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The Clothes They Stood Up In

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Poor Maurice and Rosemary Ransome return home from the opera and discover their flat has been burglarized and everything has been taken. The dinner that was left warming in the oven, the furniture, the telephones even the toilet paper has been taken. After trying to convey the thouroughness of the robbery to the police (in an uncomfortable public phone booth , no less) Mr. Ransome returns to his empty house to wait with his wife...while waiting he notices not only the drapes but the curtain rings are gone! This slender British novel wittily and adeptly poses the question " What would you do, Who would you be, if everything was taken?". The Ransomes deal with the police (who proffer no hope of recovering their gear), the insurance company (however, EVERYTHING is gone, including the copy of their insurance policy) and wait for some semblance of normal to be restored in their lives. A few creature comforts are obtained to replace the many and then the tale takes a remarkable turn. This is a delightful tale, full of humor and with remarkable insight on people and their possessions. I have given my first copy away and have already reread the replacement book! A must have.

Ever since his days as part of 'Beyond The Fringe' in 1960, Alan Bennett has continued to hold a valued position in the affections of the British public. His 1987 collection of monologues, 'Talking Heads' are classics of the genre and in 1995 he was even nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay, 'The Madness Of King George'. 'The Clothes They Stood Up In' is a further testament to his popularity. Appearing first in 'The London Review Of Books', Bennett later read the story on Radio 4, a performance later released on cassette. Now it has been published in a volume of its own. Like much of his other work, it is a comic story with elements of tragedy. The title refers to all Mr. and Mrs. Ransome have left after they return home from a night at the opera. To the horror of this middle class couple, everything in their flat has gone missing including the telephone, the toilet paper (Mr. Ransome has to use his program from the opera), the light bulbs, and Mr. Ransome's prized Mozart collection. The comic situations developing from this crisis are improbable yet curiously still believable. Communication problems and individual idiosyncrasies propel the humour along in these hilarious sequences, with Bennett's observation making the farce seem all the more real. Social workers, the police and daytime television shows all find themselves on the receiving end of Bennett's gentle (albeit razor sharp) wit. The cold Mr. Ransome, painfully aware of his impression on others, begins to crack now his respectability is threatened. His wife on the other hand discovers her independence. Bennett has admitted he finds it easier to write through female personas, and he succeeds in showing Mrs. Ransome's gradual growth as a human being and disenchantment with her cosy, starched, pre-theft lifestyle. Bennett's irony gets many opportunities to manifest itself in this story, as does his ability to juxtapose incongruent ideas. His elegant writing style is littered with lavatories and dog excrament. When the Ransomes find an audio tape with two people having sex on it, Mrs. Ransome says "It sounds like custard boiling". The story's message seems to be a warning against suppressing the true self and not living life to the full. The latter part of the book is particularly scathing towards Mr. Ransome's stiff and awkward outlook. One suspects that Bennett is intervening, using the opportunity to attack pompous middle class behaviour. The climax is a poignant but positive ending to what is an amusing, moving and insightful story.

Alan Bennett's writing so often reminds me of fractal forms; the twists and turns of his plots on the macro scale being matched perfectly on the micro scale by the endless convolutions of his individual sentences and paragraphs. There are times when his writing gives every impression of wandering aimlessly through a tangled mass of irrelevant side detail, with no possible single end point in mind, until suddenly, and with an almost shocking clarity, his words reveal themselves as carefully chosen after all, when they all unexpectedly lead plumb to centre of the narrative target that has been in his sights all along. I can see that, for some people, this technique may prove to be an impenetrable annoyance (although anyone brought up in Yorkshire - and more especially Leeds - where they talk like this all the time, should merely find it homely and comforting.) But examine his words closely and, for all their meandering, you'll see that they have an absolutely exquisite precision and economy to them. This is the work of a true (and truly English) literary craftsman.

This short story, "The Clothes They Stood Up In", receives the classic Alan Bennett treatment, both in terms of writing style and also in terms of another of his hallmarks: the at times almost surgical examination of the social mores (and boors) of Middle England. Although this book is very short indeed (it should not take even the most meticulous of readers more than a couple of hours to devour this tasty titbit) it nevertheless demonstrates this author's unerring capacity for dissecting away endless layers of social stereotyping, in order to expose the central nuggets of individuality at the heart of his characters (or else reveal such nuggets to be entirely absent) whilst at the same time pointing up the basically ridiculous natures - and faintly ludicrous habits - of even the most ordinary of people.

Amusing and poignant by turns, this small volume delivers some exquisite character studies of ordinary people in entirely extraordinary circumstances. As ever, it makes for a highly entertaining read for those open to Alan Bennett's distinctive writing style. Bargain hunters may like to be aware, though, that this story is available in various better-value boxed collections, alongside other Alan Bennett short stories (principally "Lady in the van" and "Father! Father! Burning Bright") There are also plans to publish it within a single compendium volume some time in 2002. Of course, some people may just consider such collections as altogether too much of a good thing!

Alan Bennett has amazing instincts. Here he has indulged an apparent whim and it works wonderfully. Having lost all of their possessions, the Ransomes are confronted with new perspectives about the more substantial losses within their affectionless marriage. This is a mannered novel with a modern, surreal twist. Bennett manages to capture a more fully realized plot than many authors are able to do in much longer novels. Respected for his talents as a playwright, Bennett's little gem deserves as much acclaim.

Writers could take a lesson in how to write an entire sensitive and insightful saga complete with mystery, humor, drama and intrigue in the tiniest volume ever -- found my self laughing out loud and unable to lay it down til I had finished -- darn! wanted to make it last. Like British humor? Like great word pictures? You'll like this just fine.

I have sometimes thought that if a tornado destroyed all my possessions, I would not be entirely sorry. Never before have so many people had the opportunity to realize how burdensome belongings can be. People sometimes find themselves the bewildered inheritors of collections of valuable things that they don't want and can't figure out how to get rid of gracefully. For this reason, parts of this novella resonate powerfully with me. The Ransomes come home to find that everything in their flat, (including the oven and casserole warming in it) has been stolen. The likable and sweet-natured wife, Rosemary, finds a sense of liberation in this unasked-for opportunity to rethink her life. The thread of her thoughts as she reconstructs her life, feeling a certain relief at the loss of some things and a certain dismay at the return of everything, is the very best part of the novel.

Unfortunately, the story goes downhill from this intriguing beginning. The book, outside of Rosemary's musings, becomes very contrived, silly, cliched and dull. For such a short book, there is an amazing amount of extraneous and tedious detail: the caretaker's night school, the trip to the Aylesbury, bowel movements, etc. Social trends in the UK and the US don't necessarily move in lockstep, of course, but this book feels like something from the 1970s. Rosemary in particular seems to have stepped through a time warp: more a timeless stereotype of a sixtyish woman than a plausible woman born around 1940 and growing up after World War II. At one point Bennett even intrudes into the narrative to explain his theme, just in case the reader hasn't managed to figure it out.

This explanation is the worst of the book: "... what he is being condemned for here is for not having got out of his shell ... ." What is it to me or to anyone if he hasn't? Why bother joining Busybody Bennett in standing in judgement over Maurice Ransome or anyone like him? If a cranky misanthrope has the grace to be a recluse, who is being bothered by him? He strikes me as an undesirable husband, but Rosemary seems to cherish some affection for him and if she doesn't, well it's not like divorce isn't pretty common these days. I could understand it if Bennett had turned his ire against Paloma, that aggressive evangelist of rigidity who was behind the bizarre burglary. (I have just had a vision of the relentless Hyacinth Bucket, arrogant meddler par excellence of the British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances" adding the Ransomes to her list of persons to be bullied and terrorized into her vision of a well-led life.) Alas, real life is full of people who intrude on others, even complete strangers, with unsolicited advice on how to cease being oneself and become more like the unwanted advisor. Those who do it in the name of freedom and individualism never do seem to get the irony.

I first read this story back in 1996, when it appeared in the London Review of Books and was somewhat surprised to see it as a tiny book some five years later! Let me just say at the outset that it's well designed, but small, and should cost about half of what it does. With dry British satire, Playwright Bennett recounts the story of the Ransomes, who return from the opera to find their flat stripped totally bare--even the wires are clipped flush with the wall. They are middle-aged, middle-class, childless, and totally fail to connect with each other. Life has obviously been quite empty for both of them as they have their little routines (hers seem to revolve around pleasing him), but no friends or family. Once the shock of the bizarre burglary wears off, they must attempt reinvent their home from scratch. Fortunately this does not become a new agey lesson on how our possessions actually possess us, but rather a fable about starting over. Mr. Ransome looks to recreate his previous existence (albeit with higher-end stereo equipment), while Mrs. Ransome is forced to frequent daring new shops (a Pakistani grocer's, a thrift shop!). As she takes these small steps into the broader world, she is reawakened to life's possibilities. The bizarre mystery of the theft is finally revealed, and things end happily, if rather predictably. A neat little tale that takes about an hour to read--shame the publisher so wildly overpriced it.

Yet another masterpiece from Bennett, this time the victims of his seditious satire are Rosemary and Maurice Ransome, a
middle-aged, middle-class, childless couple who are gradually drifting apart from each other in a long-term emotional
withdrawal. Their lives are governed by order and routine with the one remaining ember of passion between them lying in
Maurice's love of Mozart. This escapism from the reality of each other is shattered one evening as they return from the opera to
discover that they have been burgled, not just a smash-and-grab but instead everything has been taken, right down to the
insurance policy! As they gradually attempt to restore some semblance of order to their lives, Maurice discovers further
fulfilment in the new hi-tech CD players he could buy to improve the quality of his Mozart. Rosemary undergoes something of a
cultural revolution with visits to the local Pakistani grocer shop and the occasional venture into a "thrift shop". In a startling climax, Rosemary discovers the motive behind the theft and Maurice finds his inner-self awakened but in the most unpleasant of circumstances. Bennett's perspective on those around him and the foundations of middle-England are ruthlessly portrayed here in what is one the one hand a wonderful social comment and, on the other, an familiarly disenchanted critique. The precision with which Bennett selects his characters and provides us with the ammunition to assassinate them is remarkable, there is not a word wasted or thought used to excess, stunning.

The Clothes They Stood Up In is British playwright Alan Bennett's (author of the play The Madness of George III and later screenplay The Madness of King George) first novel.

The story revolves around the Ransomes, a reclusive and childless middle age couple who are living out their isolated lives in "an Edwardian block of flats the color of ox blood" known as Naseby Mansions. One evening, after returning from a production of Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte", they find that their flat has been burgled, leaving it devoid of every single item that the Ransomes have accumulated in their life together, much of which had been of little use at all anyway.

Faced with what would seem to be a devastating situation, the Ransomes in fact adapt to the situation as though it had been a blessing, and begin to rebuild their lives anew.

It was at this point that I began to suspect that the main underling motive of the work was to serve as a critique of our modern materialistic culture, but then Bennett added an interesting twist. Based on a query from a storage company, the Ransomes undertake an impromptu expedition to a storage facility, where, to their surprise--but indignation, rage, or even dismay--they find their stolen property. Oddly, not only did they find all of their possessions, these possessions were arranged exactly as they had been in their flat; moreover, somebody by the name of Martin had made himself quite at home, apparently ignorant to the fact that everything about him was stolen. In fact, he--and his lover--made himself more than just at home, which after the Ransomes have their possessions restored to them, is key to how the story plays itself out.

I have to say that the story proceeds along from this point in an interesting manner, although the ending in my opinion is somewhat indicative of the author's uncertainty as to how this off-beat tale should be resolved. This is of little consequence really, when one comes to think of it--the story, although possessing a certain degree social commentary, can easily be read superficially as a means of passing a few spare hours. Be forewarned: the format of this book is small, being smaller that the standard pocketbook and its stated length of 161 pp. is deceptive; the average word-per-page is much less than what one expects. For this reason, The Clothes They Stood Up In should really be considered a novella.

Although not an overly impressive book, The Clothes They Stood Up In will provide the reader with a few hours of casual entertainment while not being excessive mind-numbing and/or pathetic.

I personally did not like this book. I personally do not like Bennett's works in general. That aside, this work was well written.

To those who are familiar with the tendencies in Bennett's plays and works for films.... the themes to be found in this book shall come as no surprise. British snootiness, clashes between generations and their values, clashes between the sexes, nationalism, sex humor, and bathroom humor are once again in Bennett's work.

The Ransome's return home from a night of listening to Mozart to find their home completely empty... toilet paper and all. During this time, they find themselves of having to get things to reidentify themselves. But along with the purchase of these things comes the questions... who do I really want to be and what do I want to be characterized by? At least these questions plague Mrs. Ransome as she runs across foreign stores that she would have never considered before. The book delves deeply into the awakening of identity of Mrs. Ransome and the resistance she meets from her husband.

This is one of Bennett's more interesting and solemn works. Though not a great in literature, it does capture a snapshot of British life in an age of transition.

Crazy James