I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who

“I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.” — so spoke Monica Ali, herself a master of the written word, and in this saying there lies not only admiration for a fellow author, but a profound teaching about art, courage, and the sacred dialogue between writer and reader. These words are not mere praise; they are a call to a higher way of reading and of creating — a reminder that the truest works of art are not consumed, but entered, like temples of silence where meaning must be discovered rather than declared.

Beryl Bainbridge, whose pen carved shadows and light into the ordinary corners of English life, was a writer who understood the power of restraint, the holiness of the unsaid. In her works, words are not poured like water but placed like stones — each one purposeful, deliberate, leaving space for the reader’s own thought to flow between them. To read her once is to glimpse the surface of a lake at dusk; to read her thrice is to see what lies beneath — the reflections, the echoes, the ghosts of unspoken things. It is this demand for engagement, this invitation to think and feel deeply, that Monica Ali calls “courage.” For in an age that glorifies noise and explanation, to leave silence is an act of bravery.

Long ago, in the days of Socrates, wisdom too was left unsaid. The philosopher, who wrote nothing of his own, believed that truth must be drawn out from within the listener. He gave no easy answers, but questions — hard, glittering questions that forced the soul to labor toward understanding. Like Bainbridge, Socrates knew that true learning begins where the teacher ceases to speak, and where the student begins to seek. So it is with literature that endures: it does not feed the mind with finished thought, but awakens it. It leaves the reader not satisfied, but stirred — compelled to return again, and again, until the heart itself begins to write alongside the author.

To leave things unsaid is not weakness; it is mastery. It is to trust that truth has many faces, and that no single telling can contain it. Consider the painter who, instead of filling the canvas with every detail, leaves part of it in shadow — so that the viewer’s imagination must complete the scene. The unpainted space becomes alive with mystery, just as the unspoken word in Bainbridge’s prose hums with unseen emotion. It takes courage to leave those spaces empty — to risk being misunderstood, to trust that one’s audience will rise to meet the silence with thought and feeling of their own. This is the courage of all great artists, philosophers, and lovers of truth.

In our age, where attention scatters and thought runs shallow, Monica Ali’s praise of Beryl Bainbridge stands as a timeless challenge. It tells us: do not be passive consumers of art, but active participants. Read not only with the eyes, but with the heart; not only once, but many times. Let each reading be a pilgrimage into the deeper meaning — for great writing is not a field to be crossed but a mountain to be climbed. Each ascent reveals a new horizon, and only those who return again and again may reach its summit.

And there is a lesson here, not only for those who read, but for those who live. For life itself is written in the same fashion as Bainbridge’s stories — much is left unsaid, much hidden between the lines. The meaning of your days will not reveal itself at a glance. You must revisit your own story, reflect upon your choices, look again and again with patience and humility, until wisdom dawns. The unspoken truths of your life are often the most important ones.

So, dear seeker, learn from this: read deeply, think bravely, and live reflectively. When you encounter silence — in books, in people, in the turning moments of your own life — do not flee from it. Sit with it. Engage your mind and your soul. For within the spaces that others leave empty, you may find not absence, but abundance. And when you, too, one day create — in word, in deed, in love — may you have the courage to leave something unsaid, that others might find their own truth in your silence.