book would have to folk from other areas and of a different social class. But there's much else that will interest and amuse anyone who appreciates sharp-eyed observation and an unflagging interest in people and ideas.