The Uncommon Reader

Read it twice, and on the second reading I found myself equally charmed but also disappointed. It hardly begins before it's over. A fictionalized Queen Elizabeth stumbling unexpectedly into the labyrinth of literature, becoming a bookish Queen, causing problems for those who seek to keep her comfortably in her own lane. This book could have been so much more, the book that exists just the starter's pistol for a long exploration of the monarchy, the history she saw and created, veering away from the simple interest of literature into . . . what? A million possibilities appear, the simple opening dominoeing, consequences befalling consequences, wars perhaps breaking out as a result, beheadings in the Middle East, regimes toppled. Rushdie, after all, failed to contain the drama and the absurdity to the page. The Crown isn't popular accidentally. What a great feast of a novel this could have been. And maybe will be. Probably not by Bennett as he is only 7 or so years shy of the Queen at the age of her death, a death which still feels surprisingly untimely — but by someone. It's the type of novel I'm not sure we really get anymore.

Anyway. Read it if you haven't. Bennett is, as previously stated, charming, if a little on the surface.