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The Autobiography of the Queen
by
Emma Tennant
Queen Elizabeth has gone AWOL from Balmoral and no one can find her. Where has she gone and why? This winsome, if unlikely, account of the Queen's disappearance, recounts the monarch's solo journey to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, to take possession of her recently purchased home in the idyllic-sounding Joli Estate. Here, after more than half a century on the throne,
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Hardcover
,
218 pages
Published
April 1st 2008
by Bliss Books
(first published April 1st 2007)
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Community Reviews
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The Autobiography of the Queen is the 46th novel by British author, Emma Tennant. When one annus horribilis seems to be following another for Her Majesty, what with kiss-and-tell scandals enveloping the family, the European Union insisting on laws that are unfriendly to the monarchy, the prospect of paying tax and losing land rights, she begin to feel she no longer has a part to play in her Empire. She decides to retire from the stresses and strains of life as the Nation’s Head, move to a house
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This was a short and sweet, but completely ridiculous (and I suspect, instantly forgettable), read, imagining the Queen chucking in her monarchy for the chance to retire to the Caribbean. It was quite enjoyable, and good for a laugh, although I did feel that it dragged a little (despite being only 217 pages long) and became a bit repetitive after half-way.
view 1 comment
Sep 17, 2013
Karen
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction
,
uk-and-ireland
I wanted to like this book. The idea that the Queen might desire to leave behind her royal responsibilities and retire to a tropical paradise is not outside the bounds of reason. We've all had fantasies, now and then, about changing our lives. And it makes sense that the Queen would be clueless about many of the particulars of navigating common life, since much of her life is planned--and the way smoothed--by others.
However, I found it unbelievable that she would up and leave without greater for ...more
However, I found it unbelievable that she would up and leave without greater for ...more
The Queen decides it's time e to retire from the throne and move to the Carribean. I came in expecting a fun and quick read and that's what I got. I laughed through most of it and really enjoyed it which is surprising as I don't really like humorous books. It was slightly repetitive but it could have been longer I'd more and different things happened during her time away.
I have never read any books by this author before but I thought that this storyline sounded interesting and a bit different. After reading previous reviews on this page I was quite intrigued by the plot. I have to say that I was hugely disappointed. I felt that the story started out quiet strong and I believed it would carry on in that way but it didn't. The Queen was portrayed as a forgetful old woman who knows nothing about real life and even manages to loose her passport and tickets. The othe
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Please see my detailed review at Amazon
Graceann's "Autobiography of the Queen" Review"
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It starts off really well, and then gets rather pathetic, I'm sorry to say. The premise is great - the Queen wants to escape and goes AWOL. In this story, however, she is a doddering old fool after a while, and the whole thing fell apart. Oh well. Back to the superb Alan Bennett and Sue Townsend....
Please click that the review was helpful to you at Amazon so that my rating continues to climb!
It starts off really well, and then gets rather pathetic, I'm sorry to say. The premise is great - the Queen wants to escape and goes AWOL. In this story, however, she is a doddering old fool after a while, and the whole thing fell apart. Oh well. Back to the superb Alan Bennett and Sue Townsend....
I chuckled a lot when I thought if it happens in real life :)))
This book was short - and extremely quick read with 3-4 page chapters. Tennant's prose was difficult for me to follow at times - I don't know if this is due to her writing, or due to my reading as an American (much of it was "proper" long-winded English/British-speak). Premise of the novel was cute, if not far-fetched; a fun little get-away read.
Mrs Tennant imagines how the Queen escapes to St. Lucia, naturally experiencing some unusual situations and meeting unusual people, from her (the Queen's) point of view. An agreeable, but not truly engrossing, gripping or surprising read. The book was a present, I would not have bought it myself.
a delightful read with surprisingly little dialog. With wry observations on what it would be like it the Queen decided she had enough and essentially ran away. And getting used to things such as being spoken to without speaking first. Fabulous.
First Sentence: "On a dull morning in September at her Scottish castle Balmoral, the Queen was packing an overnight bag."
Preposterous. But I suppose its better to be filled with incredulity rather than boredom in a 40 min train ride.
Preposterous. But I suppose its better to be filled with incredulity rather than boredom in a 40 min train ride.
Very much like
The Uncommon Reader
in tone and content - the style was pleasant but the presentation seemed a bit awkward and disjointed.
An absolutely fabulous idea for a book, but this one fell flat for me. I wish it could be written again... but better.
A rather bitty and sporadically amusing tale of a royal retirement gone wrong.
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Since the early 1970s, when she was in her mid-thirties, Emma Tennant has been a prolific novelist and has established herself as one of the leading British exponents of "new fiction." This does not mean that she is an imitator of either the French nouveaux romanciers or the American post-modernists, although her work reveals an indebtedness to the methods and preoccupations of some of the latter.
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