Alan Bennett on libraries, Primrose Hill Lecture 2011
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- In a 2011 Primrose Hill Lecture, Alan Bennett talks about what public libraries, now under threat, have meant to him. Read the published article here: www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n15/alan-ben...
ABOUT THE LRB
Since 1979, the London Review of Books has stood up for the tradition of the literary and intellectual essay in English. Each issue contains up to 15 long reviews and essays by academics, writers and journalists. There are also shorter art and film reviews, as well as poems and a lively letters page.
A typical issue moves through political commentary to science or ancient history by way of literary criticism and social anthropology. So, for example, an issue can open with a piece on the rhetoric of war, move on to reassessing the reputation of Pythagoras, follow that with articles on the situation in Iraq, the 19th-century super-rich, Nabokov’s unpublished novel, how saints got to be saints, the life and work of William Empson, and an assessment of the poetry of Alice Oswald.
An important aspect of libraries pre-1990s, say, was the use of library tickets. I remember as a child being proud to have them and regarding them as important because they were the means of obtaining the books. I enjoyed the simple act of handing over and later being given back the small cardboard envelopes into which the ticket from the book would be placed to indicate me as the borrower.
Important words from a wise man. Bless you and yours,
The library on North Lane in Headingley was my local library and as a child, I would go every Saturday and withdraw 4 books (the maximum) and have them all finished by the following Saturday. Happy days, indeed.
One of the things I have missed the most since living in S Italy have been The English public libraries .Such an important part of my childhood.Thanks Alan for reminding meof happy days xx
I moved to Norway 13 years ago and, when asked of what I missed most, it was my Library. We have a Library here ( Bibliotek) and I am a member. But, English books are few and although I can read Norwegian, I can just relax with a book in English. Libraries are so precious .
I was born in 1939, and my first book was made of cloth pages, the alphabet indelibly printed in bright colours: A was red and other capitals still paint my memory. Libraries have been a life saver. Our Swinton and Salford libraries were staffed by people who loved their work, adult cards given to intelligent young readers, which is how my 11 year old son found the Penguin Book of Limericks and Rugby songs. My librarian saved new editions for me from 'Swallows and Amazons' to Jean Plaidy. Did you visit John Ryland's in Manchester?
The local library is a treasure.
Lovely - but wish that could have illuminated the gentleman a little for us. Very restful and pleasant to listen to.
One of the good guy's
Your sentence is unfinished.
@@AminTheMystic *one of the good guy's guys?
Suede shoes at 00:39. God bless him. :)
A traditional pair of “Bucks” a suede deer skin, they look better the shabbier they look. Worn whilst sipping a Pimms Cup on a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon with the air still fragrant from a passing summers thunderstorm.
I suspect that telling the audience, mostly from Primrose Hill presumably, about life in Leeds in the 1950s, he might as well have been talking about life on the other side of the Moon.
brian rodney
Hence the pressing need to tell them.
Why?
What Alan says about Leeds can apply anywhere. I was born and raised the other side of the country so to speak! and can see and understand completely. Just depends if you are wired to 'see and really be watching and concentrating'.
Tina Baker
Reminding people of what life is like for people outside the London bubble.
Which is sadly as necessary now as it’s always been.
Lol !
Always interesting and fresh ideas…the microphone is rubbish
I move about a lot and one of the first things I do is find out where the Library is. Then the local swimming baths/leisure centers. And any local lavatories! I love libraries but many of them are becoming targets for anti social behaviour and it's very difficult to ignore sadly. But that doesn't stop me! X🙋🙏
Hmmm. At about 19 minutes, Alan mentions his cousin (a police photographer) being involved in the aftermath of the stripper Mary Millington's suicide. Related as though it had happened in Leeds in the 1950s. But she killed herself in 1979 in Surrey, when AB was well into his forties and presumably less easily impressed by relatives - and not taking the lift down at Leeds Central Library.
Or was there an earlier Mary Millington?
I. Wonder. When. This. Was. Filmed?..
Can any one please tell me can I still get the play he wrote of blue berry hill remember s I watched it about. 30 years ago and never forgot it but I carnt find it any we’re hope some one can help xxjan 💕💕
are you thinking of "Blue Remembered Hills" by Dennis Potter ?
We are the rememberers💋
Alan Yentob there in the crowd.
Returning. To. Manchester. Not. Too.far. from. Leeds. I. Went. To. My. Usual. Favourite. Place. The. Local. Library. To. Find. It. Had. Been. Turned. Into. A. Mosque !
I love the works of this man and have great admiration for his readings however, his lack of ability to speak naturally whilst answering questions with out repeatedly saying err and um drove me to switching off. I was very disappointed.
Writers write better than they talk
Bennett seems to think of himself as the principal scriptoral exponent of the portrayal of the elderly. But all he wants to do is make old people look silly, and is uninterested in their strengths and the stoicism with which they can frequently bear life's tribulations rather better than the young.
His faux naïf persona looks unceasingly implausible after over sixty years of it, and one wonders whether underneath he's quite the nice man he pretends to be.
How much are readers interested in stoic/brave characters? They want funny/memorable
@@stevechristie2569 Good characters are both
wrong just wrong