The Queen and I

by Sue Townsend

Book Overview

In the not-too-distant future, a radical government has come to power in Great Britain and the Royal family has been moved...to a housing estate in Leicester. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0939149974
• ISBN13: 9780939149971
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Dated now but still a gem

Reading this book in the Queen's Golden Jubilee Year is a little spooky in some respects. But even though the British Royal Family's circumstances have moved rather during the ten years since "The Queen and I" was written, and three of the characters portrayed here are no longer living, Sue Townsend's send-up of the British political scene and the nation's best-loved family remains a poignantly funny read.To really appreciate the genius of Ms Townsend's satire you will need to have at least a passing knowledge of British Royals and some of the scandals that dogged them in the early 1990s. Even without that knowledge, though, many parts of this book should have you helpless with laughter. It is all very silly and stereotyped, of course, but that just makes it all so much the funnier!

The greatest character-by-accent tape you will hear!

I heard the tapes a few years back and had to get them for myown. What a scream! Susan Townsend's text is wild enough, the audioversion will have you rolling on the floor. One of the few cases where the tapes really are the best part. I would encourage this as a gift for any devoted Anglophile, I can't wait for my copy!

This is an absolutely delightful book.

The novel concerns the Royal family, which must now life like ordinary citizens because of a change in government. From now on, they will live in council housing--two bedrooms, one bath--with no staff or servants of any kind. Now each will be addressed by their given names rather than by title. The Queen, Mrs. Windsor, at first is quite incapable of performing the simplest tasks. "[She] tried to open the door. It was extraordinarily difficult. True, it was years since she'd opened the front door of any house, but surely it had been easier than this?" Charles is the only one who is delighted since he will never have to be King. The novel is filled with misunderstandings and complications based on ignorance of even the most fundamental needs. "There's no lavatory paper, Lilibet," whispered the Queen Mother. "How does one obtain lavatory paper?" . . . "One has to buy it from a shop,"said Charles. There is no meanness in this satire, only lots of fun.

Different and Imaginative!

Put out "on the street" by the newly elected Prime Minister, the Royal Family can barely function in their search for food and heat. It is hilarious to "watch" them get into all kinds of silly situations as they try to make it in the "real world" with the rest of us peasants! Not much of anything on the Duke and Duchess of York, which is unfortunate, because I believe there is some real potential for humor there, but even the Queen's favorite corgi gets in some good laughs.

Very, very funny novel of British class differences

If you're familiar with Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole diaries (and you should be!), then you might think you know what to expect from this book: a realistic, bittersweet bit of fiction laced with humor galore taken from the most mundane situations. However, if you counted on that, you'd be wrong. In "The Queen and I," Townsend veers away from realism altogether. The premise is the Queen's nightmare - the members of Britain's royal family are declared common overnight. Previously sequestered away in luxury, they must adapt to modern working class conditions, and fast. In this context, realism must take second place to humor. Who cares how a blue-collar cockney would REALLY treat the Queen if he were to meet her, when Townsend can so cuttingly evoke their class differences with a few words of conversation, and reduce them both to laughingstocks in the process? (The Queen's upper-crust accent is so strong, her cockney neighbor thinks she's speaking a different language.) And so forth... A one-joke storyline? Sure. But if one topic is done right, it's sometimes all you need. Townsend is a wickedly funny observer of all the absurdities in the daily life of all humans, rich, poor and even royal. Ridiculing all it surveys, this quick escapist novel is intelligent and highly enjoyable