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A review by alanaleigh
The Clothes They Stood Up in and the Lady and the Van by Alan Bennett
4.0
Alright, I'm writing a half review of this book, because I read "The Clothes They Stood Up In" a while ago but not "The Lady in the Van" and I quite liked the first, but then I was waiting to review until I finished the other one... but that might take a while, so here's a half-review.
Simply put, the story is this: Mr. and Mrs. Ransome return to their flat after a night at the opera to discover that they've been burgled. Everything in their flat has been taken -- and when we stay everything, we mean everything. The chairs, the bed, the rugs, the casserole left warming in the oven. Everything. Naturally, the story focuses on how Maurice and Rosemary Ransome each deal with this... from trying to contact the police (via public telephone) and acquire cheap interim replacement furniture to the nuts and bolts of determining how and why this happened to the different ways one can cope with the dramatic loss. Particularly intriguing is the question of who we become when we are divested of all our earthly possessions... do we obsess on the material aspect or do we find ourselves oddly liberated? I'd definitely recommend reading this one. And I'll re-rate and post again whenever I get around to "The Lady in the Van."
Simply put, the story is this: Mr. and Mrs. Ransome return to their flat after a night at the opera to discover that they've been burgled. Everything in their flat has been taken -- and when we stay everything, we mean everything. The chairs, the bed, the rugs, the casserole left warming in the oven. Everything. Naturally, the story focuses on how Maurice and Rosemary Ransome each deal with this... from trying to contact the police (via public telephone) and acquire cheap interim replacement furniture to the nuts and bolts of determining how and why this happened to the different ways one can cope with the dramatic loss. Particularly intriguing is the question of who we become when we are divested of all our earthly possessions... do we obsess on the material aspect or do we find ourselves oddly liberated? I'd definitely recommend reading this one. And I'll re-rate and post again whenever I get around to "The Lady in the Van."