Something out of the ordinary

'Three Stories' is exactly that: a trio of wonderful novellas by Alan Bennett.

On the one hand Bennett is that most quintessentially English of writers, but on the other he appears to be at some remove from England and its culture, society and people, looking on bemusedly from a distance with a wry smile. Photographs suggest a fastidious, bookish and not particularly garrulous man. I imagine him as the first person narrator of Larkin's poem 'Church Going': "Hatless, I take off / My cycle-clips in awkward reverence".

Indeed, the awkward events of the first novella in the volume, 'The Laying On Of Hands', take place in a church, as the memorial service for a masseur (and more besides) to the rich and famous descends into farcical wranglings over the dead man's sexuality and cause of death.

Like Larkin, Bennett is a master of finding the epic in the mundane, the transcendental in the quotidian, his powers of observation most often focused upon ordinary goings-on in the ordinary lives of ordinary people. This is certainly true of the third novella, 'Father! Father! Burning Bright', about an English secondary school teacher disillusioned with work and life in general who has to cope with the news of a dying father and the reactions it provokes in his family.

But even in 'The Clothes They Stood Up In', which begins with an ostensibly extraordinary conceit - a couple have everything stolen from their flat, including fitted carpets, light fittings and toilet brush - though ends with a rational explanation, Bennett's subject matter is personal idiosyncracies and attitudes.

In all three novellas these are presented with a mixture of touching warmth (though not sentimentality), gently mocking disapproval, satire and dry wit. It's perhaps Bennett's gift for comedy that leaves the most lasting impression. His sense of comic timing in his own medium - particularly in the scene involving the Ransomes and the policemen in 'The Clothes They Stood Up In' - is as finely honed as that of a stand-up or comic actor.

So, it's straight onto his volume of collected writings, 'Writing Home'...

(Thanks to Lisa for the loan.)

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Guest Blogging Dream Team: Alan Bennett