The Laying on of Hands [Import] [Hardcover]

Alan BENNETT (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Profile Books; First edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861973748
• ISBN-13: 978-1861973740
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,445,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Bennett is a renowned playwright and essayist, a succession of whose plays have been staged at the Royal National Theatre and whose screenplay for The Madness of King George was nominated for an Academy Award. He made his first stage appearance with Beyond the Fringe and his latest play was The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith. Episodes from his award-winning Talking Heads series have been shown on PBS. His first novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, was published in 2000. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Subversively Funny Send-up, May 6, 2007

By 

Clifton Snider (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Laying On of Hands: Stories (Paperback)

The title story of Alan Bennett's "The Laying on of Hands," a novella that takes up half the book of three stories, demonstrates the playwright's sparkling versatility as a writer.

Anyone who has seen or read Bennett's recent Tony-award-winning play, "The History Boys," will appreciate the more subtle humor of "The Laying on of Hands," the focus of which is a memorial service for a highly attractive, skillful, and young (dead at age 34) masseur conducted by a High Anglican priest who, like most of those attending the service, has enjoyed the virile masseur's services, albeit without the knowledge of the others.

Among the attendees is wide selection of mourners, including many of England's wealthy and famous, male and female, a "version of England," as it were. Add a self-righteous Archdeacon, there to report on the conduct of Father Geoffrey Jolliffe, who is conducting the service, and you have the ingredients for a smart, subversive dark comedy revolving around the question of "What did he die of?"

To supply the answer would spoil the story. Read it and enjoy it; then read and see the movie version, available on DVD, of "The History Boys" if you haven't already.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic from a Master, November 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Laying On of Hands: Stories (Hardcover)

Alan Bennett is the classiest act in literature. His personal style--wry, self-effacing--shades his writing, which manages to be delicate, ironic, and hysterically funny all at once. The title story is destined to be a classic, and if you loved "The Clothes They Stood Up In," it's sure to be something you read and reread. It's genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, and it's quite astonishing how a seemingly lightweight take about the death of an ambisexual masseur can hone in on people's hopes and fears without ever becoming less than a breathtaking feat. The second, also more a novella than a shirt story, is less impressive but still very funny, sexy, and also sweet. The last is the least compelling--the prat of a protagonist makes it rough going--but this is the shortest of the lot by far. And the first take alone is well worth the price.