A Lady of Letters - A monologue from Talking Heads

by Alan Bennett

در نمایشنامه نامه‌نویس با دوشیزه راداک آشنا می‌شویم که فردی معمولی و میانسال است. مشغله او دیدن خطاهای شهر و مردم و گزارش دادن آنها خطاها به مسئولان است. روزی در مراسم تدفین یکی از آشنایان، در مرکز برگزاری مراسم مرده‌سوزی، کارکنان مرکز را مشاهده می‌کند که دخانیات مصرف می‌کنند پس بلافاصله به مرکز نامه‌ای می‌نویسد و ماجرا را به اطلاع آنها می‌رساند. روز دیگری با دیدن استفاده نادرست از ثروت و منابع عمومی به اسقف نامه اعتراض‌آمیز می‌نویسد. وقتی اسقف پاسخ می‌دهدو در صدد جوابگویی به نامه اسقف برمی‌آید. او آن قدر به این نامه‌نگاری‌ها ادامه می‌دهد تا مسئولان برای رهایی از نامه‌هایش تصمیم به تبعید او می‌گیرند.
این نمایشنامه به صورت تک‌گویی برای تلویزیون بی‌بی‌سی نوشته شده است و اولین بار در سال ۱۹۸۷ پخش شد.

Genres: Plays, Drama

21 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Alan Bennett is an English author and Tony Award-winning playwright. Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are also widely enjoyed.

Reviews

[Petra another adventure-Azerbaijan tomorrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can watch this play, a monologue, here. If you do,perhaps not read my review until you've formed your own opinion.

Before there were trolls, there were poison pen letter writers. Irene Ruddock is one. She's a lonely woman, not young, never had a relationship, never had a friend, doesn't work and despises the idea of church. She's driven by two emotions, a great desire for any form of human contact and bitterness to those who are happy in ways that she can only observe, but never participate in. She doesn't want to be invisible, she wants people to acknowledge her, and she wants power to affect things, anything.

She writes letters to this company and that one, to the mayor, to the police, to the governmentand evento the Queen. She writes about bad service, cracked pavements, people smoking, anything is grist to her mill. And she treasures the replies she gets, believing they care and are grateful to her for having brought their attention to the issue. She writes to husbands about how their wives are whores, she writes to the police about a man who she says is a child molester. She gets caught and given a suspended sentence.

The council sends her a couple of social workers who try and expand her world with suggestions of clubs and activities, therapy for her loneliness. But she won't have it. One of them suggests reading novels to take her out of herself. She says about them,

"They don't ring true. I mean when someone in a novel says something like, "Trains never crash," or "I've never been in an aircrash," you know this means that five minutes later they will be. In stories saying it, brings it on. So if you get the heroine saying, "I shall never be happy," you can bank on it, there's happiness just around the corner. That's the rule in novels. But in life, you can say you will never be happy and you never are happy, saying it doesn't make a ha'porth of difference. That's the real rule in life."

She can't stop writing letters for long. She writes horrific things about child neglect to the council, the police and even to the parents who go out every night leaving their little 5 year old alone. But they are visiting him in hospital, and when he dies of leukemia, they go to the police and she is sent to prison.

This is utopia! A structured day with things to do, skills to learn, crafts to make, people to talk to even if they do make fun of her, people to connect to - holding the hand of her cellmate who screams in the night remembering how she murdered her baby. She says, she has never been so happy.

Day release, then a half-way house and a job as a secretary are envisioned for her. She sees a future of workmates, companionship, a job with status in front of her. But it won't last. She is too eccentric, her personality is unloveable, she doesn't really think of other people, she wants them to think of her, she will never fit in. Will she go back to writing letters behind her lace-curtains where no-one even wants to look in?

Do internet trolls ineffectual and passive-aggressive in real life not hide behind their computer screens? The pen exchanged for the keyboard, they lash out with their carefully-worded bitterness that they cannot be like you, they want to bring you down to their level. And it isn't true that only sticks and stones hurt, that words will never hurt you. That's their power and they know it.

In the last Alan Bennett I read, Bed Among the Lentils, the ending was similar. There had been no real change in Susan's life, would she be able to resist the bottle again? Is Bennett a pessimist with these implied unhappy futures, these nothing is solved, the play was just a moment in time in their lives?

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many emotions come to play in this, A LADY OF LETTERS monologue.

Irene, Miss Ruddock is a sad and lonely middle-aged soul since her mother passed away. She has no friends or social life, but she does read the paper, drink her tea and spy on her neighbors....or anyone else she sees out her window.

And, as she observes and assesses, she writes letters....lots and lots of letters, mostly to complain about things that bug her or to report what she believes will right a wrong. She even gives praise from time to time. She'll write about anything and everything....to anyone, with her beloved gifted pen from mother.

Not all her letters go unnoticed. She receives many responses, a warning from one recipient and a heartbreaking shock from another that results in a new regimented lifestyle.

And, oh boy, Irene is so busy now, she hardly has time to write in her diary. She has learned to type like the wind, sew dresses and bind books. She has so many new friends, even a roommate; makes people laugh and even comforts others in their time of need. Happiness!

(Thank you Goodread's friend Petra-X for the link to watch and listen as I read.)

[Mahsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب کوتاه مترویی.
خانم رادوک (دوست نداره ایرنه صداش کنن:) عاشق نامه‌نوشتن به سازمان‌ها، به بهونه‌های مختلف، برای دفاع از حق و حقوق آدم‌هاست. اما گاهی زیاده‌روی می‌کنه، قضاوت می‌کنه، اشتباه می‌کنه.
این همه نامه‌ و این همه شکایت و اعتراض براش گرون تموم می‌شه، اما دست برنمی‌داره و قانون اون رو به زندگی جدیدی دعوت می‌کنه. زندگی‌ای که عاشقش می‌شه و ملال زندگیش رو به آزادی تبدیل می‌کنه.

[Plum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this the first time I experienced it, and I loved it again, decades on.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very first monologue I have read it was interesting I love the unexpected twits and turns in it. It is such a simple idea but captivates you to want to read on.

[Aryan.Sh7 · Rating 4 out of 5]

-دادگاه شما رو ملزم به حفظ آرامش می‌کنه
-من نمی‌تونم حفظ آرامش کنم اونم وقتی جلوی چشمم ظلم و بی توجهی اتفاق می‌افته. وقتی بچه در حال رنج کشیدنه من چطور می‌تونم حفظ آرامش کنم؟

[Atena | آتنا · Rating 4 out of 5]

من حرفشو و قیچی کردم و گفتم اگه اومدین این جا تا از خدا بگین باید بگم قبری که دارین براش فاتحه می خونین خالیه. وقتی دوشیزه باشی، توقع ندارن بی دین هم باشی‌.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

تاریکی.
نور می آید.صبح است.