The Uncommon Reader

“The Queen hesitated, because to tell the truth she wasn’t sure. She’d never taken much interest in reading. It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn’t have hobbies. […] Hobbies involved preferences and preferences had to be avoided; preferences excluded people. One had no preferences. Her job was to take an interest, not to be interested herself.”

A critical aspect of the Queen’s character is her commitment to her royal duties, which take preference over things she might be interested in. The Queen is already in her late 70s when the novella begins, meaning that whatever changes come about in the Queen’s personality, they are to long-held beliefs and values about what “her job” constitutes.

“Novels seldom came as well-connected as this and the Queen felt correspondingly reassured, so it was with some confidence that she gave the book to Mr. Hutchings to be stamped.”

As a reader who does not really enjoy (or know how to enjoy) reading, the Queen has difficulty when she is tasked with choosing a book at the traveling library. She is only able to choose a book that is “well-connected,” so her entry into reading literature is through the same framework with which she has lived her life thus far. Eventually, this view shifts completely, reflecting both a change in the Queen’s reading habits as well as a change in her perspective.

“The Queen, though, might have been less pleased had she known that Norman was unaffected by her because she seemed to him so ancient, her royalty obliterated by her seniority.”

An underlying thread of the plot depicts how others view the Queen, with particular concern regarding her age. Her “seniority” causes her to be misjudged by many of the staff in the palace. This is an important commentary on the ways that modern society perceives and treats the elderly.