character assassination: alan bennett's "the uncommon reader"

contrary to received wisdom, quite a few serious writers assume that literature might not be the most useful means to deliver us from evil. in other words: although books might do a lot of things, they won't change the world. or even a person. as jonathan franzen puts it:

"it's all too easy [...] to forget how frequently good artists through the ages have insisted, as auden put it, that 'art makes nothing happen.' it's all too easy to jump from the knowledge that the novel can have agency to the conviction that it must have agency."

i tend to share this sentiment. you'd thus expect me to hate books which promote any sort of "better-living-through-reading" agenda. why, then, did i enjoy alan bennet's "the uncommon reader"? after all, its plot revolves around the idea that the queen (yes, the empirical, living and breathing elizabeth II) discovers her love for literature, which makes her a more aware and, ultimately, better human being. self-transformation through art appreciation in its most emphatic sense.

i didn't read anything by bennet so far. however, i'm a huge fan of the "history boys" movie. had the novel been written by anyone else, the basic premise would have kept me away. i'm glad i made the effort, though, because "the uncommon reader" turns out to be an elegantly written, funny piece of literature with a twist. bennett traces the queen's journey into the "republic of letters" which causes great unease among her advisors and politicians alike, since it also makes her politically savvy. as she herself points out during a speech near the end,

"'one has given one's white-gloved hand to hands that were steeped in blood and conversed politely with men who have personally slaughtered children. one has waded through excrement and gore; to be queen, i have often thought the one essential item of equipment a pair of thigh-length boots.'"

standard-issue idealism that occupies moral high ground long held by the coelhos of this world, you say? far from it. this is the interesting thing about the novel - behind the elaborate sentences and the sympathetic depictions of the regal protagonist, there lurks a malicious author. instead of presenting a heart-warming tale of self-improvement, bennett actually perpetrates a subtle form of character assassination. everything the queen becomes after starting to read, the recipient must assume, she hasn't been before (i.e.: in reality). she gets smart (she's been dumb), she becomes aware (she's been indifferent), she's emphatic and emotional (she's been a stuck-up old hag). every sentence in this book implies its ugly dorian gray-ish mirror image.

the novel is thus indeed informed by the notion that art might change our outlook on the world. but beneath the lofty speculations about the relationship between literature and life that the text engages with on a surface level, "the uncommon reader" aims at a very real and tangible target - the corruption of power, symbolized by queen elizabeth II. bennett manages to turn such a utilitaristic, unappealing bottom line into an ambigious, ironic story that manages to entertain, if not to agitate.

a personal sidenote: i've been living in a small hell-hole at the western fringes of germany for the last two years. it's been a festering pile of minor catastrophes, boredom and general frustration. the idea that literature might be capable of illuminating the provincial darkness somehow seems more attractive than it did before. should probably be reading more thomas bernhard than i used to do.