socialmedian: Enter, finally, the real Alan Bennett

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Source: observer.guardian.co.uk

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

His new play, The Habit of Art, is ostensibly about Auden and Britten. In reality it's about Alan Bennett himself. We trace his journey of self-discovery

Alan Bennett has once or twice had a go at being a little more unbuttoned as he writes, but it hasn't always worked. "Sometimes, particularly in summers in New York," he once confided to the readers of the London Review of Books, "I have tried to write in shorts or with no shirt on and found myself unable to do so, the reason being, I take it, that writing, even of the most impersonal sort, is for me a divestment, a striptease even, so that if I start off undressed I have nowhere to go."

For a man who once observed that he required a police cordon before he could unknot his tie, this process of self-exposure must always have been an awkward one; in recent years, however, close readers could be forgiven for thinking that Bennett has been casting aside – in his writing at least – overcoat and scarf and jacket and sweater with something approaching abandon.

This tendency began after Bennett developed bowel cancer

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