The confident reader
The sovereign reader (English original title: The Uncommon Reader ) is a novella by the English writer, playwright, director and actor Alan Bennett . It tells the fictional change of the British Queen from being a woman of action to a lover of aesthetic literature .
The novella first appeared on March 8, 2007 in the English literary magazine London Review of Books . In 2008 it was published in Great Britain as a book by Verlag Faber & Faber and a German translation by Ingo Herzke by Verlag Klaus Wagenbach . In September 2008 it was number 3 on the fiction bestseller list of the news magazine Spiegel . In Germany the novella was also published as an audio book by Patmos in 2008 , read by Jürgen Thormann . In November 2008 it was in fourth place on the Hessischer Rundfunk audio book list .
action
The Queen follows its Corgies that on the back of Buckingham Palace a mobile library of the City of Westminster have stormed. There she meets the kitchen boy Norman and, out of courtesy, borrows a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett . When she returns the book, she meets Norman again in the book bus and, to the displeasure of the court, she hires him as Amanuensis (secretary). His job is to recommend her literature and to get books.
The Queen becomes an intense reader of aesthetic literature and uses every opportunity to read, even the carriage ride to the opening of Parliament . She was now able to read and wave at the same time quite well, all that mattered was to hold the book below the edge of the window [...] . She realizes that a book [is] an explosive device to unleash the imagination .
More and more often she embarrasses her subjects, but also state guests, by asking them to read them. Norman is lured by her private secretary Sir Kevin with a scholarship to study literature at the University of East Anglia and thus removed from the Queen's vicinity. The Queen initially accepts his disappearance and increasingly talks to herself about her reading.
Finally, she begins to record encounters with people, incidents and her own reflections in her notebook, all in that sensible, down-to-earth tone that she increasingly recognized and appreciated as her own style . Her behavior and the diminishing interest in her obligations arouse concern in her surroundings that Her Majesty is suffering from a mental deficiency, possibly Alzheimer's . She now thinks about the letter, inquires about Norman's fate and dismisses Sir Kevin after looking through his tendril .
On the occasion of her 80th birthday, she invites the current and former members of the Privy Council to tea. She chats with her guests about monarchs who write books. The Prime Minister points out that no incumbent British monarch has ever published a book. The Queen contradicts and refers to the leaves from Queen Victoria's diary of her great-grandmother Victoria and to a duke's story of her uncle Edward . The prime minister noted that he had abdicated beforehand. The Queen replies: But ... why do you think you are all here?
reception
The novella met with unanimous enthusiasm in German-language feature pages. The literary critic Sigrid Löffler wrote "The Uncommon Reader" is an amusing double homage - one for the Queen and one for reading books . Sigrid Löffler spoke of a booklet of subversive wit and full of brilliant dialogues, a sparkling, witty, point-safe Capriccio about the art of reading and about a very unusual reader [...] .
In 2008, Der Spiegel described the story of this late-working and all the more enthusiastic reader as the most elegant and witty piece of literature there is this autumn .
Jörg Plath rated it as a tabloid piece for ARTE , admittedly an upscale one, ennobled by a fine, carefully measured and not a moment disrespectful joke . As a book for literature lovers as well as for those who don't read. Full of the typically British, always slightly self-deprecating humor and full of wonderful quotes - plain and simple and simply truly recommended it by 3sat .
Deutschlandradio Kultur called it a book about the effects of literature and a declaration of love for reading. It is also a consideration of the sense of duty, of the manipulations that subordinates make on the powerful .
The daily newspaper wrote of a cunning parable about reading , and Der Tagesspiegel , who described the book as a declaration of love to the Queen , advised the "uncommon Queen": She should definitely find this little book off the shelf.
The Swiss St. Galler Tagblatt dealt with a television documentary about Queen Elizabeth II and wrote: There was an old woman to be seen, cramped into countless duties and appointments [...]. You meet this queen again in Alan Bennett's light-footed and profound book "The Sovereign Reader". Their environment has not changed, their myriad responsibilities are the same .
literature
- Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader . 1. publ., Faber & Faber, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84668-049-6 . (English; original edition)
- Alan Bennett: The confident reader . 5th edition, Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-1254-5 . (German translation by Ingo Herzke)
Web links
- Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader In: London Review of Books, March 8, 2007
- The confident reader at Perlentaucher
- The confident reader as an audio book at Perlentaucher
Individual evidence
- ↑ Best seller list ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Audio book best list November 2008. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Hr2 culture, archived from the original on November 8, 2012 ; accessed on November 21, 2014 (44 kB). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Alan Bennett: The Sovereign Reader , p. 32
- ^ Alan Bennett: The Sovereign Reader , p. 34
- ^ Alan Bennett: The Sovereign Reader , p. 71
- ^ Alan Bennett: The Sovereign Reader , p. 115
- ↑ Sigrid Löffler: Dieter Wunderlich: Alan Bennett: "The sovereign reader". Dieter Wunderlich, 2010, accessed on March 1, 2012 .
- ↑ Queen of the Books . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2008, p. 172 ( online ).
- ↑ Jörg Plath: The confident reader ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: ARTE from November 14, 2008 (accessed on March 2, 2009).
- ↑ Kerstin Arnold: The Sovereign Reader from Alan Bennett ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: 3sat from December 2008 (accessed on March 2, 2009).
- ↑ Verena Auffermann: Declaration of love to reading In: Deutschlandradio Kultur from November 5, 2008 (accessed on March 2, 2009).
- ↑ Dirk Knipphals: Will to the novel . In: taz , October 20, 2008.
- ↑ Christina Tilmann: Your own voice . In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 19, 2008.
- ↑ Rolf App: How the Queen goes astray . In: St. Galler Tagblatt , February 16, 2009.
