Out of the blue
Writer Alan Bennett is getting publicity for his new play People which has just opened at the National Theatre in London. One critic (Douglas Murray in the Spectator magazine) writes:
“Few writers have fallen off so steeply or horribly as Bennett. He has become an object lesson in how a talent curdles. Anybody who cares about good work and great work would do best to re-read early Bennett and look away now.”
Then, a few days later in The Independent, comes a two-page exaltation of a play where the reviewer didn’t yet know the plot:
“Bennett is a brilliant satirist and poet of the heart. His compendium of diaries, profiles etc. in Untold Stories is one of the great books of our time.. writing at its best, funniest and most purposeful. Everything he writes is also an excuse to vent an opinion. And it’s because he has so much to say, and can say it so well that we anticipate the next play at the National Theatre with such unbounded pleasure and respect.”
Who would be a writer, with each new play or book open to possible acclaim or violent criticism?
What does Bennett himself say?
“You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.”
“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”
“Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.”
“Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we’re all of us looking for the key.”
The early reviews of People have been mixed. Somehow I don’t think Bennett will be too upset by the adverse criticism.
