Bennett, Alan "The Clothes They Stood Up In"

Bennett, Alan "The Clothes They Stood Up in" - 2001

After reading "The Uncommon Reader" a while ago, our book club decided to read another book by Alan Bennett. I would have rather waited a little longer until reading another book by the same author, but it was decided by the majority and it wasn't very long (though that is not really a recommendation for me).

The story makes us think about the possessions we have and how important they are to us. How much do they make our lives?

But that is all. I didn't enjoy the story much, neither the writing nor the characters or the content. It was an alright story but - as so often - more would have been more. Too short for my liking. Not really as funny as announced. It might take a while until I pick up an Alan Bennett story again.

There was only one member in our group that liked the story, and her comments gave us a little more insight into it. That's always great about a book club.

From the back cover:

"The Clothes They Stood Up In is Alan Bennett's first story. Like Charles Dickens' novels which were first published in magazines, it originally appeared in the London Review of Books - which the author says 'seems to me (and not just because I occasionally contribute to it) the liveliest, most serious and also the most radical literary periodical we have'.

In the nationally bestselling novel The Clothes They Stood Up In, the Ransomes return from the opera to find their Regent’s Park flat stripped bare--right down to the toilet-paper roll. Free of all their earthly belongings, the couple faces a perplexing question: Who are they without the things they’ve spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly a world of unlimited, frightening possibility opens up before them."