Library Director’s Notebook
August, 2013
Recently there has been a spate of imaginative writing about Queen Elizabeth II. The film The Queen with Helen Mirren as well as the book The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett come to mind, as does the recent telecast of the successful London production of The Audience, also staring Helen Mirren as the Queen. Remarkably, for such a very public and therefore possibly divisive figure, all of these fictional takes on the Queen have been for the most part positive, and at times even affectionate.
The recent novel by William Kuhn entitled Mrs. Queen Takes the Train is no exception to this trend. In this novel Queen Elizabeth, well in her ‘80’s, appears, as do many of her contemporaries , to be suffering from a mild bout of depression, perhaps even the forerunner of mild dementia. She reflects on her life and her role in British society, wondering if she is indeed a useless antiquity and if the whole idea of monarchy is a waste of time and money.
With these thoughts roiling around in her brain, the Queen takes an unprecedented, certainly unplanned step. She takes off from Buckingham Palace disguised in a borrowed “hoodie” to try to make her way to The Britannia, the royal yacht she once loved, that has been decommissioned and turned into a tourist attraction. In her flight she seems to be channeling Audrey Hepburn in the movie Roman Holiday when Audrey, as the frustrated princess, runs away for a night from her royal life to see what “real” people are like.
The Queen is often confused and startled by the life going on around her. Yet she does not falter or fail and instead comes to form several brief but touching friendships with the people she meets, all of whom fail to recognize her. Meanwhile her personal staff at the palace, discovering her disappearance, are in a total frenzy trying to find her. Her trusted dresser, lady-in-waiting, equerry, butler, and even a young girl from her stables try to find the Queen before the rest of the nation knows she is missing. Along the way the Queen reflects on her own life and her own prejudices and lack of knowledge about the problems of others; while those who pursue her come to their own life changing conclusions about forgiveness, duty, and love.
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train is a delightful book and one that brings real pleasure while perhaps raising a few tentative theories about the role of royalty and the importance of compassion and self-acceptance. Although a work of fiction, I imagine even the Queen herself if she read this book would not be displeased.
