Enough Said by Alan Bennett review – a man for all seasons
📖 Full Retelling
<p>Nostalgia, shame and gossip from Alan Bennett in the fourth instalment of his diaries</p><p>In the introduction to this new instalment of Alan Bennett’s diaries, which run from 2016 to 2024, the author worries about what to write: “I have said everything before. At 90 it’s impossible to avoid repetition.” And, indeed, I was halfway through the entries for 2020 before they started to seem familiar. It turns out that I had already reviewed Bennett’s <a href="https://www.the
Entity Intersection Graph
No entity connections available yet for this article.
Original Source
Review Enough Said by Alan Bennett review – a man for all seasons Nostalgia, shame and gossip from Alan Bennett in the fourth instalment of his diaries I n the introduction to this new instalment of Alan Bennett’s diaries, which run from 2016 to 2024, the author worries about what to write: “I have said everything before. At 90 it’s impossible to avoid repetition.” And, indeed, I was halfway through the entries for 2020 before they started to seem familiar. It turns out that I had already reviewed Bennett’s pandemic diaries when they were released as a slim standalone volume in 2022. Here they are again, then, this time embedded in a much longer stretch of journal-keeping, characterised by Bennett’s customary looping between past and present. The repetition turns out not to matter because the prose is sufficiently layered to take on new meanings as the context shifts. Bennett’s pandemic years read differently now that Covid is in the rearview mirror. The first time round, I got the impression that, devoted to the NHS though he is, the banging of pans on a Thursday evening struck him as a bit daft. Reading the section again, I’m convinced he detested the whole performative palaver. There are other things I missed. Like just how much Bennett’s experience of two years’ national service stayed with him down the decades. He nearly always notes the anniversary: “8 August. 8/8/52. The day I was called up. A Thursday.” Especially intense are the memories of physical shame, such as the worry of undressing in front of others, something that Bennett manages to avoid entirely during conscription. This is despite yearning for the casually naked bodies all around him. On the one occasion when he manages a fumble with a fellow serviceman, he feels so awkward that he never refers to it again. “I am still embarrassed about incidents in my life of which all participants are long since dead. Embarrassment is eternal.” Not so embarrassed, you can’t help noticing, that he feels obliged ...
Read full article at source