Synopses & Reviews
Long neglected by the academic world because of her rejection of belletristic values and resistance to convenient literary taxonomy, Doris Lessing has nonetheless built an international following of serious, dedicated readers. Acknowledging the difficulties posed by the multiple dimensions of Lessings work, Kaplan and Rose have gathered eleven essays that address her artistic, philosophical, political, and psychological complexity, and so provide a welcome introduction to the extraordinary depth and diversity of this important contemporary novelist.
Lessing has been described as an alchemical” writer, in that her work is directed toward changing peoples lives and perceptions rather than simply recording experience. Accordingly, the contributors examine her various postures and tactics for the purpose of discovering how the alchemical elements inform her various personae. Frederick C. Stern discusses Lessings commitment to radical humanist thought, while Carey Kaplan examines how Lessings imperialist past has shaped her futuristic fiction. Elizabeth Abel offers a feminist interpretation of the pattern of brother-sister incest in Lessings work, showing how Lessing has established Antigone as a female alternative to the Oedipal myth of male incest. Particularly insightful is Eve Bertelsens report of her interview with Lessing, demonstrating how Lessings often evasive style of adversarial dialogue works in concert with her refusal to be conveniently pigeonholed by academic analysis.
For those readers new to her work, Doris Lessing: The Alchemy of Survival will serve as a useful introduction to Lessings concerns and techniques. Those who have long admired her writing will find in this collection new keys to understanding Lessings philosophical, political, and psychological complexity.
Review
A tribute to Lessings recognized stature and continuing vitality and power to surprise and provoke. The range of response represented in these essays is impressive, and they admirably suggest the development of her work through its many phases.”
Margaret Drabble
About the Author
Carey Kaplan is associate professor and chairperson of the English Department at Saint Michaels College.
Ellen Cronan Rose is associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Communications at Drexel University.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Lessing and Her Readers: Celebrating Difference
2. A Genealogy of Readings The Seventies
The Eighties
Selected Essays Doris Lessing: The Politics of Radical Humanism
Frederick C. Stern
Subverting the Ideology of Coherence: The Golden Notebook and The Four-Gated City
Molly Hite
Ideology and Form: Decentrism in The Golden Notebook, Memoirs of a Survivor, and Shikasta
Alvin Sullivan
Teaching Doris Lessing As a Subversive Activity: A Response to the Preface to The Golden Notebook
Katherine Fishburn
Memory and Culture within the Individual: The Breakdown of Social Exchange in Memoirs of a Survivor
Jeanne Murray Walker
Resisting the Exchange: Brother-Sister Incest in Fiction in Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Abel
Doris Lessing: A Female Voice” Past, Present, or Future?
Nicole Ward Jouve
Doris Lessings Debt” to Olive Schreiner
Victoria Middleton
Britains Imperialist Past in Doris Lessings Futurist Fiction
Carey Kaplan
Lessing and Atopia
Lorna Sage
Who is It Who Says I”?: The Persona of a Doris Lessing Interview
Eve Bertelsen
Appendix