Highlights from The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett Last read on November 10, 2023
Highlights from this book
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The more she read the more she regretted how she intimidated people and wished that writers in particular had the courage to say what they later wrote down.
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She was finding also how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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There was regret, too, and mortification at the many opportunities she had missed. As a child she had met Masefield and Walter de la Mare; nothing much she could have said to them, but she had met T. S. Eliot, too, and there was Priestley and Philip Larkin and even Ted Hughes, to whom she'd taken a bit of a shine but who remained nonplussed in her presence. And it was because she had at that time read so little of what they had written that she could not find anything to say and they, of course, had not said much of interest to her. What a waste.
She made the mistake of mentioning this to Sir Kevin.
'But ma'am must have been briefed, surely?'
'Of course,' said the Queen, 'but briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
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I was giving the CH once, I think it was to Anthony Powell, and we were discussing bad behaviour. Notably well-behaved himself and even conventional, he remarked that being a writer didn't excuse one from being a human being. Whereas (one didn't say this) being Queen does. I have to seem like a human being all the time, but I seldom have to be one. I have people to do that for me.
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Her household, though, had no such solace, and the equerries in particular were becoming increasingly restive and critical. Urbane and exquisitely mannered though he is, the equerry is essentially only a stage manager; always aware when deference is due, he (or occasionally she) knows, too, that this is a performance and he is in charge of it, with Her Majesty playing the leading role.
The audience or the spectators — and where the Queen is concerned everyone is a spectator — know that it is a performance, while liking to tell themselves that it isn't, quite, and to think, performance notwithstanding, that they have occasionally caught a glimpse of behaviour that is more 'natural', more 'real' — the odd overheard remark, for instance ('I could murder a gin and tonic' from the late Queen Mother, 'Bloody dogs' from the Duke of Edinburgh), or the Queen sitting down at a garden party and thankfully kicking off her shoes. In truth, of course, these supposedly unguarded moments are just as much a performance as the royal family at its most hieratic. This show, or sideshow, might be called playing at being normal and is as contrived as the most formal public appearance, even though those who witness or overhear it think that this is the Queen at her most human and natural. Formal or informal, it is all part of that self-presentation in which the equerries collaborate and which, these apparently natural moments apart, is from the public's point of view virtually seamless.
It only gradually came home to the equerries that these supposedly sincere moments, glimpses of the Queen as she 'really is', were occurring less often. Diligently though Her Majesty might carry out all her duties, that was all she was doing, and never now pretending, as it were, to break ranks and seldom coming out with supposedly unrehearsed remarks ('Careful,' she might say as she pins a medal on a young man, 'I don't want to stab you through the heart'), remarks that could be taken home and cherished, along with the invitation card, the special car-park pass and the map of the palace precincts.
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In the darkness it came to the Queen that, dead, she would exist only in the memories of people. She who had never been subject to anyone would now be on a par with everybody else. Reading could not change that — though writing might.
Had she been asked if reading had enriched her life she would have had to say yes, undoubtedly, though adding with equal certainty that it had at the same time drained her life of all purpose. Once she had been a self-assured single-minded woman knowing where her duty lay and intent on doing it for as long as she was able. Now all too often she was in two minds. Reading was not doing, that had always been the trouble. And old though she was, she was still a doer. She switched the light on again and reached for her notebook and wrote: 'You don't put your life into your books. You find it there.'
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One is often said to have a fund of common sense, but that's another way of saying one doesn't have much else and accordingly, perhaps, I have at the instance of my various governments been forced to participate if only passively in decisions I consider ill-advised and often shameful. Sometimes one has felt like a scented candle, sent in to perfume a regime or aerate a policy, monarchy these days just a government-issue deodorant.'
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"I'd wager too there were Saxon families here, fled from far and wide seeking prrotection in this fort. Women, children, wounded, old, sick. See over there, the yard where the monks gathered earlier. All but the weakest would have come out and stood there, all the better to witness the ivnaders squeal like trapped mice between the two gates."
"That I can't believe, sir. They would surely have hidden themselves below and prayed for deliverance."
" Only the most cowardly of them. Most would have stood there in that yard, or even come up here where we now stand, happy to risk an arrow or spear to enjoy the agonies below."
Axl shook his head. " Surely the sort of people you speak of would take no pleasure in bloodshed, even of the enemy"
"On the contrary sir. I speak of people at the end of a brutal road, having seen their children and kin mutilated and ravished. They've reached this, their sanctuary, only after long torment, death chasing at their heels. And now comes an invading army of overwhelming size. The fort may hold several days, perhaps even a week or two. But they know in the end they will face their own salaughter. They know the infants they circle in their arms will before long be bloodied toys kicked about these cobbles. They know because they've seen it already, from whence they fled. They've seen the enemy burn and cut, take turns to rape young girls even as they lie dying of their wounds. They know this is to come, and so must cherish the earlier days of the seige, when the enemy first pay the price for what they will later do. In other words, Master Axl, it's vengeance to be relished *in advance* by those not able to take it in its proper place. That's why I, sir, my Saxon cousins would have stood here to cheer and clap, and the more cruel the death, the more merry they would have been."
"I won’t believe it, sir. How is it possible to hate so deeply for deeds not yet done? The good people who once took shelter here would have kept alive their hopes to the end, and surely watched all suffering, of friend and foe, with pity and horror."
"You’re much the senior in years, Master Axl, but in matters of blood, it may be I’m the elder and you the youth. I’ve seen dark hatred as bottomless as the sea on the faces of old women and tender children, and some days felt such hatred myself."
"I won’t have it, sir, and besides, we talk of a barbarous past hopefully gone for ever. Our argument need never be put to the test, thank God."
The warrior looked strangely at Axl. He appeared about to say something, then to change his mind.
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The warrior started to move around the cart, stepping carefully to avoid the stagnant puddles. "I saw something like this once before," he said. "You may suppose this device intended to expose the man within it to the cruelty of the elements. Yet look, see how these bars stand far enough apart to allow my shoulder to pass through. And here, look, how these feathers stick to the iron in hardened blood. A man fastened here is offered thus to the mountain birds. Caught in these cuffs, he has no way to fight off the hungry beaks. This iron mask, though it may look frightful, is in fact a thing of mercy, for with it the eyes at least aren’t feasted on."
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"I dare say, sir, our whole country is this way. A fine green valley. A pleasant copse in the springtime. Dig its soil, and not far beneath the daisies and buttercups come the dead. And I don’t talk, sir, only of those who received Christian burial. Beneath our soil lie the remains of old slaughter. Horace and I, we’ve grown weary of it. Weary and we no longer young."
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It’s possible, boy. Who knows what went on here in ancient days? Now let’s finish with our dreaming and cut a little more wood. For surely these good monks face many chilly nights yet before the summer comes.
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"There’s a Saxon lord I know is down in the valley now, and I pray with all my heart he isn’t fallen and God will protect him well. For I will have him die at my hands only, after what he did to my dear mother and sisters, and I carry this hoe to do the work. It breaks the ground of a winter’s morning, so it will do well enough on this Saxon’s bones."
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"Are you false, sir? Will you not keep your promise to me?" So I placed her on the saddle—she held the rein even as she clasped the hoe to her bosom—and I led on foot both horse and maiden down the valley slopes. Did she blanch as we first heard the din? Or when on the outskirts of the battle we met desperate Saxons, their pursuers on their heels? Did she wilt when exhausted warriors groped across our path trailing wounds along the ground? Small tears appeared and I saw her hoe tremble, but she did not turn away. For her eyes had their task, searching that bloody field left and right, far and near. Then I mounted the horse myself, and carrying her before me as if she were some gentle lamb, we rode together into the thick. Did I look timid then, thrashing with my sword, covering her with my shield, turning the horse this way and that until finally the battle tossed us both into the mud? But she was quickly on her feet, and recovering her hoe, began to tread a path through the mashed and quartered heaps. Our ears filled with the strange cries, but she seemed not to hear, the way a good Christian maid refuses the lewd shouts of the coarse men she passes. I was young then and nimble of foot, so ran about her with my sword, cutting down any who would do her harm, sheltering her with my shield from the arrows that regularly fell among us. Then she saw at last the one she sought, yet it was as if we were adrift on choppy waves and though an isle seems near, the tides somehow keep it beyond reach. It was that way for us that day. I fought and battered and kept her safe, yet it seemed an eternity till we stood before him, and even then three men specially to guard him. I passed my shield to the maid, saying, “Shelter well, for your prize is almost yours,” and though I faced three, and I saw they were warriors of skill, I defeated them one by one till I faced the Saxon lord she so hated. His knees were thick with the gore he waded through, but I saw this was no warrior, and I brought him down till he lay breathing on the earth, his legs no more use to him, staring his hatred up at the sky. So she came then and stood above him, the shield tossed aside, and the look in her eyes chilled my blood over all else to be seen across that ghastly field. Then she brought the hoe down not with a swing, but a small prod, then another, the way she is searching for potatoes in the soil, until I am made to cry, “Finish it, maiden, or I’ll do it myself!” to which she says, “Leave me now, sir. I thank you for your service, but now it’s done.” “Only half done, maiden,” I cry, “till I see you safe from this valley,” but she no longer listens and goes on with her foul work. I would have quarrelled further, but it was then he appeared from the crowd.
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"Master Axl, what was done in these Saxon towns today my uncle would have commanded only with a heavy heart, knowing of no other way for peace to prevail. Think, sir. Those small Saxon boys you lament would soon have become warriors burning to avenge their fathers fallen today. The small girls soon bearing more in their wombs, and this circle of slaughter would never be broken. Look how deep runs the lust for vengeance! Look even now, at that fair maid, one I escorted here myself, watch her there still at her work! Yet with today’s great victory a rare chance comes. We may once and for all sever this evil circle, and a great king must act boldly on it. May this be a famous day, Master Axl, from which our land can be in peace for years to come."
"This circle of hate is hardly broken sir, but forged instead in iron by what's done today."
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“It’s simply this, princess. Should Querig really die and the mist begin to clear. Should memories return, and among them of times I disappointed you. Or yet of dark deeds I may once have done to make you look at me and see no longer the man you do now. Promise me this at least. Promise, princess, you’ll not forget what you feel in your heart for me at this moment. For what good’s a memory’s returning from the mist if it’s only to push away another? Will you promise me, princess? Promise to keep what you feel for me this moment always in your heart, no matter what you see once the mist’s gone.”
“I’ll promise it, Axl, and no hardship to do so.”
“Words can’t tell how it comforts me to hear you say it, princess.”
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If he defeats me I may have life left to crawl to the water. I would not tumble in, even if the ice would admit me, for it would be no pleasure to grow bloated beneath this armour, and what chance Horace, missing his master, will come tip-toeing through the gnarled roots and drag out my remains? Yet I’ve seen comrades in battle yearn for water as they lie with their wounds, and watched yet others crawl to the edge of a river or lake, even though they double their agonies to do so. Is there some great secret known only to dying men?
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Some of you will have fine monuments by which the living may remember the evil done to you. Some of you will have only crude wooden crosses or painted rocks, while yet others of you must remain hidden in the shadows of history. You are in any case part of an ancient procession, and so it is always possible the giant’s cairn was erected to mark the site of some such tragedy long ago when young innocents were slaughtered in war. This aside, it is not easy to think of reasons for its standing. One can see why on lower ground our ancestors might have wished to commemorate a victory or a king. But why stack heavy stones to above a man’s height in so high and remote a place as this?
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Gawain was now watching Wistan, and it struck Axl he might be memorising details concerning the warrior’s person: his height, his reach, the strength in the calves, the strapped left arm.
His work completed to his satisfaction, Wistan rose and turned to face Sir Gawain. For a small moment there was a strange uneasiness in the looks they exchanged, then Wistan smiled warmly.
“Now here’s a custom divides Britons from Saxons,” he said, pointing. “See there, sir. Your sword’s drawn and you use it to rest your weight, as if it’s cousin to a chair or footstool. To any Saxon warrior, even one taught by Britons as I was, it seems a strange custom.”
“Grow to my creaky years, sir, you’ll see if it seems so strange! In days of peace like these, I fancy a good sword’s only too glad of the work, even if just to relieve its owner’s bones. What’s odd about it, sir?”
“But observe, Sir Gawain, how it presses into the earth. Now to us Saxons, a sword’s edge is a thing of never-sleeping worry. We fear to show a blade even the air lest it lose a tiny part of its edge.”
“Is that so? A sharp edge’s of importance, Master Wistan, I’ll not dispute. But isn’t there too much made of it? Good footwork, sound strategy, calm courage. And that little wildness makes a warrior hard to predict. These are what determine a contest, sir. And the knowledge God wills one’s victory. So let an old man rest his shoulders. Besides, aren’t there times a sword left in the sheath’s drawn too late? I’ve stood this way on many a battlefield to gather breath, comforted my blade’s already out and ready, and it won’t be rubbing its eyes and asking me if it’s afternoon or morn even as I try to put it to good use.”
“Then it must be we Saxons keep our swords more heartlessly. For we demand they not sleep at all, even as they rest in the dark of their scabbards. Take my own here, sir. It knows my manner well. It doesn’t expect to take the air without soon touching flesh and bone.”
“A difference in custom then, sir. It reminds me of a Saxon I once knew, a fine fellow, and he and I gathering kindling on a cold night. I would be busying my sword to hack from a dead tree, yet there he is beside me, employing his bare hands and sometimes a blunt stone. ‘Have you forgotten your blade, friend?’ I asked him. ‘Why go at it like a sharp-clawed bear?’ But he wouldn’t hear me. At the time I thought him crazed, yet now you enlighten me. Even with my years, there are still lessons to learn!”
They both laughed briefly, then Wistan said: “There may be more than custom on my side, Sir Gawain. I was always taught that even as my blade travels through one opponent, I must in my thought prepare the cut that will follow. Now if my edge isn’t sharp, sir, and the blade’s passage slowed even a tiny instant, snagged in bone or dawdling through the tangles of a man’s insides, I’ll surely be late for the next cut, and on such may hang victory or defeat.”
“You’re right, sir. I believe it’s old age and these long years of peace make me careless. I’ll follow your example from here, yet just now my knees sag from the climb, and I beg you allow me this small relief.”
“Of course, sir, take your comfort. Merely a thought struck me seeing you rest that way.”
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He was taken aback by the suddenness with which Gawain and Wistan met. It was as if they had responded to a signal: the space between them vanished, and the two were suddenly locked in tense embrace. It happened so quickly it appeared to Axl the men had abandoned their swords and were now holding one another in a complicated and mutual armlock. As they did so, they rotated a little, like dancers, and Axl could then see that their two blades, perhaps because of the huge impact of their coming together, had become melded as one. Both men, mortified by this turn of events, were now doing their best to prise the weapons apart. But this was no easy task, and the old knight’s features were contorted with the effort. Wistan’s face, for the moment, was not visible, but Axl could see the warrior’s neck and shoulders shaking as he too did all he could to reverse the calamity. But their efforts were in vain: with each moment, the two swords seemed to fasten more thoroughly, and surely there was nothing for it but to abandon the weapons and start the contest afresh. Neither man, though, appeared willing to give up, even as the effort threatened to drain them of their strength. Then something gave and the blades came apart. As they did so, some dark grain—perhaps the substance that had caused the blades to fasten together in the first place—flew up into the air between them. Gawain, with a look of astonished relief, reeled halfway round and sank to one knee. Wistan, for his part, had been carried by the momentum into turning a near circle, and had come to a halt pointing his now liberated sword towards the clouds beyond the cliff, his back fully turned to the knight.
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He steadied himself, then glancing back, saw the old couple had taken a few steps in his direction. Edwin noticed now how frail they seemed. There they were standing together in the wind, each leaning against the other, looking far older than when he had first met them. Did they have strength left to descend the mountainside? But now they were gazing at him with an odd expression, and behind them, the goat too had ceased its restless activity to stare at him. A strange thought went through Edwin’s mind, that he was at that moment covered head to toe in blood, and this was why he had become the object of such scrutiny. But when he glanced down, though his clothes were marked with mud and grass, he saw nothing unusual.
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Boatman,” she says. “There’s a tale I once heard, perhaps as a small child. Of an island full of gentle woods and streams, yet also a place of strange qualities. Many cross to it, yet for each who dwells there, it’s as if he walks the island alone, his neighbours unseen and unheard. Can this be true of the island now before us, sir?”
I go on breaking twigs and placing them carefully about the flame. “Good lady, I know of several islands to fit such a description. Who knows if this one is among them?” An evasive answer, and one to give her boldness. “I also heard, boatman,” she says, “there are times when these strange conditions cease to prevail. Of special dispensations granted certain travellers. Did I hear right, sir?”
“Dear lady,” I say, “I’m just a humble boatman. It’s not for me to talk of such matters. But since there’s no one else here, let me offer this. I’ve heard it said there may be certain times, perhaps during a storm such as the one just passed, or on a summer’s night when the moon’s full, an islander may get a sense of others moving beside him in the wind. This may be what you once heard, good lady.”
“No, boatman,” she says, “it was something more. I heard it said a man and woman, after a lifetime shared, and with a bond of love unusually strong, may travel to the island with no need to roam it apart. I heard they may enjoy the pleasures of one another’s company, as they did through all the years before. Could this be a true thing I heard, boatman?”
“I’ll say it again, good lady. I’m just a boatman, charged with ferrying over those who wish to cross the water. I can speak only of what I observe in my daily toil.”
“Yet there’s no one here now but you to guide us, boatman. So I ask this of you, sir. If you now ferry my husband and me, can it be we’ll not be parted, but free to walk the island arm in arm the way we go now?”
“Very well, good lady. I’ll speak to you frankly. You and your husband are a pair as we boatmen rarely set eyes upon. I saw your unusual devotion to each other even as you came riding through the rain. So there’s no question but that you’ll be permitted to dwell on the island together. Be assured on that point.”
“What you say fills me with happiness, boatman,” she says, and appears to sag in relief. Then she says, “And who knows? During a storm, or on a calm moonlit night, Axl and I may glimpse our son close by. Even speak with him a word or two.”
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Gain? There was nothing to gain, boatman. It was just foolishness and pride. And whatever else lurks in the depths of a man’s heart. Perhaps it was a craving to punish, sir. I spoke and acted forgiveness, yet kept locked through long years some small chamber in my heart that yearned for vengeance. A petty and black thing I did her, and my son also.”
“I thank you for confiding this, friend,” I say to him. “And perhaps it’s as well. For though this talk intrudes in no part on my duty, and we speak now as two companions passing the day, I confess there was before a small unease in my mind, a feeling I’d yet to hear all there was. Now I’ll be able to row you with a carefree contentment. But tell me, friend, what is it made you break your resolve of so many years and come out at last on this journey? Was it something said? Or a change of heart as unknowable as the tide and sky before us?”
“I’ve wondered myself, boatman. And I think now it’s no single thing changed my heart, but it was gradually won back by the years shared between us. That may be all it was, boatman. A wound that healed slowly, but heal it did. For there was a morning not long ago, the dawn brought with it the first signs of this spring, and I watched my wife still asleep though the sun already lit our chamber. And I knew the last of the darkness had left me.
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Axl, this is no time to quarrel with the boatman. We’ve had great fortune coming upon him today. A boatman who looks so favourably on us.”
“Yet we’ve often heard of their sly tricks, isn’t that so, princess?”
“I trust him, Axl. He’ll keep his word.”
“How can you be so sure, princess?”
“I know it, Axl. He’s a good man and won’t let us down. Do as he says and wait for him back on the land. He’ll come for you soon enough. Let’s do it this way, Axl, or I fear we’ll lose the great dispensation offered us. We’re promised our time together on the island, as only a few can be, even among those entwined a lifetime. Why risk such a prize for a few moments of waiting? Don’t quarrel with him, or who knows next time we’ll face some brute of a man? Axl, please make your peace with him. Even now I fear he grows angry and will change his mind. Axl, are you still there?”
“I’m still before you, princess. Can it really be we’re talking of going our ways separately?”