Keeping On Keeping On

by Alan Bennett

'I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked 'no threat' and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.'

Alan Bennett's third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping On follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Home and Untold Stories, each published ten years apart. This latest collection contains Bennett's peerless diaries 2005 to 2015, reflecting on a decade that saw four premieres at the National Theatre (The Habit of Art, People, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks), a West End double-bill transfer, and the films of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van.

There's a provocative sermon on private education given before the University at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and 'Baffled at a Bookcase' offers a passionate defence of the public library. The book includes Denmark Hill, a darkly comic radio play set in suburban south London, as well as Bennett's reflections on a quarter of a century's collaboration with Nicholas Hytner. This is an engaging, humane, sharp, funny and unforgettable record of life according to the inimitable Alan Bennett.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, Essays, Diary, Audiobook

736 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Alan Bennett is an English author and Tony Award-winning playwright. Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are also widely enjoyed.

Reviews

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first - Credit where credit is due. A couple of months ago, I wrote a review of a book that disappointed me and mentioned that I had been looking for a something that was not so serious/intense and might loosen me up a little. A GR friend, Cheryl https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2..., was kind enough to offer a suggestion that I might try one of Alan Bennett's books.
I'd had Keeping On Keeping On on my Want to Read shelf for some time and decided to give it a go. Cheryl's suggestion was on the money and was just what I needed.

Keeping On Keeping On is a collection of Diaries (half of the 700 pages), essays, a film diary of The History Boys , two plays, and introductions to those two plays and four others which are not included in this book. All of these parts of the book (excepting the plays) are of a piece, in that they tend to be anecdotal.
Reading Keeping On Keeping On is like visiting an intelligent and entertaining old friend. Alan Bennett has lived a long (81 years at the end of this book) and interesting life, and he shares a part of it in this book.

Mr. Bennett has his pet peeves - though I should probably call them more than "peeves". Two that are high on his list are politicians - I can't disagree with him there - and architects - I don't spend that much time thinking about architects, but there are enough ugly buildings around that I have to agree with him there too. And, as he notes, those two are often in league with each other.
Mr. Bennett writes passionately about the loss of public libraries in England and the destruction of the English education system - two subjects that I feel are essential for the existence of a free and healthy society.

Some selections from the Diaries:

1 December 2005: In America there is now no taking evolution for granted. What was (and still is here) a universal rational assumption, in the US has become a position. 'Are you an evolutionist?' Jonathan M. (Jonathan Miller, one of Mr. Bennett's associates in Beyond the Fringe) recounts an argument he has had with a woman in the Natural History Museum who asked him just this question. Later, talking to his students, he says he wishes he had answered the question 'Are you an evolutionist?' with 'Only in the sense that I'm a gravitationalist.'

9 July 2007: Going round some primary school paintings:

Me: There's a good name. James Softely Haynes.
Maya (my guide, aged nine): Excuse me. Are we looking at Art or are we looking at Names?

8 April 2009: Fairly obvious that the newspaper seller who died in the G20 demonstrations was pushed over by a policeman. Equally obvious that even if the calls for a public inquiry are conceded no policeman will be charged or even suspended. According to the Economist, in the last ten years there have been more than 400 deaths in custody, with no convictions for murder or manslaughter, the police always vindicated. This isn't simply against the laws of England, it's against a more fundamental law - the law of averages.

1 August 2011: R. goes home to Wales for a family gathering. It's only a small house and again he shares a room with his Aunty Stella who, true to her promise made earlier in the year, has learned some new poems. So in the darkness of a Penarth bedroom this ninety-year-old lady recites Houseman's 'Loveliest of trees, the cherry now' and Browning's 'Home-Thoughts, from Abroad'. And not a fluff in either.

(An aside from the reviewer - I read this passage and was ashamed of my own ignorance. I'm unable to recite even one poem. I've made it a mission to be able to recite Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18", which Aunty Stella was reported to have recited in an earlier passage of the Diaries, plus at least two other poems by the end of the year.)

From "The National Theatre at Fifty": Nobody would call the National Theatre a homely place but it has been my artistic home for twenty-five years and for that I count myself very lucky. ... It has enabled me to go on working much longer than I could have imagined through turning up a play every three or four years. I am happy not to have acquired any dignity in the process. When I came in for the first rehearsal of People someone at the stage door said, 'Oh hello. Still hanging on then?'

From the play The Hand of God:
Int. Garrard's (an auction house) Evaluation Department

Here serious clients are waiting to have estimates put on their possessions. Some have pictures, others porcelain wrapped in newspaper. The atmosphere is not unlike that of a doctor's waiting room, though here there tends to be just one disease, avarice.

Int. Garrard's Valuation Department

Dunlop: God, he looks like a ruffian.
Marryatt-Smith: He is. But we mustn't look for virtue among collectors of art. As soon look for intellect among the lovers of opera.

(My deepest apologies to an opera loving and intelligent GR friend - you'll know who you are if you read this - for including these lines. I couldn't resist.)

When Cheryl recommended that I read some Alan Bennett, she wrote: "Not serious, often funny, and warm with the love of humanity, without the sentimentality."
She got it right. Thanks for getting me started. I'm off to Untold Stories, Writing Home, and a collection of plays.

[[ J o ] · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all of Alan Bennett's diaries in a row, which, given they were written over about 40 years it's unlikely this was how he intended them to be read, since this would require a foresight hitherto unknown since Adam said unto Eve, "you and me babe, how about it?"

As is such, I probably both ruined my enjoyment of them but also catapulted that enjoyment, wherein I garnered far more insight than one would hope in such a man's life.

This particular entry in to the long-standing tradition of English diarists is the longest of AB's, with over half of the content given over to the diary entries themselves. This was a delight as to read more is what one wants from any continued series, but I found myself sometimes wishing there were less.

The main problem would be the sheer amount of politics. Not withstanding my agreement or disagreement, it was mainly that he could feel so much more about modern goings on than what had occurred in the 80s, which was either the same or worse as what goes on today.

The explanation being that possibly any more brusque or indeed harsher political views were not included in the 80s and 90s diary anthologies because he was a more prominent figure and boldly in the public eye.

But to think that he could not be even remotely moved by Margaret Thatcher's systematic dismantling of the entire Northern culture overnight seems unlikely, which I am choosing to believe to be the case.

In any regard, seeing how AB has evolved over time proves that my way of reading his books one after the other was a good decision. He doesn't seem to have changed an awful lot in the way he writes about everyday life (often pithy, sometimes sarcastic, perhaps sardonic), but his views and ways of looking at things has evolved as he has aged. He is still shy, but less so. He can still be angry, and probably more so. He still delights in small things,

His writing-diaries aside-is ever enchanting. I find AB to be an excellent communicator of knowledge and expert in explaining things without doing the actual explaining, or even possibly being aware that he is imparting his knowledge at all. That is the mark of a truly great writer, one who not only shows and doesn't tell, but one whose enthusiasm for their chosen subject is such that it bubbles over without it being acknowledged.

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I have read all or most of Alan Bennett's books and rated them highly. I read 500 pages of this huge 700 page volume and had to give up. This lacks that special something the other books have. Many of the reviews I read were very positive but I'm afraid I found it boring.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, of course, excellent. Alan Bennett writes, as always, with wit, insight, honesty and a rage against injustice and fakery which gives this collection the same brilliance as Writing Home and Untold Stories.

Again consisting of ten years of diaries plus some longer writings, there are very interesting thoughts on some major events, as well as Bennett's intelligent and often very funny observations on everyday life. There is real social comment here (his fury at police shootings is a regular theme, for example), leavened by the sort of Bennetry which makes me laugh out loud. Two small examples: having heard a critic on the radio say that he can have too much of Alan Bennett, his response is, "I wonder how he thinks I feel." And, after an angry couple of paragraphs about the fatuous infantilisation and Americanisation of the Speaking Clock, "One tries not to be an Old Git but they don't make it easy."

Probably all that need be said about Keeping On Keeping On is that it's Alan Bennett and that he hasn't lost any of his ability. I loved it; it made me think, it made me laugh and it gave me hope that there remains some civilization and humanity in the world. Very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Alan Bennett reads extracts from his recently published diaries.

Following on from Alan Bennett's bestselling, award-winning prose collections Writing Home and Untold Stories, Keeping On Keeping On is a newly-published third anthology featuring his unique observations, recollections and reminiscences.

In these entries, covering the years 2005 to 2014, Bennett looks back on a packed decade that included writing four highly-acclaimed plays - The Habit of Art, People, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, all of which premiered at the National Theatre - as well as the screenplays for the hit films of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van.

In addition, he reflects on his 25 years of friendship and collaboration with director Nicholas Hytner, life with his partner Rupert Thomas and, radical views notwithstanding, his status as 'kindly, cosy and essentially harmless' - a view which these diaries do their best to disprove.

Today, Alan's play The History Boys has its last production at the National Theatre and he laments the many abandoned pieces he has written.

Abridged and produced by Gordon House.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07zyg5p

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. 10 years of diary extracts are followed by several prose pieces - essays, introductions, obituaries and two unbroadcasted plays. The diaries made for an extended read, just one or two a day was sufficient and prolonged the enjoyment. The prose pieces were usually related to events that happened in the diaries, and as such repeated some of the material. This was interesting in itself and made me realise how adaptable writers' material can be. The two plays, Denmark Hill and The Hand Of Go, had been surprisingly passed over when offered to their prospective directors, as both are fine examples of Alan Bennett's work. The book as a whole is peppered with the author's usual witty phrases, astute political commentary and sense of humanity. Highly recommended.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a book of about 700 pages, which was recommended to me by a friend. More than half of the pages contain diary entries spanning the years 2005-2015, biographical snippets, stories about the performance of his works, the texts of speeches and other reflections. The dauntingly heavy volume closes with two radio plays which I decided not to read.

I particularly enjoyed the diaries. Alan Bennett is very good company and I like his attitudes. I would put down this heavy volume (now bristling with yellow post-its) feeling lighter, myself, than when I took it up. Live forever, Alan!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing by Alan Bennett is ever going to involve car chases, Mexican stand-offs or drug deals gone tits-up. That is rather the point. Some writers need trips to other-worlds of some type to get them going - Blake, Ballard. For some writers ordinary life is enough. Bennett is one of them.

One thing tends to keep coming up in Bennett reviews - that he's the successor to John Betjeman as the nation's favourite cuddly toy. Not wholly a lie, but not wholly true. Within both affable bunglers, deep hatreds smoulder.

Bennett never calls for Slough to be bombed, but he shares with Betjeman a loathing for politicians, tabloids, town planners, and anyone else who makes a living out of riding roughshod over everyone in their path.

Murdoch and Thatcher receive more sniper fire; the latter is described as "a mirthless bully and should have been buried, as once upon a time monarchs used to be, in the depths of night." Tony Blair fares little better. "Instead MPs are far too busy rising to the occasion, which for Blair is: 'Let's pretend it's the Blitz and bags me be Churchill.' "

The diaries tend to be the best parts in these books, or they are for those who don't subscribe to the LRB. They are the mundane, profound, interesting and dull, all mushed together - as in life.

10 April. Make potatoes dauphinoise for supper to a recipe by Nigel Slater - and it's delicious, like proper cooking.

16 April. The row over Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status seems to have died down. Nobody, I think, noted that it was the reverse of the row that triggered the American War of Independence. In 1776 the rallying cry was no taxation without representation whereas with Lord Ashcroft (and the other non-doms) it is no representation without taxation, i.e. why should he or anyone have a voice in the making of legislation if he or she does not pay taxes.

10 May. For much of the day it has looked as if, inconceivably, the Liberal Democrats were going to fall in with the Tories and form a government - a prospect that so depressed me I felt (fanciful though this may seem) as some (though only some) people felt after Munich.

5 July. A child in Settle is said to have asked what the Mafia was and his grandfather said, 'It's like the Settle Rotary Club, only with guns.'

Diaries relate the small events as well as the bigger ones, and shared activities. I note that Bennett reads three of the same books that I did (Byron Rogers' biographies of JL Carr and RS Thomas, Cheever's collected stories). He thinks Cheever did nothing in his stories that his novels didn't do better - it's always seemed to me the mirror opposite. His highlights aren't 'The Swimmer', 'The Country Husband' or 'The Enormous Radio', which surprises more.

Bennett is a fan of The Big Bang Theory, and it's a pity he doesn't mention it here. Some might find the diaries, even in their edited form, have a little too much of the mundane - a fair comment when you buy a hardback that costs roughly the same as three bottles of Blossom Hill.

I found them sometimes too slick, too well-made. Fluency and ease, of course, are bound to improve over years of practice, especially when you're getting a cheque for it. But sometimes you feel the incident - and the page of reminiscence-cum-secular sermon it provokes - is as much a set-up as the videos on You've Been Framed. When people told the young Bennett what a wonderful Vicar he'd make, you think they may have hit upon something.

Bennett is frank that this book, like its two predecessors, is a desk-clearing exercise. Reprinted introductions elbow for space next to rejected scripts, which cough loudly so that the obituaries hurry up and take their seat. I read these with only modest pleasure. There's nothing here to equal his earlier essays on Larkin and Kafka.

Most people will be getting this for Christmas. If nothing else, I hope it encourages them to buy Writing Home and Untold Stories on Boxing Day.

[David James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bennett, Alan. Keeping On Keeping On

How much is too much? This question inevitably arises in my mind after having ploughed through this, the third volume of Bennett’s memoirs - and I came up smiling. What is it about this over-modest, unassuming writer that continues to interest me, even when he’s banging on about the injustices of private education, the cruelties of Mrs Thatcher and the creeping erosion of the NHS? Well, I lapped up every word - almost, drawing the line at the playscripts packing out of an already profuse tale of the rise and rise of the boy from a Leeds ‘Modern’ school to a radio and TV personality in much demand for appearances, comment and, hopefully, more plays in the vogue of the ‘Talking Heads’ series.

Well, Bennett is unique in telling us how he finds us - and by ‘us’ he means we hypocitical English, although surely his own identity is basically, in this order, English, Northern and Working Class - with all their ‘hypocrisies.’ Basically one of his own ‘History Boys,’ Bennett seems baffled by his own ‘success,’ both as an entertainer and as a moral crusader, but the common man has adopted him in both roles, and he seems to speak for justice, or ‘fairness’ as he prefers to put it, for something good that is in the heart of man, for ordinariness with no fancy names or modish intellectual tags. He loves churches, rurality and picnics with a cup a hot tea in the flask and a bun, and then he’ll sit down in the hay and reminisce - and reminisce.

He detests commerce, especially public commercialisation of standard rights, such as the right of entry to public buildings, mainly National Trust properties and libraries, which should he says be funded by central government rather than being put out to hire to make a handsome profit for private companies. Is he behind the times - or is he one jump ahead? Bennett scourges the notorious criminals, and gives the politicians plenty of stick: - hence Margaret Thatcher, demonised as ‘evil’ throughout, although she was so loved by the electorate (How could we sheep-like, stupid voters have been so blind, for so many years?), Beeching who stole the common man’s right to relaxed travel and, traitor to the cause he espoused, Tony Blair.

Bennett is more interesting when he confesses his own prejudices - I mean beyond the flask and sandwiches or the solitary bike ride to an old church to inspect a rood loft - such as his constant exposure of police corruption, citing the Economist which maintains that ‘in the last ten years there have been more than four hundred deaths in police custody, with no convictions for murder or manslaughter.’ It’s probably true - the Economist is not renowned for sensationalism - but what else would one expect? Why not take a look at the USA or the Philippines and compare; or even take a peek at South America! That’s no excuse? Like private education, he finds police cover-ups inexcusable. Well, let’s admit that the UK justice system is far from being perfect, but it is nevertheless highly respected world-wide. Don’t kick your own country that loves you!

On cultural matters Bennett is at times less secure. Although he admires Turner, Bennett finds his much-admired later work being, as he puts it, over-dramatic, the sea setting subordinated ‘to some vast meteotrological drama or a battle between darkness and light which reduces the ostensible subject to a corner of the canvas.’ Even Mozart gets short stick and the finest poet writing in English in the Twentieth Century, TS Eliot is reduced to a mere footnote. As a professional critic Bennett is somewhat limited by his long raincoat and his national health spectacles from which he can never, apparently, be parted.

[Dylan Vieites Glennon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've thoroughly been enjoying the diary section of this book and also of untold stories due to the little snippets of information and the political aspects of it and Bennett's own feelings towards the political occurences.

[Ryan Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the greatest diarists, playwrights, and authors of the 20th century. I'd never read this, and as the great man reaches 90, I thought now would be a good time. Genial, whimsical and wonderfully written.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in December

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Alan Bennett ever since his days with Beyond the Fringe in the 1960's. His talking heads series was a favorite when seen in its entirety at a film festival in the 1990's. However, I found that this huge collection was far too personal and in need of an editor.

[Nick Garlick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Alan Bennett’s writing, even when – in many of his plays – I’m not really sure what he’s getting at. His prose is elegant. His dialogue is witty. He has an eye for the odd little occurrences of daily that make me think I must be walking around with my eyes shut. The majority of this book consists of extracts from his diaries written between 2005 and 2015. They’re a delight. Here’s just one example:

I am said in today’s Independent on Sunday to be ‘pushing eighty’ , with a photograph taken at seventy in corroboration. The article is about the decline of Northern drollery, of which I am an example, though whether of the drollery or its decline I’m not sure.

[T P Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very engaging collection. The diaries are a great read - individually the entries can seem small and very focused but thought the accumulation there's a voice and a personality revealed. It's idiosyncratic and gentle but with a caustic edge. The miscellaneous prose was fantastic. The two plays seemed included to flesh out the volume.

[Penny]

I enjoyed this volume of Bennett's work enormously. it is not a book for continuous reading, it is best read over a period of weeks dipping in and out section by section. Once more the diaries are wonderful, recounting Bennett's life and interests. He is an acute and sympathetic observer of himself, humanity and the state of Britain. The other sections are more specific, for instance dealing with filming The History Boys and including his wonderful sermon on the importance of libraries. There is an elegiac air to this collection as Bennett is now in his early 80s, though one would hardly expect it given the level of activity and the range of his interests. The collections of his work released over the past few decades have formed an sort of autobiography as he has mused on his current life and events in his past.

[Colin Bisset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half of this is taken up with excerpts from his journal and then there's a few forewords and assorted pieces before a couple of plays. There is the repetition of some stories, but that means you see how he crafts them each time to fit the subject. Something of a curate's egg, except that it is just so wonderfully readable, and you can hear his voice as you do. I felt as though I was in great company, at times with a curmudgeon who lapses into faux-humility but usually with a man who is wonderfully observant and empathetic and has a real love for language. I hated getting to the end and wondering who could possibly follow him.

[Cliff M · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beyond dull. Written by a man full of hatred for his own country. Give it a miss.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diaries in the lee of becoming actually famous. I love him dearly and bolted all 700pp in a couple of days. General sense of him reaping decades of quiet acclaim: he bumps into well-wishers and heavy-hitters (Stoppard, Dench, MacKellen) every week or so.

One of the reasons I love him is that I had a very similar adolescence to his. He remains reserved, kind though grumpy:

Being in love unhappily singled you out, I thought, it drafted you into an aristocracy. It was more than just a badge of being gay but rather an ordeal you were called upon to undergo if only to transcend it and reach a sublimity denied to other mortals.


In the evening to the New York Public Library where I am to be made a Library Lion... There are half a dozen of us being lionised and we are lined up and photographed and made much of before going upstairs to a magnificent supper, getting home thoroughly knackered around 11. How people lead a social life is beyond me.


I clung far too long to the notion that shyness was a virtue and not, as I came too late to see, a bore.

He still feels outside of things, for all his reminiscences of dinner with Harold Wilson or Liz Taylor perching on his knee. On winning a Tony for Best Play aged 72:

I am thrust blinking on to a stage facing a battery of lights while questions come out of the darkness, the best of which is: ‘Do you think this award will kick-start your career?'

Talks so much about 50s Yorkshire. (People in general seem to think about their childhoods more than I do. (or just writers?)) I suppose he is taken to be a twee writer for this nostalgia, along with his cuddly speaking voice. But he simply isn't twee - he is the author of several of the finest nihilist soliloquoys in English literature. You may know the ignorance of people by their use of this stereotype.

He is touchingly agitated by British politics, in the exact way I used to be. His protests are unprogrammatic, based simply on the meanness or indignity or cowardice of the policy at hand, whether it's a Labour or Tory hand;

I wanted a Labour government so that I could stop thinking about politics, knowing that the nation’s affairs were in the hands of a party which, even if it was often foolish, was at least well-intentioned. Now we have another decade of the self-interested and the self-seeking, ready to sell off what’s left of our liberal institutions and loot the rest to their own advantage. It’s not a government of the nation but a government of half the nation, a true legacy of Mrs Thatcher...

I’ve always thought that this was a pretty fair description of that blend of backward-looking radicalism and conservative socialism which does duty for my political views. I am an old modernian... [Over the past 30 years] one has only had to stand still to become a radical.

With the fading of the old loud left, and the abject failure of the sneering theoretical sort, unpretentious justice of this sort might motivate people, even/especially opportunist Brexiters. So to the defence of public libraries, the unprecedented conviction of policemen who murder, the provision of good to all.

[Data #1, Values #3, Thinking #3]

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This library checkout had to become a personal copy. Thanks to Auntie's Bookstore for supplying the personal copy. I flagged many sections, but here are a few of them: "The success of the History Boys (2004) was wholly unexpected. We'd had such a good time rehearsing it I don't recall ever wondering how well it would go down. Nicholas Hytner has said that on first reading the script he thought it would perhaps make eighty performances. As it was the reception of the play at its first preview took us both by surprise. It wasn't so much the laughter -- though at least twice it brought the show to a halt -- but it was the hush in the audience just before the curtain when the boys talk of their future lives and Hector comes back from the dead to give them his last message. When the curtain came down there was a moment's silence and then the house went up like a furnace." pg. 508.

"January 1, 2010: 'I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I'm not always happy with what I've done." pg 200.

"28 November, 2007: R. is reading Brideshead Revisited for the first time, my browning-at-the-edges Penguin that must be fifty years old. 'Tell me,' he says plaintively, 'is it meant to be snobbish or am I missing the point?" pg 129.

"It's getting near the day of Dad's death, too, and before we leave on Sunday we pick some flowers from the garden and put them on the grave where Gordon must have planted some bizzy lizzies, or begonias maybe. Think of Mam and Dad standing there smiling and also think of Anne next door whose chest is bad and has to go for an X-Ray on Monday. Easy journey back with the same towering high summer clouds. Between Newark and Grantham I always strain to see the towers of Lincoln Cathedral on the eastern horizon but never do, the only time I have when we were unexpectedly bussed from Retford to Grantham, when they were unmistakable in the last of the sun." pg 114 - 115.

"10 January, 2009, Yorkshire. I call in next door to have a word with the district nurses who are due to visit. It's after ten on a bitterly cold Saturday night and the two nurses are still on duty, washing and changing Anne, giving her her medication and settling her down for the night. And two nurses come again at nine the next morning, one of them the same nurse who had been on duty the night before. When one sees this level of dedication in the NHS it is both humbling and inspiring, and undertaken in such a straightforward matter-of-fact way, working round the clock not worth mentioning." pg 172.

"13 May, 2015. Talk to the (always cheering) Archie Powell. His four-year-old son Wilfred is learning chess and was recently taken to a Church of England confirmation service where the bishop officiating was Richard Charteris. Having ascertained the Charteris was a bishop Wilfred whispered, 'Does that mean he can only move diagonally?' Archie is 'easy' about religion but wife, Jane, like Rupert, is fiercely atheist." pg. 355.

[David Gee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read the previous volumes of Mr Bennett’s Diaries, I put off reading this, thinking it was bound to be more of the same. Well, it is – and that’s what so joyful about it! His life is only a little bit grander than yours and mine – he and his partner shuttle by car and rail between their homes in Camden and Yorkshire (and an annual trip to a cottage in France). They take sandwiches on visits to beauty spots and country churches, they shop for antiques which usually require Rupert to do some restoration. Alan, of course, also does talks and readings and book-signings – and writes plays.

He supports causes close to his heart: keeping libraries open and schools open-minded are two of his great concerns. And he has bees in his bonnet: during the decade covered here, 2005-2015, the police kill an innocent Brazilian on the London Underground and never apologise. The British government colludes in the rendition of terror suspects. Tony Blair continues to pop up; Mr B despises him as powerfully as he did Lady T in a previous era. Nor is he a fan of David Cameron, Richard Branson and Boris Johnson, among many others. He blames Classic FM and the National Trust for “the Torification of life” and deplores “the nastification of England” by property “improvers”. Waiting to go on a stage in West Yorkshire he is confronted by a pair of “sabre-toothed pensioners.”

He confesses to “a fully developed ability not quite to enjoy myself”. A newborn baby, his partner’s nephew “doesn’t make me feel old, just huge.” Old age (he’s approaching 85) has brought health issues and other drawbacks: “These days I am too old to be on my best behaviour. And I’m too old not to be on my best behaviour.”

There are insights into his creative process, in this case the writing of his Britten/Auden play, the one set in a not-so-stately home and the movies of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. There’s a nice smutty episode when the cast of A Habit of Art are listening to sound-effect farts to choose an appropriate one for the actor playing Auden. After the Diaries there are some bits and bobs, including a lovely funeral tribute to John Schlesinger who directed An Englishman Abroad, in my opinion one of the finest hours television has ever produced.

He is offered a cameo in the BBC mini-series of Fanny Hill but turns it down: “I’ve always thought of myself a bit of a fraud as an actor.” Back in the 1960s when Beyond the Fringe was on Broadway he declined a supper invitation from Jackie Kennedy, only because of his natural shyness, from which he still suffers. Not only shy but modest. He tells us the critic Robert Hanks remarked that “personally he can have too much of Alan Bennett. I wonder how he thinks I feel.”

One cannot have too much of Mr Bennett.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically just a bunch of Bennett’s diary entries all brought together, and so that alone should be enough for you to tell whether you’re likely to find this interesting or not. For me, diary collections rank slightly above letter collections and slightly below essay collections, and all three belong firmly in the “bedtime books” category. So perhaps you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I read this a little bit at a time.

I mean, call me crazy, but I don’t find it particularly interesting to read other people’s journals. I don’t even find it interesting to read my own. You also need to bear in mind that by the time that these journal entries even start, Bennett was in his seventies, so it’s not as though he’s living a super exciting lifestyle. He’s mostly going to National Trust properties with his partner and talking about how they no longer take sandwiches with them because he’s gluten intolerant.

Weirdly, I’ve also read a fair few of these diary entries before in one of Bennett’s other books, although I couldn’t remember which I’d read and which I hadn’t and so I ended up just re-reading them all. They were printed in another of Bennett’s books that I read as a bedtime book, and so it left me with a feeling of déjà vu.

So now we have a problem, because there’s not much more for me to tell you about this one. It pretty much just does what it says on the tin, but I have to somehow still get another 200 words into this review to make it tally with my goal of each review having the same word count as the number of pages that the book has. When I struggle to find things to say, it’s a sign that the book is either way too long or way too boring, and this one was a little bit of both.

With that said, I am still glad that I read it because Alan Bennett is one of those authors where I want to eventually read everything that he ever wrote. I’d read his shopping lists if I had to, and when I was going through this one, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a shopping list had made an appearance. It feels like everything else did.

The only real redeeming feature that I can think of is that if you’re studying him for a course or if you’re staging one of his plays, you might want to read about his own experiences with them. But that seems like a pretty niche audience, and so I’m not sure how many people will actually be swayed by that. Otherwise, I can’t really say that I’d recommend this one, just because by its very nature, it’s kind of dull.

All in all then, I’m glad that I finished it, but I doubt I’d ever pick it up again. It is what it is, it’s over and done with, and now I can move on to something else. And that, my friends, was another 200 words. Job done.

[MargCal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished reading ... Keeping On Keeping On / Alan Bennett ... 14 November 2017
ISBN: 9781781256503 ... 539 pp.

I love Alan Bennett's diaries! This volume covers the years 2005-2015, plus about a dozen short pieces on various topics, including introductions to some of his plays. Many books, both fiction and non-fiction, are billed as funny but, while some raise a smile, Bennett is pretty much the only author I'm embarrassed to read on the train or tram because he makes me laugh out loud.

I love Bennett for his thoughts - on politics …
1 May 2008: Home [from hospital], and my first outing is to the local community centre to vote against the dreadful Boris.
architects ...
24 October 2007: … I think this is not a city [Bath] I want to visit again. Before they are artists, before they are craftsmen, be they genius or mediocrity, architects are butchers.
and public libraries …
26 May 2011: I have said it many times already but it's worth saying again: closing libraries is child abuse.

I love that for all he mixes in high places, Bennett hasn't left his past behind, he remains a butcher's son. In his diaries I mostly love Bennett for his astute, wry, compassionate, tender, witty and funny observations on the world about him – people, places, books, rummaging through antique and secondhand shops, visiting churches, taking country walks – having made his own sandwiches for lunch. A particular pleasure in this volume is the space given to his partner, Rupert, including a description of the “formalities – I'd hardly say solemnisation” of their civil partnership (7 March 2006), so low-key that “It's something (if only occasionally) that I'm never allowed to forget.” (p.xv, Introduction).

It was serendipitous that I read this book straight after reading James Lees-Milne : The Life by Michael Bloch. Bennett socialised at places Lees-Milne had frequented a couple of decades or so earlier, he visited places Lees-Milne had secured for the National Trust, and he was also a friend and guest of Debo Devonshire at Chatsworth. That was like seeing history as film, rolling before my eyes.

A thoroughly enjoyable book, highly recommended, well worth more than the 5 stars I can give it here.
Now to re-read The Uncommon Reader – Bennett has written one of the best books ever, funny and subversive.

[Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pleasure of reading the excerpts from Bennett’s diaries comes from his joys, simply conveyed, and from recognition of small familiarities, books read and places visited. For me, the best quote is: “Nowadays the road to Damascus would be called ‘a steep learning curve’.”

The other pieces are more of interest because of what we know of Bennett from his diaries and his plays. It’s not challenging or sublime, rather it’s comforting, enjoyable and a pleasure to read.

This is not where you start with Bennett, try The History Boys (2004), The Uncommon Reader (2006) or even the recent Killing Time (2024). Then if you appreciate his style and humour, start his diaries with Writing Home (1994) and relax into some delightful reading.

[Liam Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with, I imagine, Alan Bennetts entire oeuvre, this book may feel slow and too calm to some, but it's the exact tone and pacing I love. The collection of diaries and, later, speeches and essays chronicle a period that speaks of political frustration and a fervent wish for more compassion in the world. It speaks to the simplicity of the lives of our neighbours and the people we meet on our daily walks. It talks of writing and of the unglamorous, complicated elements that make it uglier than so many of us first imagine.

It is, generally, a book without too many frills that still manages to keep us entertained and engaged. Bennett is funny even when cynical. He's eloquently intelligent and modest in his reminiscence. It provides insight into the ordinary in a way that reminds us how little of life is ordinary at all. And for the more stereotypically spectacular of theatre and celebrity and, many times, royalty, it makes all of it seem far more accessible than it so often does.

On a personal note, if nothing else, I have written a single point in my notes app:

"Alan Bennetts first play - 1968

Born 1934 - he was 34 - 5.5 years older than I am now, " i.e. I have time.

[Susan Aldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read the previous volumes of Alan Bennett's diaries and really enjoyed them so I picked this as my Christmas treat (2016), hoping to immerse myself during the holiday. I got a couple of years into the diaries section before January, then got sidetracked (by books on Kindle and audible) so picked this up again on holiday in October and f finished it. Loved the diary section - great variety of subject matter - politics, architecture, theatre, everyday life in Camden (I used to work in the area and have seen Alan a few times, but always hung back from going up to him to express my admiration for his work). I rather forced myself through the rest - the play scripts, essays and speeches and wondered if the book would have been better if it had stopped at the diaries. But the essay about the making of The Lady in the Van did stand out in this section and was a delightful complement to the play and the film, both of which I've seen

[Alan Swift · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the diaries which run from 2005 to 2015. These are interesting particularly when Bennet is examining political issues. His views on public libraries, education and political figures past and present are well founded and he puts his points across robustly. He comes across as a likeable and modest man who is often ill at ease with his fame. His world is a strange mixture of the down to earth normality that most of us recognise and the rarified world of arts, church architecture, academia and literature. Some of this was of much less interest to me as it touched on people in a pretty narrow strata of society. At their best the diary entries make you laugh out aloud and at their less than best they are views on issues and people in the narrow strata -of interest , I suspect, to those in the narrow strata!!

[Jeff Howells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three out of the last four Christmas’s I’ve had a collection of Alan Bennett’s diaries (plus other collected writings) as a present. ‘Keeping On, Keeping On’ is his most recent (they are published in gaps of broadly 10 years). I’ve enjoyed them so much I feel faintly bereft that I wont be reading a further volume next Christmas.
I came to Bennett’s writings relatively late but can’t imagine being without him now. His diaries, as they’ve evolved, have revealed a man getting more radical & more angry the older he gets. Yet the thing that strikes me as I finished reading this collection was whoever would have thought the quietest member of the ‘Beyond The Fringe’ gang would have ended up as the most successful & arguably the most famous?

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a dipper when it comes to books, but I thought Alan Bennett diaries would be a worthwhile subject for the attempt on my library book group's 'Books to dip into' theme for the month. So I dipped.

And then I started again at the beginning and enjoyed it so much more, feeling I was in congenial but not because bland and inoffensive company. I felt mildly resentful of getting to the end of ten years worth of diaries and then having lots of add-ons... but once I'd read them, that resentment fell away. Reading cover to cover also dealt with some other resentments - the cosying up to Debo explained for example and the wanging on about a particular politician about whom I held a similar distaste. I'd like to see him write a play from the point of view of a police officer.

[Alistair Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I have read every book that Alan Bennett has written, so I had to get this one for Christmas. It did not disappoint.

I am not quite as old as Bennett, but I feel we are growing old - and grumpier - together. So much that he said about the decline in standards chimes in with my own feelings - except that he has a strong aversion to private schooling that I do not feel as strongly.

My only disappointment was the inclusion of the scripts of plays. This seemed like a cheap way to bulk out pages. I am not averse to reading plays, but I really could not follow these ones, and resented the effort in trying to.