The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $9.95
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 252437
Media: Paperback
Edition: Random Hou
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0812966430
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780812966435
ASIN: 0812966430
Publication Date: September 10, 2002
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Product Description
From Alan Bennett, the author of The Madness of King George, come two stories about the strange nature of possessions...or the lack of them. In the nationally bestselling novel The Clothes They Stood Up In, the staid Ransomes return from the opera to find their Regent’s Park flat stripped bare—right down to the toilet-paper roll. Free of all their earthly belongings, the couple faces a perplexing question: Who are they without the things they’ve spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly a world of unlimited, frightening possibility opens up before them.
In “The Lady in the Van,” which The Village Voice called “one of the finest bursts of comic writing the twentieth century has produced,” Bennett recounts the strange life of Miss Shepherd, a London eccentric who parked her van (overstuffed with decades’ worth of old clothes, oozing batteries, and kitchen utensils still in their original packaging) in the author’s driveway for more than fifteen years. A mesmerizing portrait of an outsider with an acquisitive taste and an indomitable spirit, this biographical essay is drawn with equal parts fascination and compassion.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 So many insights! April 27, 2008
A. Campbell (Naples, FL, USA)
Alan Bennett's style is like eating a box of candy ... every page has a wonderful surprise. The story about the Lady in the Van was so compassionate, funny, and sad all at once. I loved both stories.
 Brilliantly Funny January 20, 2008
Sawadee Reader (Riverside, CA)
Alan Bennett is fantastic. The writing is funny and smart, and the characters stay in your head.
Mother wit October 2, 2007
Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author's introduction clarifies that 'The Lady in the Van', Miss Shepherd, saw herself as a member of the middle class, no matter what she wore and had. This calls to mind the upper class designation of the Big and Little Edies Bouvier, the women in GREY GARDENS.
THE CLOTHES THEY STOOD UP IN, the first piece of the volume, concerns a couple, Rosemary and Maurice Ransome, victimized by burglars, remaining together through his love of Mozart. In replacing household items, Mrs. Ransome developed a zest for shopping. An interesting point is that the Ransomes are provided with the services of a burglary counselor. Events take an unanticipated turn. Really, details pile up and an absurd scenario is disclosed to the reader. Marriage is a sort of parenthesis it is stated. This is droll in the extreme.
'The Lady in the Van' presents another sort of mystery wherein the writer befriends a near bag lady. This tale covers a span of twenty years. Miss Shepherd, the lady, claimed she had always been in the transport line. Giving Miss Shepherd sanctuary in his garden, Bennett's arrangement for the storage of her van and domicile lasted for fifteen years. Cables ran from Bennett's house to give Miss Shepherd light and heating. She was not part of the desperate poor by her own estimation. When she had the flu. Bennett shopped for her. Being parked in Bennett's garden, Miss Shepherd could qualify for full social security payments since she had an address. The account is very funny and very sad. Near the end, suffering from illness and quite aged, Miss Shepherd attended a day center. Following her death, the author visited her brother.
Alan Bennett's text causes the reader to think of a novel by Doris Lessing describing an elderly charity case. In addition there are similarities between Bennett's work and the stories of Joseph Mitchell detailing the lives of eccentric characters encountered by him in New York City that appeared in THE NEW YORKER. The comparisons here are meant to cast Bennett's work in a positive light. It is hard to imagine that anyone would not enjoy Bennett's sparkling pieces.
Wonderful writer July 1, 2007
J. Baybusky (Staten Island, NY)
Everything I have ever read by Alan Bennett is wonderful and this book is no exception.
The Meaning of Material Things April 2, 2006
Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana)
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
There are two stories in this slim package, both dealing with people’s relationships with their possessions.
In the first, Mr. and Mrs. Ransome return from the opera to find their flat totally empty. The casserole has disappeared along with the oven, and even the toilet paper’s gone. Mr. Ransome mostly misses his stereo equipment (and of course the toilet paper) but cheers up when he remembers that he can upgrade his technology with the insurance refund.
Mrs. Ransome quickly gets over her shock, and begins shopping for the bare essentials to tide them over until the insurance cheque arrives. During this exercise, she rediscovers the simple things and learns that life without all her accumulated baggage isn’t that bad after all.
When the mystery is revealed, Mrs. Ransome has a whole new outlook on life, and although her husband has also changed, he hasn’t evolved as much as she has. This is a story with some very funny bits, but also with some important messages for all of us.
The other (shorter) story is about an eccentric woman who makes her home in a van, surrounded by everything she owns. Also very funny, it is so rich in description that your nose turns up whenever the author takes you inside the van.
If you’re looking for an entertaining read, and don’t feel like tackling a whole book, this one is highly recommended.
Amanda Richards, April 1, 2006
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