Perfect Prose
In many ways, Alan Bennett is the writer I'd love to have been, and "Untold Stories" may well be his best work. Uncovering raw memories, he doesn't shrink from relating the harsh realities of family life: a mother suffering from depression, an aunt declining into dementia, a grandfather who took his own life. The memories are personal and poignant, but never mawkish. His powers of description make for a truly absorbing read.
But it's by no means all gloom and doom. Here, he recalls leafing through his aunt's photo collection.
"One of the albums in particular fascinates me (and even today it falls open at the place): it has a photo, postcard size, of two Australian soldiers, 'Jordy' and 'Ossie', standing in bush hats and bathing trunks against a background of palm trees. 'Jordy' is unremarkable, with a lascivious other-ranks sort of face. It is 'Ossie' who draws the eye, better looking, with his arms folded and smiling, and with some reason, as he is weighed down, practically over-balanced, by what , even in the less than skimpy bathing trunks of the time, is a dick of enormous proportions, the bathing costume in effect just a hammock in which is lolling this colossal member. Underneath Aunty has written, roguishly: 'Yes girls! It's all real!'"
Untold Stories
by Alan Bennett
Faber & Faber, 2005
ISBN: 0571228313
But it's by no means all gloom and doom. Here, he recalls leafing through his aunt's photo collection.
"One of the albums in particular fascinates me (and even today it falls open at the place): it has a photo, postcard size, of two Australian soldiers, 'Jordy' and 'Ossie', standing in bush hats and bathing trunks against a background of palm trees. 'Jordy' is unremarkable, with a lascivious other-ranks sort of face. It is 'Ossie' who draws the eye, better looking, with his arms folded and smiling, and with some reason, as he is weighed down, practically over-balanced, by what , even in the less than skimpy bathing trunks of the time, is a dick of enormous proportions, the bathing costume in effect just a hammock in which is lolling this colossal member. Underneath Aunty has written, roguishly: 'Yes girls! It's all real!'"
Untold Stories
by Alan Bennett
Faber & Faber, 2005
ISBN: 0571228313