I have read this book before but I think I skipped the diaries as they made me feel so cast down. There is a downbeat note to them. A dying fall. I love his writing in that it's well structured and elegant, I seem to agree with his sentiments quite consistently, but the way he writes is not cheering. I feel as though my head has been buried in a vat of mud. He is brave though, in that he confronts, amongst other things, the awfulness of our old people's homes. His latest play is set in such a home and I think I should go and see it. Perhaps he has changed his mind about such places.
Untold Stories begins with an account of Bennett's mother's mental illness - delusions caused by depression. I suppose such a frank account is rare. My daughter is about to spend a year studying psychiatric illness and medicine and it is on the reading list supplied by the medical school. I think it will also help her to understand what kind of mindset older people may have: that is: they may not have travelled much, have very modest aspirations, be very suspicious of new and foreign things, and yet make a big deal of themselves, express strong pride in their family, their hometown, the people they know.
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