For extreme Alan Bennett fans only, click through to read his long, leisurely-paced essay on how much libraries have meant to him over the decades. He discusses using walls of books in his writing as well:
"There were other perils to reading, but it was only when I hit middle age that I became aware of them. Me, I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf was a television play written in 1978 and though it doesn’t contain my usual scene of someone baffled at a bookcase the sense of being outfaced by books is a good description of what the play is about. ‘Hopkins,’ I wrote of the middle-aged lecturer who is the hero, ‘Hopkins was never without a book. It wasn’t that he was particularly fond of reading; he just liked to have somewhere to look. A book makes you safe. Shows you’re not out to pick anybody up. Try it on. With a book you’re harmless. Though Hopkins was harmless without a book.’ Books as badges, books as shields; one doesn’t think of libraries as perilous places where you can come to harm. Still, they do carry their own risks.
For his plays, he says, sometimes he has needed to bring his own books to the theater to give the set's bookshelf just the right worn look.
We love Mr. Bennett. Extremely. Thank you for this lead. I'm about to dive in head first.
Posted by: Sandy | August 25, 2011 at 09:18 AM