...she confided in her neighbour the Canadian minister for overseas trade 'than to come across an author one enjoys and then to find they have written not just one book or two, but at least a dozen?"
This is the Queen speaking and it is a quote from Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader which I am sure most of us now know is a simply gorgeous conceit of a book all about the Queen becoming an ardent reader. It is wonderful and beguiling and I adore it, but this sentence, put in the mouth of the Queen, is pure Alan Bennett and it is a quote that just leapt off the page and hit me in the eye.
This is something that I have had happen to me so many times in my reading life and the knowledge that there are numerous books by a newly discovered author just waiting for me to discover is one of the best feelings in the world.
The reason for this ramble is that I have finally discovered the Mapp and Lucia books by E P Benson and I promptly fell headlong in love and wondered why I had neglected them for so long. They are witty, funny and needle sharp and I am adoring them and will write about them later when I have gathered my thoughts.
I know full well there are so many of you out in the blogsphere who are huge fans and, as I asked earlier in my post on Narnia (I have finally got hold of a copy of the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe) would love to hear your thoughts.
This realisation that I have a new author to read (albeit only six books and I know I will binge on them and then suffer withdrawal symptoms) is such a wonderful pleasure and I felt this even more after having just watched a programme on the television which moved me to tears, a programme about men and women who have gone their entire lives without learning to read.
One woman featured in this week's programme, Linda, loves books, they make her go 'all wibbley' - we can all understand that - and she is desperate to read and, what is more, read Shakespeare. She sees the sonnets and the patterns the words make and so wants to be able to understand but she has a block in relating the appearance of letters to their sounds. By the end of a month she is making more progress than she has ever done in her life and the expression on her face when she realises how to string letters together to make words and that she is starting to read, was one of such happiness I completely choked up. All of us, who read without thinking, cannot have any idea of what it must be like not to be able to do so. I cannot imagine my life without books and yet the adults featured in this programme have had years of feeling inadequate and stupid. One grandmother ended up reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the first book she had ever read in her entire life and is coming along beautifully. She knows that she will soon be able to read to her grandchildren and her life is transformed. I found it all incredibly moving.
I started writing this post, with this quote, before the start of the programme and believe me, after watching it, I find it means so much more to me. Can't Read, Can't Write runs on Channel 4 for the next three weeks and, for those visitors who are UK based, please take a look at it and see if you feel the same as I do right now.
