Telling Tales

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.


A Total Delight   October 2, 2001
R T Beck
25 out of 25 found this review helpful

The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.


From cover to cover - pure plessure   March 19, 2001
Laura Daly (Dublin)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.


Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago   December 31, 2000
tonylindley@netscapeonline.co.uk (Yorkshire)
42 out of 42 found this review helpful

Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.