The Clothes They Stood Up In & The Lady in the Van

by Alan Bennett

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.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Humor, British Literature, Novella, Book Club, Adult

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2002

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

[Kwoomac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two stories, one fiction, one nonfiction. Both deal with our attachment to and need for stuff in our lives. Both told in a funny, poignant way. I really enjoy Bennett's voice.

A movie version of The Lady In The Van is coming out in November, 2015, starring Maggie Smith. Can't wait!

[Tara Charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two charming stories!

"...they were deprived of everything they had in the world, except that it was everything they had in the world, she felt, that had been holding her back."

The first story, The Clothes They Stood Up In, was forgettable but enjoyable. The writing may not be for everyone, but it was for me. With a dry, observational humor, I was even laughing aloud at moments.


"There was a gap between our social position and our social obligations. It was in this gap that Miss Shepherd (in her van) was able to live."

The second story, The Lady in the Van, was the reason I picked up the book after seeing the movie adaptation of the same name back in 2015. The story is based on a series of real interactions between Alan Bennett and the titular character. As I was reading, I found myself constantly thinking about Maggie Smith's beautiful and empathetic performance as Miss Shepherd. Alan Bennett wrote the screenplay as well, so for this one (for once) I say just watch the film!

[Sharon Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two short stories. The first one was just so very bland. The second one, The Lady in the Van...well, this is the first time I have ever said (written?) that the movie was better than the book. Much better.

[Angela Belt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The epitome of slight. Slight concept. Slight narrative. Slight impact.

[Jennifer Worrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked The Lady in the Van, and the unexpectedly touching outcome. However, since losing my copy of The Clothes They Stood Up In, I was most excited to give it another read, a good decade since the first. It was as close to perfection as I remember, with no emotional stone left unturned.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw the film of the book over Christmas and wanted to see if the book was as funny in a sad sort of way. It was! The lady of the title, Mrs Shepherd is neither married or from the Shepherd family, wonderfully eccentric, sadly homeless except for various vehicles and contrary to a fault. Bennet’s observations are insightful and he is incredibly patient and kind to her impositions. Delightful book but equally and ultimately sad.

[WndyJW · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a rich novella about a repressed, long married, oh-so proper couple who come home from the opera to find their apt completely emptied of everything they own and the effect it has on them. The story is told with a light touch and gentle humor, but it does make one think...
highly recommended.

[Donna LaValley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first story is fiction with interesting although stereotypical characters (that's okay; it never purports to be Great Literature) and an original, well-paced plot. The author is a playwright, and the reader can see how well this story would be done on stage. It was humorous and surprising, as the reader doesn't know where the next plot point will come from. The mystery of the odd, dastardly-thorough theft is solved in the end, and the couple, both stodgy English, sadly sexually repressed and dreary, each find their lives changed greatly after The Restoration. There is macabre humor for one, whose greatest enjoyment in the past becomes something like torture. I'd have given this 3 or 4 stars.

However, the second "story" is a non-fiction account of the author's relationship with a disagreeable, selfish, and increasingly filthy older woman. It's later determined that she was known to have mental "issues" and other problems. However, the author allows her (under what he hopes will be seen as charity) to first live in his garden shed, and then allows her to park her van in his front yard ... for 15 years. Although she sometimes says amusing things and reveals some charm as an eccentric character, there she is, annoying anyone who goes to the author's front door, throwing used toilet paper and dirty adult diapers out her van's door, and, as the author frequently asserts, the smell of her person and her van is a stench altogether unbearable.

Why would someone allow this dysfunctional, sad, smelly, difficult, elderly person to create blight in his front yard for so long? Was it because he grew fond of her personally? No, if that were true, he'd have taken her into his home and seen that she received the care she so obviously needed. I think the answer is, he kept her for "material" for this story and for the columns he published, in which he sometimes quoted her. Anyone reading this will suspect I'm way overboard, but I can put you in touch with many a person who has dated or married a serious writer and they will attest to a writer's ability to justify almost anything for good material. Sometimes, nothing is too sacred not - one's most intimate moments, nor the slow degradation of another, helpless, human being.

I would give "The Lady in the Van" no stars, and therefore my 2-star rating is an average for the 2 pieces.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always a pleasure to read Alan Bennett's gentle, understated humor. Not that there weren't laugh out loud moments (one, embarrassingly, while I was in my doctor's crowded waiting room.)
Bennett's satires, including this and The Uncommon Reader, among others, contrast strongly with the more biting, bludgeon-like satires of Tom Sharpe, but there will always be place on my shelf for all their works.
Bennett is perhaps better known as a playwright. The History Boys, in both its theater and film form, is a favorite of mine. He wrote, among many other plays, The Madness of George III.
The other work in this book, The Lady in the Van, is a poignant true story of a mentally ill older woman who lives in a van she has parked outside Bennett's Camden Town house. He allows her to move the van into his driveway, where she stays for well over a decade. It is a touching story, and an interesting counterweight to the novella The Clothes They Stood Up In, which opens the book.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bennett is a British writer and a master of subtle irony, insight, and wit. I truly enjoyed reading these two short stories. The first one, The Clothes They Stood Up In is fiction and questions how important our possessions are. How they define us and our relationship to all the items we pack in our homes and lives.



The second story, The Lady in the Van is superb. Bennett becomes acquainted with an older woman who is living out of her van near his home. He is concerned about her and she eventually comes to park her van (it no longer runs) in his garden where she lives for many years. She is highly eccentric and private. The story includes several vignettes of Bennett’s conversations and observations of her. It is ironic that he almost learns more about her after her death (from a visit to her brother) than he did in all the time she lived in his garden.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 The first story "The Clothes" had a very likable woman as the main character, her husband not so much. Loved the tongue in cheek writing, Bennett is so good at that. Loved the message behind this one which would be a spoiler so I cannot share it. The second is actually a true story, and as stated in the introduction the woman is not very likable, though at times I felt very sorry for her. Anyway these are very easy stories to read and I liked them but than again I tend to like evverything this author writes.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story is witty, funny, original. It could almost be a screenplay. The second is true, and also funny, but with the absurd hilarity involved when people are a bit crazy. They both deal with the topic of material possessions, and what they should or shouldn't mean to us.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw that the second story in this double feature has been adapted into a film starring Maggie Smith. Based on that, and my love of Bennett's wonderful book "The Uncommon Reader," I guess my expectations were too high. I found each story only mildly amusing.

[Frank Hoppe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Clothes The Stood Up in is a wonderful story about a married couple, well set in their ways, who return home to their flat to find it completely empty. The collection also contains The Lady in the Van, an excerpt from Bennett's memoir, rich with the wry empathy Bennett is so good at.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van” by the British writer Alan Bennett contains two separate works, one fiction and the other one more or less nonfiction. It’s the fiction one, “The Clothes They Stood Up In,” that I’m going to talk about in this review.

Basically, “The Clothes They Stood Up In” is a novella about the Ransomes, a somewhat stuffy, middle to upper middle class couple, who return home one evening to find that they’ve been burglarized. And as it turns out, the burglary is not an ordinary burglary. The thieves haven’t just taken the jewelry, the electronics, and other potential items of value. No, these thieves have taken everything. There’s even a mention that they took the little loops that hold up the curtains. And it’s the oddness of this burglary that ultimately acts as a force for change in the lives of this couple.

Well, sort of. Because Mr. Ransome doesn’t actually change all that much, or really at all. As a solicitor, his main concern is with the crime that has occurred: he wants the criminals captured and the stolen items returned. Mrs. Ransome, on the other hand, is tasked with repopulating their flat with new items, and as she works to cobble together a new living space, both the shopping itself and the objects she buys begin to have an affect on her.

For example, she buys a television set and begins to watch daytime TV programming, and the sheer graphic nature of it, the fact that people are willing to go on talk shows and reveal to the world their deepest, darkest secrets, even secrets about their sexual lives, causes her to rethink her own reserved and private nature. And then there are the chairs she buys, which aren’t terribly stylish, but are actually, heaven forbid, comfortable.

Anyway, that’s the basic plot. As far as the writing goes, it’s really quite delightful, and is filled with irony and wit and a lot of other British things. What’s also impressive is how deftly Bennett moves from scene to scene and character to character without any real break in the story. Everything just flows from one thing to another, while at the same time building toward a muted but brilliant climax.

So if you’ve got yourself a little time, really only two or three hours, I recommend filling it with this little gem, “The Clothes They Stood Up In."

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stars for The Clothes They Stood Up In, and five stars for the The Lady in the Van.

It's interesting how Bennett's fiction differs so greatly from his more essayist/memoirist style in the latter story. I suppose my preference shows in my rating.

Because I watched the 2015 film adaptation of The Lady in the Van, I couldn't help but impose my recollection of the film's cinematography and characters onto my reading of both stories. The Ransomes were, in my mind, embodied by the snooty couple that lived in the house across from Bennett's in the film. And perhaps The Lady in the Van read so much more richly because the film had stayed so close to it.

The story of the Ransomes felt a bit cartoonish, though quite fun to read with lots of quirky moments and funny supporting characters. It helps to remember the weight of the story falls less on the robbery than on the effect it has on Mrs Ransome's outlook on her life and marriage.

The Lady in the Van grabbed my by the heart and felt so very up-close and personal - perhaps because it's nonfiction, but also again perhaps because I saw the film and Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings are just so damn good in it and their portrayals guided my reading. In any case, I loved how Bennett writes so frankly of his own character in respect to Miss Shepherd, and how sharp his writing is. Miss Shepherd herself is so utterly wonderful, though I cannot truthfully answer that I would have been able to do what Bennett did for her.

I've now read three works by Alan Bennett this year and it's only the start of April. As much as I enjoyed The Uncommon Reader and The Clothes They Stood Up In, I'm now convinced that what I'm really after is Bennett's essays and, if possible, his diaries.

Happily, I've just discovered he's written at least three 600+ page volumes of essays: Writing Home, Untold Stories, and Keeping On, Keeping On. Thanks, Goodreads.

[Gina Rheault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two for one in this book:

The first part is quick and comic, mostly set in the now empty home of a burgled middle-class couple reads like a play. Details make it funny because you are reminded of all the funny little things, odd rituals, funny habit, little secrets, little notes and pictures one can accumulate in one's home. And it reminds you how times change and how easily you can be left in antiquity if you cling too closely to things that don't change: your old college books, sentimental clothes, wedding presents, and so on. A blessing it is to have children around to break them, perhaps? Quick and entertaining, like a good night out at old fashioned theater without leaving your house.

The second, "The Lady in the Van", is the basis for a movie of the same name. Its a series of journal entries about the true story of bag lady who lives in a van in the author's neighborhood and then in the author's yard, encroaching bit by bit over several decades until death clears everything away. I found it a little sad because the underlying story of many such eccentric single ladies who are deemed mad, and who die alone is the story of women who were not mad but lonely. And lonely because they were sometimes, how often I don't know, mis-diagnosed closet lesbians in an age that didn't allowed illicit lady passions to be imagined or to be acted upon. (See "Packed in a Trunk" and "Finding Vivian Maier"). For me this is a sad story which makes me think that one should look on the homeless and with compassion, as the author did. Double kudos to him for his kindness and for finding the good hearted humor to communicate the humanity in the life of Ms. Shepherd who lived in a van.

[Chris Witkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

To pick up an Alan Bennett book is to place yourself in the presence of a master. These two offerings examine brilliantly the nature of humans' attraction to acquire "stuff". The Clothes They Stood Up In, a novella, tells the story of the Ransomes, a middle aged couple who come home from the opera to discover their entire flat has been robbed - absolutely everything has been taken. At first shocked and traumatized, Mrs. Ransome gradually warms up to the idea of doing with less and, indeed, she relishes the opportunity to acquire some new possessions for a bargain. But when events takes another twist, Mrs. Ransome learns some very interesting things about herself.

The Lady in the Van is an exquisite essay about an elderly, eccentric, homeless woman, Mrs. S., who takes up residence in her van in Alan Bennett's backyard. Bennett writes with great humor and compassion about his quirky neighbor; that he allowed her to live in his yard for a number of years is amazing. What a kind man! And what a character Mrs. S. is. Bennett's prose paints a perfect picture of a woman who lived on the fringes of life and of the people who showed her unfailing kindness.

Two delightful tales.

[Marfita · Rating 3 out of 5]

It might not be a good time in my life to read something charming yet deadly. National Treasure Alan Bennett is a favorite of mine if only by way of other people doing impressions of him. Can't not love that; funny every time.
There are two novelettes/long stories in this edition, one of the middle-aged middle class couple who are burgled and the aftereffects - that are not all bad. Mr. Ransome can replace his stereo equipment with newer and better with the insurance money and Mrs. Ransome learns to see life differently. Mr. Ransome doesn't come off well in this story.
The story of Miss Shepherd and her life in a van in Bennett's yard is based on fact. He was reluctant to include some features or timing as the reader might find them over the top although true. It seems patently British to be unable to tell someone they can't live in a van in one's yard and prevail on one for errands and other help - and then not be shown gratitude - and have the situation continue for years and years. But at least he got some publication out of it, which Miss S. would have wanted. That was her payment and thanks.
I started this because I couldn't bear the Sandra Tsing Loh book - I used to like her stuff so much. I must have changed.

[Perlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

These two novellas are bookends about posessions and how conformity can comfort or suffocate us. Both are tinged with a large helping of sadness and dysfunction. In the first, it's the emotional equivalent of locked-in syndrome; in the second, the humor gave way to real mental illness. The author is a talented writer. Only after I finished the book did I realize he also wrote "The Madness of King George." This shed some light for me on the angle he finds intriguing -- that line between mundanity and sanity, a little "but aren't we all mad in our own way" kind of perspective. It was hard for me to get past that, especially in "The Lady in the Van".

[Jeanne Baker Stinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never watched "the lady in the van" after it became a movie but always thought I "should" so grabbed this when I saw it at a little free library.
Very British. Some hilarious parts. Some of it is quite dated, though, with a very masculine point of view for two "stories" (one true and taken from his diary) with lead female characters.
The idea of every singe thing you own being stolen was intriguing -- and I loved the reactions of everyone they told who downplayed it all -- including the police. This is one of those ideas that could become a "feel good" movie or even limited series based on the wife's adventures and growth. I wanted more from her without the weird sexual stuff...

[Meri McCoy-Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two stories. The first one is fiction, about a British couple who come home from the opera to have all their possessions disappear. As someone who feels a little too tied down by my possessions, I appreciated the wife's character growth without her possessions—something to ponder.


The second is a delightful nonfiction story made into a movie with Maggie Smith. I enjoyed this story mainly because I could hear and see Maggie in my head, acting out the character. It is so memorable, and she gives us a view of homelessness and mental illness through a lens we rarely have. I am grateful to Mr. Bennett for writing the book and the screenplay. So, I rounded up from 3.5 to 4 stars.

[Billie Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very British which makes the stories more matter of a fact and the response quite a bit different than one might see in the US to the situations presented. The introduction sets the reader to expect some enlightened thoughts on the relationship people have with their possessions, but unfortunately the stories are not that deep. Although I will say that in this case truth is stranger than fiction as if I had to guess which story was non-fiction I would have guessed wrong. A quick and easy read, but if you are not a fan of British writing you may want to pass.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had seen the movie, The Lady in the Van, and found it captivating. My brother gave me this book with two of Alan Bennett's stories, The Clothes They Stood Up In (a short novel) and The Lady in the Van (a story based on a real experience from the author's life). So glad to have discovered this beloved British storyteller. He writes with humor, pathos, and so much quirkiness. Loved this book! (As well as the movie, with Maggie Smith in the role of the Lady). Highly recommend

[Aaron Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is closer to a 4.5 but I gave it a 5. The pairing of the novella with the collection of notes is possibly the best match I have ever encountered. Neither of these stories is ground breaking or worth mention in a 5 star way on their own, but paired together the result is like a top shelf cocktail.

[SPE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming, smart, well written and compassionate

Alan Bennett is a treasure.

From The Clothes They Stood up IN

"Victims singled themselves out; be it burglary, mugging or road accidents, these mishaps were simply the means by which inadequate people came to her notice. And every body given the change had the potential to be inadequate."

[Maja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this book was pretty interesting but I liked the first story a lot better. The second was broken up into stories from every few months of the year and most of the stories just seemed unimportant. The first story was more interesting and the character growth and development was much better written. The second story had no character growth and only one character was properly described.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Clothes They Stood Up In was fabulous — inventive, funny, thoughtful. I’ll probably read it again, even though I’m not a re-reader.

But The Lady in the Van felt weird to me. Could’ve been a critique of the middle class, but instead felt like gawking at a poor and unwell woman. (We get it, she smells bad, no need to say it 15 separate times)

[Samb Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved these two tales! "Clothes"; an absolutely hilarious dissection of the mildly well-bred, with poignant moments - "Lady" the opposite; a poignant accounting of the lowest class struggle with moments of humor.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alan Bennett is THE best! His writing can brighten up any day. Brilliant, thoughtful, FUNNY, caring, socially conscious , questioning. Read him in the London Review, have seen his plays, movies, going today to buy latest book of his essays. Read this!