Here’s a pic of the dear old thing.
I don’t really fly my literary rag too often on these pages, but Doris Lessing had a big influence on what I think is important in literature. She said things like “The way they teach literature is verkockt, and here’s why,” and “Read any book that comes in front of you and unless you’re being forced to read it for school, put it down if you don’t like it within a few pages.” And she blew off the top of my head with the Golden Notebook, and the Marriages Between Zones Three Four and Five, and Briefing for a Descent into Hell, and then Love, Again.
I dunno how Harold Bloom (the pompous arse) could trash her winning this award so hard. Love Again was so AMAZING, the whole book rang like a gong in me, and I’ve reread it half a dozen times now because I keep finding new stuff in it. He says that the Nobel Prize was for pure political correctness, and that’s bullshit. It’s for a body of work that will stand for a long, long time. People are still reading Kristin Lavransdottir… why not Shikasta, a hundred years from now?
When I stand at the entrance of a new book, I say, “Take me someplace I haven’t been.” I’ve gotten that in multiplicity from Doris Lessing.
Three cheers for DL. I have read her minimally. Where should I start? And after she has taken you to a place you haven’t been, do you want to go back there? That seems to be my measure of a book – its ability to support re-reading. Just re-read a book I first read when I was fourteen and not only does it support re-reading, it takes me to a different place it took my to the first time ’round…
Read Love, Again. None of her books are happy!!!! so read one where at least the woman comes out the other end wiser and more humane.
If you can’t get into it after ten pages, put ‘er down.