Does anyone not like Alan Bennet?

Every reader brings a different perspective to bear upon a text, and few writers can accommodate them all. But if any deserves the epithet 'universally edifying' then it is surely Alan Bennet.

Whilst it is commonly said of the greatest authors that they are often the most divisive, the seventy-five year old play-write whose latest production 'The Habit of Art' is now showing at the National Theatre, appears to unite in admiration those of even the most opposed literary tastes.

What is it about the aging wordsmith from Leeds that is so appealing?

A candid interview last week with the BBC's Mark Lawson, in anticipation of the play's opening, reminded viewers that in spite of Bennet's myriad successes and assured reputation, he is still a writer much perplexed (troubled even) by the human condition.

Sitting on a spacious window-side balcony overlooking the London Embankment - a man who has won plaudits from around the world - Bennet still pauses timidly before addressing the obviously benign lines of inquiry, clearly vexed by the circumstances and happenstances that have made up his life.

What distinguishes Bennet from other literary giants of the age is his unbreakable humility. He is in many ways the antithesis of Martin Amis, whose coruscating wit and verbal flare can leave readers feeling berated. Bennet, by contrast, is slow and methodical. He never rushes to assert his case, and never more than touches on a conclusion. It is hard to imagine him having an argument.

If he appears to have not the least bit aged over the last ten years, it is perhaps more because he always had the tentative nature of an elderly man, rather than because he has retained a youthful vitality. Bennet appears calm and wistful - a man who has lost the capacity for embarrassment, and whose measured radicalism (he wishes New Labour had had the courage to do away with private 6th form education) has in fact only hardened with time.

It occasionally irks us when a face that ordinarily cowers from the limelight reappears merely to tell us to go and see his or her latest pic or production, but it is impossible not to feel deeply moved by Alan Bennet's attempts to disentangle the messier parts of life. Impossible not to feel that, however commercially-timed his return to our screens is, this man matters, so we should give him the time.