In ‘The Uncommon Reader’ , a short story which first appeared in the London Review of Books in 2006, Alan Bennett speculates on what would happen if Her Majesty The Queen became an voracious consumer of fiction.
Bennett imagines this regal reading being the result of a chance encounter with a mobile library in the Palace grounds. This in turn leads her to discover the previously unknown pleasures of literature.
One of the key reasons for the Queen’s late life obsession is put down to the fact that when she is engrossed in a book she is anonymous in a way she can never be in real life.
Bennett also uses this plot to argue the case for reading in general, not simply as an amusing pastime but as an active means of fostering understanding of the world.
For the Queen, the additional attraction is that reading serves as a great leveller. Novels put her on a par with any other readers and makes her unique status irrelevant.
This gains a royal seal of approval since it enables her, for once, to be a spectator on other lives rather than being a spectacle for others.
Her aids are at first bemused and later panic stricken as she abandons the usual protocol over social engagements. She begins quizzing her ‘subjects’ and world leaders on what they are reading instead of the banal royal chit chat.
Bennett’s tone is typically dry, witty and compassionate. It is also, to my mind overly respectful. Having once turned down a knighthood he is clearly not in thrall to the monarchy in general but there’s no hint of criticism here.
Perhaps he takes the view that he and the Queen do actually have things in common – they are both institutions and survivors, symbols of Englishness in a way that places each of them above criticism.