Arnold Bennett: A Biography
by Margaret Drabble
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Arnold Bennett was born in a street called Hope Street. A street less hopeful it would be hard to imagine.' Thus begins Margaret Drabble's biography of a man whose most famous achievement was to re-create, in such novels asThe Old Wives' TaleandClayhanger, the life, atmosphere and character of the 'Five Towns' region in which he was born and grew up.Arnold Bennett is a very personal book. 'What interests me', writes the author, 'is Bennett's background, his childhood and origins, for they show more are very similar to my own. My mother's family came from the Potteries, and the Bennett novels seem to me to portray a way of life that still existed when I was a child, and indeed persists in certain areas. So like all books this has been partly an act of self-exploration.'Of Bennett as a writer Drabble says 'The best books I think are very fine indeed, on the highest level, deeply moving, original and dealing with material that I had never before encountered in fiction, but only in life: I feel they have been underrated, and my response to them is so constant, even after years of work on them and constant re-readings, that I want to communicate enthusiasm.'Of Bennett as a man she paints an affectionate portrait, not glossing over the irritability, dyspepsia and rigidity which at times made him so difficult a companion but reminding us too of his honesty, kindliness and sensitivity. 'Many a time,' she writes at the end of the book, 're-reading a novel, reading a letter or a piece of his Journal, I have wanted to shake his hand, or to thank him, to say well done. I have written this instead. show lessTags
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We shouldn't be misled by Mrs. Woolf's essay about Mr. Bennett and the Edwardians, so called, because they have much to tell us. A.B. ruled the literary waves in his day. Drabble has much to say on the subject because she was of a similar background. Not that any of her forebears were potters. They weren't. But we do find out that Bennett's works had a huge influence on her own writing. The repressive religion, the backward attitude towards sex, and the dreary surroundings, were what they had in common. I like the way Drabble mixed the personal with the scholarly. Too bad more dull as ditchwater biographers don't do it like this?
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68+ Works 13,764 Members
Margaret Drabble was born on June 5, 1939 in Sheffield, England. She attended The Mount School in York and Newnham College, Cambridge University. After graduation, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford during which time she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave. She is a novelist, critic, and the editor of the fifth edition of The show more Oxford Companion to English Literature. Her works include A Summer Bird Cage; The Millstone, which won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1966; Jerusalem the Golden, which won James Tait Black Prize in 1967; and The Witch of Exmoor. She also received the E. M. Forster award and was awarded a Society of Authors Travelling Fellowship in the 1960s and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1974
- People/Characters
- Arnold Bennett
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Statistics
- Members
- 96
- Popularity
- 333,937
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.94)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 2
