Smut: Two Unseemly Stories.

BENNETT, Alan.:

ISBN 10: 1846685257 / ISBN 13: 9781846685255

Published by London: Faber and Faber, 2011

About this Item

First Edition. Hardcover. 180pp. Near Fine in dustwrapper. Seller Inventory # 11639

Bibliographic Details

Title: Smut: Two Unseemly Stories.

Publisher: London: Faber and Faber

Publication Date: 2011

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

The Shielding of Mrs Forbes

Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. Though her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections.

The Greening of Mrs Donaldson

Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating...

Review:

Beautiful and filthy (Simon Hattenstone Guardian)

Smut offers plenty of Bennett's trademark pleasures... consistently amusing and full of witty turns of phrase (Sarah Churchwell Guardian 2011-04-23)

Amusingly peculiar... tender and comic... joyous anarchism... It is good, old-fashioned British humour with the lightest of subversive twists. (Arifa Akbar Independent 2011-04-22)

Artfully entertaining... The stories have a dark, knowing shrewdness about erotic mischief, young and old... As always the writing is tonally perfect, laced with deadpan as well as bedpan comedy. (Simon Schama FT 2011-04-23)

All Bennett's work seems to me a dreamy evocation of an imaginary world in which he'd like to dwell, full of jokes and queerness. These days, he seems to be getting steadily smuttier, ever more disinhibited. But more strength to his elbow, I say. (David Sexton Evening Standard 2011-04-14)

Marinated in subtleties. He's never as simple as he likes to appear ... That peculiarly British maladroitness - the perennial blush, wince and averted eye - and how adroitly it is grappled with, can make for great storytelling (John Sutherland The Times 2011-04-30)

Hilarious (The Times 2011-04-30)

In these two stories he applies his elegant literary gifts to his territory with the unabashed glee of one watching Benny Hill getting it on with Anita Brookner ... Bennett's talent for the honed quip is securely in place (Adam Lively Sunday Times 2011-05-01)

Unmitigated delight (Christina Hardyment The Times 2011-04-30)

Alan Bennett continues to surprise and delight (John Banville Sunday Telegraph)