The Uncommon Reader

Though not much of a reader, for she deems reading work, the Queen finds obligated to select a book or she might give the impression that Mr. Hutchings’ selection is deficient in quantity and quality. Out of politeness and duty she picks a book. Acquaintance with Norman Seakins, a young lady working in the kitchens, who later advises her as to what to read and never hesitates to say when he thinks she is not ready for a book, sets Her Majesty on a reading of excessive indulgence. The meeting is one that illuminates a serendipitous moment in life that opens one’s mind to refreshing whims.

So one book leads to another, and soon the days aren’t long enough for the reading she wants to do. Though reading absorbs her, what Her Majesty has not expected is the degree to which it drains her of enthusiasm for anything else. Her personal secretary certainly frowns upon this new literary obsession that has rendered his employer negligent in state duties. Aspired to make the monarch more accessible, he opposes to any disposition that might detract from the honor of the Queen’s public image and thus jeopardize the royal family; he blames Norman for abetting in the Queen’s sudden pull for books. In collusion with the prime minister’s adviser, he stages the removal of Norman from Buckingham Palace.

Irresistibly funny and filled with sly humor, Alan Bennett’s cleverly crafted “The Uncommon Reader” delivers an intimate picture of the Queen’s journey to her self, which has been inevitably done away by her unusual position. In this novella, she is very much that same woman: not remotely intellectual, but inquisitive and intelligent and quite impatient with overly long-winded or self-indulgent writers. Bennett remarks that “she has to seem like a human being all the time, but she seldom has to be one.” So over the course of her transformation reading has humanized her. She begins to come round to the minute distinctions that Jane Austen delights in, distinctions which her unique royal position makes it difficult for her to grasp, because they seem less consequence to her. It’s only as Her Majesty gains in understanding of both literature and human nature that they take on individuality and charm. But whether it is Austen or Johnson or feminism, nothing can be compared with the gulf, which she ruefully regrets, that separates her from the rest of humanity.

Beside the Queen’s lesson that one never knows what is going to happen next, Bennett’s musings on melancholy and moral ambivalence have produced a fairy-like novel that unfolds into a witty meditation on the subversive pleasures of reading. the glimpse to the lament of old age and some thoughts on a life wasted owing to fulfilling duties. Even more alarmingly, she finds that reading has softened her up—makes her aware of her own emotions and more sympathetic to others. The dynamics in the story of a ruler’s conversion to reader is reminiscent of how one must read these sorts of witticisms often. It keeps things in perspective.