Arnold Bennett was born in a street called Hope Street. A street
less hopeful it would be hard to imagine.' Thus begins Margaret
Drabble's biography of a man whose most famous achievement was to
re-create, in such novels as The Old Wives' Tale and Clayhanger,
the life, atmosphere and character of the 'Five Towns' region in
which he was born and grew up. Arnold Bennett is a very personal
book. 'What interests me', writes the author, 'is Bennett's
background, his childhood and origins, for they are very similar to
my own. My mother's family came from the Potteries, and the Bennett
novels seem to me to portray a way of life that still existed when
I was a child, and indeed persists in certain areas. So like all
books this has been partly an act of self-exploration.' Of Bennett
as a writer Drabble says 'The best books I think are very fine
indeed, on the highest level, deeply moving, original and dealing
with material that I had never before encountered in fiction, but
only in life: I feel they have been underrated, and my response to
them is so constant, even after years of work on them and constant
re-readings, that I want to communicate enthusiasm.' Of Bennett as
a man she paints an affectionate portrait, not glossing over the
irritability, dyspepsia and rigidity which at times made him so
difficult a companion but reminding us too of his honesty,
kindliness and sensitivity. 'Many a time,' she writes at the end of
the book, 're-reading a novel, reading a letter or a piece of his
Journal, I have wanted to shake his hand, or to thank him, to say
well done. I have written this instead.
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