Lessing, Doris

Average customer rating:

Will stay with you for life
Science fiction for those who really don't like SciFi
longwinded and boring
Love in three dimensions
Thoughtful, imaginative, thrilling

Canopus in Argos: Archives
Doris Lessing
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5 (George Sherban Emissary)
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ASIN: 0679741844
Release Date: 1992-12-29

Customer Reviews:

Will stay with you for life.......2006-07-18

One of the most rewarding and thought-provoking series of books you are likely to ever read in your life. By all means go and get them. Of particular interest to me over the years have been "Shikasta" (which I have come to think of as a fascinating parable about the directions you are going to take with your own life and why) and "The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four And Five" (a gut-wrenching "fairy tale" about relationships between women and men). Both of those books beautifully show how conditioning cripples our abilities to perceive and evolve. To do this from a space fiction point of view was highly unusual (to say the least) at the point in time the books were written, but with regard to today's smudging of the borders between genres, this seems more commonplace. Anyone interested in the concepts related to the description of Zone 6 (Shikasta), might also enjoy reading "The Active Side Of Infinity" by Carlos Castaneda, whereas women wrestling with the relationship-related kind of conditioning (Marriages), may find "The Sorcerer's Crossing" by Taisha Abelar as interesting as I did.

Science fiction for those who really don't like SciFi.......2005-10-15

I first read this book many years ago, and had a happy memory of it. I was very pleased that a fresh reading lived up to that memory.
On its surface, it examines the roles of men and women, represented by two estranged, neighboring Zones. The first is pastoral, prosperous, and ineffective. The second is harsh, militaristic, and also ineffective. The two are not really reunited, but they break their polarization and isolation. Peaceful exchange between them is restored, and both are healthier for it.

Saying anything more would be saying too much. I was interested, though, that the nations seemed to imitate the mating of their ambassadors. One nation was archetypically male, the other female. The ambassadors, like germ cells, are living things that pass from one nation to the other, and are united. I never though about it before, but fertilization is destructive both sperm and ovum, even if somthing new comes from the fusion. The protagonists, the envoys of the two Zones, similarly suffer for the greater future. Other metaphors emerge from the story, too, and some may have strong personal meaning for you.

I really can't do justice to the elegance and peaceful pace of Lessing's writing. That, you'll have experience for yourself. Although this book is second in a series of five, they can be read in any order. Each book's story is unrelated to the others, but the set as a whole is far more than the concatenation of its parts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and eventually enjoy coming back to it again.

//wiredweird

longwinded and boring.......2003-10-20

she has some very cool ideas here and there
but for the most part, these books just drag on and on and on serving only to make some personal moral/philosophical statement that i think could have been saved for interviews or personal discussion

Love in three dimensions.......2001-10-22

This second volume of the Canopus in Argos: Archives quintet marks a radical break with the science-fictional style of the first book, Shikasta. Instead, it shares with the fourth, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, a more mythical, allegorical presentation and an aching lyricism of style. In the Canopean universe, the various Zones correspond to states of spiritual being: in Shikasta, Zone Six is a kind of limbo where people wait to be reborn and where the Canopean agent Johor/George Sherban picks up the two who will join him on Earth as his sister and brother. Zone Three, in this second volume, is a tranquil and apparently untroubled realm where, nonetheless, the birth rate is declining and a certain lassitude has overcome the people. Canopus (named here only as "the Providers" who know what is best and must be obeyed) orders the queen of Zone Three, Al.Ith, to marry Ben Ata, the warrior king of Zone Four - an altogether poorer and cruder place. The bulk of the story follows the progress of this arranged marriage from resentful acceptance on both sides through practical working together to solve their realms' mutual difficulties, to the torments of jealous infatuation and out the other side - whereupon Ben Ata must marry the queen of Zone Five, a realm more primitive and deprived than his own, and Al.Ith has become a stranger to her people. But the Providers really do know best, and the three Zones (and Al.Ith, Ben Ata and the queen of Zone Five) continue to evolve, interpenetrate, and share with each other what is needed from themselves. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five works equally well as cultural allegory, psychological myth or lyrical love story; it is also a pleasure to read.

Thoughtful, imaginative, thrilling.......2000-01-27

I am afraid this book may turn out to have a limited audience: too literary and "unrealistic" for science-fiction fans, and too fantastic for literary types. Too bad, because this is a stupendous book, or rather, series of novels. Some may think it strange that an author with as high-brow a reputation as Doris Lessing would stoop to writing "space fiction" (her term), but she has been incorporating sci-fi elements in her fiction as far back as The Four-Gated City, and maybe farther, depending on your definitions. What is science fiction if not the use of extreme and imaginative settings to point out truths invisible in our crowded world? Science fiction encourages "thinking outside the box," a concept that Lessing has explored in a lifetime of ground-breaking work. What are we? What does it mean to be human? Is there more? Lessing hits these questions with a courageous mind and an arsenal of experience and imagination.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Average customer rating:

Wonderfully descriptive
Read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy instead.
It's all about the industrial takeover
The Antidote to Platonic Love
A treasure beyond time.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
D.H. Lawrence
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014303961X

Amazon.com

Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, the 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover is no longer distinguished for the once-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchaired husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex, and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel is memorable for better reasons: namely, that Lawrence was a masterful and lyrical writer, whose story takes us bodily into the world of its characters.

Book Description

One of the most extraordinary literary works of the twentieth century, Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in England and the United States after its initial publication in 1928. The unexpurgated edition did not appear in America until 1959, after one of the most spectacular legal battles in publishing history.

Download Description

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderfully descriptive.......2007-05-14

A wonderful read, that explores human relationships. It is wonderfully descriptive and a pleasure to read. Highly recommend.

Read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy instead........2007-03-22

I love the classics- I make sure to throw a few into my "to be read" pile just to cleanse the palette from my general fiction and genre reading. I've been wanting to read LCL for some time now, mostly because of it being censored and banned back in the day for it's explicit sex and language. In fact it was considered pornographic and, for a time, was not allowed to be mailed out into the US due to obscenity laws.

Because I do read romance and yes, even erotica, at times I have to defend my reading choices because it's considered illicit, so naturally I wanted to read LCL.

Ugh. I hated it.

Slow paced and tedious I wanted to give up on it so many times. But I'm stubborn so I couldn't let myself give up on it.

Whereas I'm sure this book was a shocker in the late 20's when it was published, to my modern eyes, it was no biggie. Yes it was graphic, but in no way could one consider this pornographic! Porn, to me, is something that is produced (visual or written) to enflame sexually. This book was far from stimulating in that way.

The first section bored me to tears, full of mind-numbing conversations that had no significance other than for the author to show how intellectual he was. I could barely read a page without my eyes drooping closed. Yes, I got that their conversations had a point- "The dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation." Yeah, I got it. But to stretch it out for the length of the entire book? Ugh.

When Lady Chatterley met Mellors, her soon to be lover- things got more interesting- for about 10 pages. Then back to the tedium. It back and forthed like that for the entire book. UGH!

I truly liked her lover Mellors. A vetern of the war and of the lower class, he seemed the most intelligent of the characters. Which was, of course, the most shocking part of the story back in the day- the fact that a member of the upper class, Lady Chatterley, cheated on her upper crust husband with a servant.

Connie (Lady Chatterley) I found wishy-washy, whiney, and downright annoying. NOT a heroine to love. BUT she knew how to find her sexual pleasure and wasn't ashamed of it. (Plus for her!) Clifford, her husband- Lord Chatterley to her Lady- I actually felt pity for, though the author did his best to make him seem unworthy of Connie.

Here's a short look at Lord and Lady Chatterley:

Cliffy, wounded and crippled during the war, was unable to perform his husbandly duties. Connie grew to loathe him and headed out for greener pastures. Now, I'll give that Cliffy was a snob and a control freak, but pitiful to be sure, and in the end didn't deserve Connie's selfishness.

(...)
... however, I am glad I read LCL. If only to say I have done so!

It's all about the industrial takeover.......2007-01-10

Although this book has a saucy reputation, it's not all about sex. It is a rather dreary look at early 20th century England. Worthy of your time, and the brassy language could still make a school girl blush.

The Antidote to Platonic Love.......2006-11-07

Constance Chatterley's gamekeeper, Mellors, brings out the animal in Her Ladyship, and he extends the protection to her that he does to all the wild game in the wood. It is Mellors himself who, in the end, understands that his own baronet, Sir Clifford, is the greatest threat to his most vulnerable charge. Constance's own father, Sir Malcolm, fails utterly to appreciate the situation when he refers to Mellors as the quintessential poacher himself. Sir Malcolm's mistake is that he, along with all of polite society, fails to recognize that humans are, in fact, animals, and that the thrill of conjugal intimacy unites us with all other fauna. We strayed from this notion long ago, with Plato extolling virtuous love, and referring to passions and desires as evil (Book IX of the Phaedrus).

Sir Clifford, who is impotent as a result of war injuries, suggests to his wife that she have a discrete affair in order to produce an heir to the estate. "I don't care who his father may be as long as he is a healthy man not below normal intelligence." His admonition that Connie be careful not to fall in love in the process foreshadows his tragedy. When we see the gamekeeper, Mellors, placing pheasant eggs into the nests of chickens, in order that they may be reared by surrogate hens, we know, before any of the protagonists themselves, just who Lady Chatterley's surrogate husband will be. Ultimately Connie discovers that Mellors has that rarest of qualities in a man; he enjoys making love only when his partner enjoys it, too. These feelings are a sharp contrast with her experience as well as his, and they are both immediately ensnared in a tense carnal conspiracy.

In the process, we are treated to D. H. Lawrence's craft:

"Both sisters mixed with...the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for 'freedom' and flannel trousers, and soft shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy..., and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner."

Tevershall village had "rows of wretched, small begrimed brick houses with black slate roofs for lids, sharp angles, and willful blank dreariness."

One attraction of her first lover, Michalis, is that he had his own ideas and stated them clearly; "he didn't merely walk round them with millions of words, in the parade of the life of the mind."

Sir Clifford "seemed alert in the foreground, but the background was like the Midlands atmosphere, haze, smoky mist."

Before her affair with Mellors, Connie saw sex as "just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while, then left you more raggy than ever."

Connie realizes of Clifford that, "like many insane people, his insanity might be measured by the things he was not aware of: the great desert tracts in his consciousness."

"She saw her own nakedness in his eyes..."

This book will not titillate the reader of 2006 as it did the reader of 1928. The reaction against it then exposed both widespread hypocrisy and a scientifically illiterate, pre-Kinsey society which extolled Platonic values, and in the process denied the incomparable delight of primitive intimacy.

A treasure beyond time........2006-11-04

It is almost unbelievable, how this book could ever have raised a scandal, whereas it deals with love in a most human and indeed loving way. This tells us more about earlier readers than about the author. Everybody who is able to abandon the carthesian beliefs that ruined pleasure in enjoying life in the flesh as well as in the spirit will enjoy this masterpiece of literature.

The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics)

Average customer rating:

A brilliant but flawed study in irony and self-indulgence
Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Ad Infinitum
The insufferable Anna Wulf
An interesting mess of a novel
Goes on and on and on, oh yeah, and on

The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics)
Doris Lessing
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 006093140X

Amazon.com

Much to its author's chagrin, The Golden Notebook instantly became a staple of the feminist movement when it was published in 1962. Doris Lessing's novel deconstructs the life of Anna Wulf, a sometime-Communist and a deeply leftist writer living in postwar London with her small daughter. Anna is battling writer's block, and, it often seems, the damaging chaos of life itself. The elements that made the book remarkable when it first appeared--extremely candid sexual and psychological descriptions of its characters and a fractured, postmodern structure--are no longer shocking. Nevertheless, The Golden Notebook has retained a great deal of power, chiefly due to its often brutal honesty and the sheer variation and sweep of its prose.

This largely autobiographical work comprises Anna's four notebooks: "a black notebook which is to do with Anna Wulf the writer; a red notebook concerned with politics; a yellow notebook, in which I make stories out of my experience; and a blue notebook which tries to be a diary." In a brilliant act of verisimilitude, Lessing alternates between these notebooks instead of presenting each one whole, also weaving in a novel called Free Women, which views Anna's life from the omniscient narrator's point of view. As the novel draws to a close, Anna, in the midst of a breakdown, abandons her dependence on compartmentalization and writes the single golden notebook of the title.

In tracking Anna's psychological movements--her recollections of her years in Africa, her relationship with her best friend, Molly, her travails with men, her disillusionment with the Party, the tidal pull of motherhood--Lessing pinpoints the pulse of a generation of women who were waiting to see what their postwar hopes would bring them. What arrived was unprecedented freedom, but with that freedom came unprecedented confusion. Lessing herself said in a 1994 interview: "I say fiction is better than telling the truth. Because the point about life is that it's a mess, isn't it? It hasn't got any shape except for you're born and you die."

The Golden Notebook suffers from certain weaknesses, among them giving rather simplistic, overblown illustrations to the phrase "a good man is hard to find" in the form of an endless parade of weak, selfish men. But it still has the capacity to fill emotional voids with the great rushes of feeling it details. Perhaps this is because it embodies one of Anna's own revelations: "I've been forced to acknowledge that the flashes of genuine art are all out of deep, suddenly stark, undisguiseable private emotion. Even in translation there is no mistaking these lightning flashes of genuine personal feeling." It seems that Lessing, like Anna when she decides to abandon her notebooks for the single, golden one, attempted to put all of herself in one book. --Melanie Rehak

Book Description

Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

Customer Reviews:

A brilliant but flawed study in irony and self-indulgence.......2007-01-26

This is as much a period piece as, say, a Jane Austen novel. The characters in this novel are filled with self-pity and remorse, but this appears to be a function of the time in which they are living. For many the post-war (that is, World War II) era was fraught with anxiety and introspection, to the exclusion of joy and humor and mysticism. The bitter ennui of the characters in this novel borders on the amusing, much like present-day 20-year-olds attempting to appear world-weary and all-knowing. (Never mind that young people who are truly all-knowing and world-weary are not sardonic or ironic, but bitter and dangerous). Every other gesture, smile, or grimace in this novel is "ironic", and characters can seemingly intuit the motives of others through every gesture, tic, and change of facial expression. The influence of Freud is strongly felt.

The characters in this novel are largely amoral, and see no causal connection between their actions and the torpor and dissatisfaction of their lives. Yet, from the perspective of 21st Century morality (contradictory as that term may seem) it will be evident to even the casual, cynical reader that the amorality of their thoughts and the immorality of their actions lead directly to their dissatisfaction and that of those around them. They are nothing if not entirely self-indulgent. It seems that the main character, Anna Wulf, never sleeps with any but married men, and then wonders why her affairs end in recrimination and blame. Which is not to exonerate the men she beds; their cruelty and unthinking malice toward Anna and their wives is inexcusable. But as this novel focuses almost exclusively on the feelings and reactions of women, it is the outcomes of their actions which truly matter here, and those actions contain within them the seeds of their own destruction. No doubt the frank talk of sexuality and (briefly) menstruation were quite daring in 1962. Yet from the context of our current era, this knowledge is commonplace and therefore overdone.

Which is not to say that this is not a brilliant piece of writing by an enormously talented writer. Lessing has captured the tenor of the times with great skill. And, much like watching a train wreck unfold, there is a certain grim fascination in seeing Anna's self-destruction (and eventual though minor redemption) come to fruition. But at over 600 pages, it is a large dose of bitterness to swallow. Rumor has it that "The Summer Before the Dark" is a much more accessible book, and perhaps that is the right place to begin for a taste of Doris Lessing. But many consider "The Golden Notebook" her masterwork, and to say one has truly read Lessing is to have read this one. God help you.

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Ad Infinitum.......2006-08-30

Whenever any author writes in a new fashion there are bound to be an equal numbers of readers who hail it as a groundbreaking work of art as those who wish to consign it to the ground as a turgid unreadable mess. Such was the case when Doris Lessing published THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK. In it she juggles many literary balls, deftly keeping most aloft, while dropping only a few. Lessing's interest is in deconstructing both herself personally as an author writing this book and herself as the subject of this book. Lessing is the master magician. This is no standard autobiographical novel, no roman a clef with herself as the encoded celebrity. Lessing blurs the distinction between the "her" in real life and the "her" in fictionalized life. Lessing writes of Anna Wulf, whose life mirrors closely Lessing's. Both are of South African origin with an abiding interest in race relations, male-female interactions, the proper role of women in a post-War London patriarchal society, the angst of writer's block, sexual affairs gone awry, and for good measure, a dabbling into left-wing politics and communism. This is more than a mouthful, more than what even one talented writer can cover in six hundred plus pages. But Lessing uses THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK as a literary buzz saw, first ripping to pieces Wulf's life and then using some pretty innovative writing to recreate that life one step at a time, so that the reconstituted Anna Wulf of the last few pages may have found some firm ground from which she may stand proudly and assert a multi-pronged femininity that she was sure was always there but had no way to bring to the surface.

There are several Annas in THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, all of whom overlap, diverge, and merge at various points into Doris Lessing, but the Anna at the first page is a weary, writer-blocked author who seeks to use her pen to heal herself, but can't. She struggles, not because of a lack of talent, but because she is not ready to break free from the many shackles binding her. So if Anna cannot build a new life with words, she can use them to break down the old Anna into four separate Annas, each with a new life, a new goal, a new history. The primary Anna places her four selves into colored books, with each color heavily symbolic of that Anna's chosen life course. There is the Anna who writes of her black days in a black country dealing with black issues. There is the Anna of her communist days who gets her little red book. There is the Anna of this Anna who writes of her hoped for golden days in a yellow book. And then there is the Anna who is sort of an amalgam of all of them who gets a blue book. Of all these Annas, Lessing tears herself apart, builds herself right back up, and weighs the differences and potential improvement of each. She does not choose one as the best although the reader probably assumes the last Anna is the best if for no other reason than quantity has a quality all its own. But such an interpretation is probably overly hasty since THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK is a record of the journey that Lessing/Wulf took. But the linking of the first sentence of the book with the identical last sentence suggests a closed loop singularity that she/they chose to tread. Each reader is invited to deconstruct/reconstruct in a similar manner and in so doing may find that Lessing/Wulf has lit a candle that opens more doors than it closes.

The insufferable Anna Wulf.......2006-06-10

Like many other reviewers, I struggled with this book. For more than 600 pages, Anna Wulf explores every thought and emotion that comes into her head and tries to make sense out of her life. This might be an interesting book for fiction writers, who might understand the elaborate process Anna goes through to create characters and combine her life with her art. But for the average reader, this is just too much and too long.

I am very patient with novels. Perhaps too patient, because I should have put this one down sooner. I got all the way to page 500 before I realized I just couldn't go on. And it's quite depressing to invest so much time in a book and then put it down. Doris Lessing says herself that no one should force themselves to read a book they are not connecting with. I should have taken her advice sooner. But while some books you might not just be 'ready' for, I don't think I will ever be ready for this one.

It's disappointing because I am a Doris Lessing fan. The Four-Gated City explores many of the same themes - an emotional breakdown can be constructive in order to build yourself back up whole and understand the world around you. Anna Wulf did have a fragmented mind, as demonstrated through her keeping of four separate notebooks. She was kept together by the routines of her life, such as making breakfast for her daughter. When she didn't have anything constructive to do, she thought herself to death. And if you read this book, you'll likely be right there with her - going crazy.

An interesting mess of a novel.......2005-06-24

Intellectual energy is always a healthy attribute for a writer of fiction. Doris Lessing, an incredibly prolific author who has covered many different genres, has plenty; but her early novel "The Golden Notebook" too often sacrifices coherence and focus for ineffective artistic experimentation. That it doesn't have much of a plot is not a deficiency, because many great modern novels have discarded the notion of a necessity for a conventional plot; rather, its narrative power is diminished by Lessing's apparent indecisiveness about the kind of tale she wishes to tell. In one section she writes synopses of about two dozen short stories in quick succession, and we have to wonder why we're looking at blueprints instead of the finished product.

Summarily, "The Golden Notebook" is a work of fiction about the erratic process of writing fiction, and it problematically attempts to intertwine several novels into one. The main story is that of Lessing's alter ego Anna Wulf, who compiles her memoirs, blending the real with the fictional, into four color-coded notebooks of which the contents are revealed in an alternating fashion. Anna, a rising literary star who has published an acclaimed novel called "Frontiers of War" based loosely on her experiences and her circle of friends in Rhodesia where she lived during World War II, now resides in England with her young daughter Janet, drawing income from gradually dwindling royalties while being courted by philistine film producers who propose to adapt and warp her novel for the screen.

Love and sexuality play major roles throughout the multiple narratives, but "The Golden Notebook" is neither sentimental enough to be a romantic novel nor cynical enough to be a satire. Anna's relationships with a string of men, from her ex-husband Max, a German refugee whom she met in Africa, to an aimless American expatriate named Saul, are the basis of her fictional life; she has created an alter ego of her own named Ella, a struggling novelist who has numerous affairs almost exclusively with married men, to be used possibly as the heroine of a new novel. She can be maternal as well, not just to her daughter but also to her older friend Molly's son Tommy, a restless and discontented youth who is forced to endure the physical aftermath of a botched suicide attempt.

A central feature of "The Golden Notebook" is the changing course of Anna's political outlook which begins in Rhodesia. Her abhorrence of the "color bar"--the racist policies of white European colonists towards blacks--in southern Africa and her observations of the poverty of the workers steered her towards Communism. As it turns out, the British Communists with whom she associates are a muddled and disorganized group, inveterate liars and prevaricators with utopian delusions; but Anna's eventual decision to leave them arises more from her disenchantment with their attitude that art should be used only for political purposes and not to express personal ideas or emotions. This is anathema to a creative writer such as Anna, as it should be; "The Golden Notebook" is Lessing's defiant response to that dictum.

Were I to describe "The Golden Notebook" accurately as remarkably original, uniquely structured, overflowing with a multitude of literary thoughts, and driven by fascinating impulses, you might think it a book worth reading; but in fact I hesitate to recommend it to anybody but an avowed Lessing fan. When Saul asks Anna why she keeps four separate notebooks, she answers that "...it's been necessary to split [her]self up," and therein lies the trouble--the reader is made to suffer for Anna's narrative schizophrenia. I am unsure whether "The Golden Notebook," so energetic but so disjointed, is too much or not enough of whatever it is that it wants to be, but it is definitely not the correct amount.

Goes on and on and on, oh yeah, and on.......2004-07-19

This is a great book if you would like to listen to a crazy woman complain for about 600+ pages. So, if you're into that go right ahead. But if you would like to read something enjoyable, look at anohter book!

Average customer rating:

ideas, ideas, great writing, and more ideas...opens the mind and heart
Unfortunately, I gave Up...
THE GRANDMOTHERS, is comprised of four very different novell
I must detest racist author's work
Read it for "A Love Child"

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels
Doris Lessing
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics)
The Sweetest Dream: A Novel
Time Bites: Views and Reviews
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Mara and Dann: An Adventure

ASIN: 0060530111
Release Date: 2005-01-04

Book Description

In the title novel, two friends fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, vowing a respectable old age. In Victoria and the Staveneys, a young woman gives birth to a child of mixed race and struggles with feelings of estrangement as her daughter gets drawn into a world of white privilege. The Reason for It traces the birth, faltering, and decline of an ancient culture, with enlightening modern resonances. A Love Child features a World War II soldier who believes he has fathered a love child during a fleeting wartime romance and cannot be convinced otherwise.

Customer Reviews:

ideas, ideas, great writing, and more ideas...opens the mind and heart.......2005-10-31

I had been away from Doris Lessing too long;I had fogotten too much, even or especially about myself. You can read the plot summaries in the other reviews. I'll not repeat them and I didn't get past line 2 of SCI-Fi one...never do. Oh but the others...who has the grace of love? a generous heart? needs? mistakes, consequences...all in prose that seems efortless but is not.

a lovely, lovely treat

Unfortunately, I gave Up..........2005-08-05

There is nothing I hate more than just giving up halfway through a book, but I couldn't take this one any longer. I also don't like writing a review for a book I didn't finish, but I feel that since I didn't finish it, people should know why, so they can avoid this awfulness.

The book is made up of 4 short stories, of which I read 2 1/2. The first story, The Grandmothers, was ridiculous. Two woman who've been best friends for life start having a sexual relationship with the others son, and both are OK with it...very disturbing. And the writing style is so annoying, very dramatic and theatrical-like.

The second story, Victoria and The Staveneys, was very unbelievable as well. A little black girl goes home with Edward Staveney one day after school, is in awe of their huge home, and for the next 10 yrs thinks of nothing else. She then at the age of 19 gets pregnant by his brother Thomas, but doesn't tell him for 6 yrs, and once she does, they lavish the little girl with all the perks of the good life, while Victoria slowly loses her daughter.

And the third story, The Reason For It, is where I finally threw in the towel. What's it about? I haven't a clue. It was absolutely painful to sit there and try to force myself to read this drivel. In the end, as you can guess, I do NOT recommend this book. I'm not sure about the author, maybe some of her other novels are better, who knows, I'm not going to find out though. If you see this book anywhere, keep walking and don't waste your time.

THE GRANDMOTHERS, is comprised of four very different novell.......2005-02-14

THE GRANDMOTHERS By Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing is eight-four years old and for more than fifty years has distinguished herself as one of the most intelligent, provocative, influential and courageous writers in English. Her body of work includes novels, novellas, short stories, essays, political treatises, plays, operas, poetry, memoirs and an autobiography. The breadth of her work stretches from life on the veld in South Africa to life on other planets. Her themes center on the relationships between women and men; the painful side of interactions between children and parents; how individuals perceive themselves in society and how they believe society perceives them; how personalities are shaped or shape themselves as a result of the circumstances and experiences of the individual lives they represent; and the way political actions affect the populace and the role the individual needs to employ as a result of the political system under which they live. She believes that most psyches employ extraordinary feats of emotional, social and cultural compartmentalization in order for life to move on.

Lessing has been lauded as a staunch supporter and defender of feminism (she denies categorically this interpretation of her work). She writes about communism; her commitment to it and her later rejection of the entire movement. With no fear of exploration and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, she adopted the Sufi way of life. This "conversion" came after she reviewed a book about it, which inspired her to read everything about this mystical yet pragmatic belief system. To find a coherent path that rejects propaganda, prejudice and ideology was a gift for Lessing. The tenets of the Sufi way of life reinforced her already cemented ways of thinking. Her novels are considered especially important because of their daring and wide range: she moves from realist narrative to science fiction and fantasy without losing her focus. She is fearless and is considered one of the most forward thinking and groundbreaking writers of the twentieth (now twenty-first) century.

Her latest book, THE GRANDMOTHERS, is comprised of four very different novellas. Each one is a prototype of how Lessing perceives the possibilities available to the individual and human dramas that fill every life. These four tales emerge as a prism through which readers can catch a glimpse of the myriad issues Lessing has nurtured from her early fiction, THE GRASS IS SINGING and her feminist opus THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, to her visionary and cautionary books like BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL and MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR.

The first story in THE GRANDMOTHERS uses the book's title for its own and begins, " ... six people were making the gentle ascent, four adults and two little girls, whose shrieks of pleasure" were prompted by reaching Baxter's, a local café where they would be rewarded with goodies for good behavior. "Two handsome men came first ... then two ... handsome women of about sixty --- but no one would dream of calling them elderly." The little group settled in comfortably, the waitress knew them and brought them their regular treats. "They all sighed, heard each other and now laughed, a full frank laugh that seemed to acknowledge things unsaid." The mood quietly relaxed and intermingled with some secret the adults share and enjoy with looks and smiles.

The Grandmothers of the scene at the hillside rest came about because two little girls who met in primary school instantly became best friends. They have always been as close as sisters and live their lives as though this were true. When they finish school, Lil becomes a competitive international swimming star while Roz turns to drama and the theater. They enjoy a double wedding, move into houses on the same street and give birth to their sons at the same time. The women have very different personalities but are more devoted to each other than anyone else. Roz's husband shouts at her, "It's you, and Lil. Always. And what difference would it make if you were [lesbians?] Obviously sex doesn't matter that much. We have ... more than adequate sex but it's not me you have a relationship with." Roz is slightly bewildered but feels no great loss when her husband leaves.

On the other hand Lil is always worried that people will think they are "lezzies." But they are so far from being homosexuals that by an unspoken agreement and cunning desire they each bed the other's son. These liaisons go on for years with much joy had by all. The whole concept raises issues of possible incest, the role of mothers in the lives of their male offspring, how to define the boundaries of different kinds of love and the impact of an arrangement like this on the development of these boys as they mature into men. Lessing presents this story without judgment on the women or the sons and clearly wants the reader to ponder the decisions these people have made and what it has cost them ... if anything.

"Victoria and the Staveneys," the second piece, works on a different plane. Here, a young black girl from "the projects" or council housing has a terrible childhood filled with loss, abandonment, illness and death. She loses her mother, is reluctantly taken in by her aunt, who develops cancer, and while she is dying insists that young Victoria take care of her. When the aunt passes away a close friend, Phyllis, who is a social worker, moves Victoria into her tiny apartment with her three children and an old, ailing grandfather.

The years pass. Victoria grows up with the knowledge that she is somehow different; she has always felt herself an outsider but makes strides to overcome her deprecating concept of herself. She develops into a stunner, which is a constant worry to her guardian, who knows too well how easily a good-looking girl can ruin her life with one act of recklessness. And, of course, Victoria does. After a series of jobs that didn't always pay well, she meets and has an affair with a middle-class white boy, becomes pregnant, doesn't inform the father, has the baby (a "mocha" little girl) and keeps her. A few years later she marries a musician who, despite always being on the road, manages to impregnate her and she gives birth to a black little boy, Dickson, who is unmanageable and "sweats too much." Soon after he is born, his father is killed. More years pass, and one day Victoria decides to tell Thomas he is Mary's father. This decision holds many terrifying possibilities for the future relationships Mary will form.

His entire family takes the news in stride. They are all liberal-minded, educated and, though sometimes feckless people, truly fall in love with the little girl. As a result of their affection, status, connections and money, they can offer her a life filled with the opportunities her mother never even dreamed of. Victoria must make the most painful decision of her life. Her daughter's entire future depends on it.

The third narrative is "light science-fiction" about a place that had once been conquered by another nation. However, in this piece, that was good because the old culture was infused with learning, storytelling and beauty, all seeped in a high sense of morality, loyalty and peace. Like all oligarchies, not every leader was benign, but the most influential was Destra who, as a child, was chosen out of twelve (The Twelve) to be taught how to care for their world and everyone in it. Under her watch this place was a glorious paradise, an Edenesque landscape. But when she dies, her son is elected by the other eleven to take her place. From that moment on, their world becomes barbaric --- warring, poorly managed and grotesque. The narrator, the last of The Twelve, tells his story in slow and with deeply felt emotion, as a storyteller should. This gives readers a chance to conjure up the images he brings forth.

This is one of Lessing's cautionary tales. In it, she harkens back to her communist days for a taste of laissez faire living with each contributing to the best of her/his ability. In other words, she flips to black --- the dark side of humanity, of how worlds erode, grow dim, lose hope and regress back to primitive levels of survival. This theme is tightly woven into the fabric of Lessing's oeuvre, as seen in some of her early works, BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL and MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR. All of these novels speak to the downfall of societies, where corruption and wrong- minded people are able to take power for their own agendas. Lessing believes that when a society loses respect and interest in its culture, art, music, language, books, freedom to think and debate and discuss, that community will not survive. When nature is desecrated and people squander the riches of the world, only barbarism, ignorance and flat-mindedness will result.

The fourth and final addition to this collection is "A Love Child," an enigmatic, World War II love story that takes place in South Africa and then in India. James Reid is an Englishman who, with his mates, boards "... that great ship in its camouflage dress, designed to make it look ... like a blur or a cloud or perhaps a school of flying fishes, at any rate something ephemeral, now seemed solid, sinister, even furtive. Five thousand soldiers with their attendant officers crammed the dockside" waiting their turn to board the vessel that was designed to accommodate seven hundred eighty passengers and crew. Lessing describes the voyage in painful detail, as nothing worse than a passage through Hell. The men suffer enormously from seasickness, blazing heat, lack of space and fear. When the ship finally reaches port in Cape Town and the soldiers began to descend the gangplank, it was obvious they had had a bad time. They were more like invalids than soldiers, holding on to handrails and not looking healthy.

A lonely married woman named Daphne is a volunteer "hostess" who agrees to shuttle the men from the port to various places where they can recoup their energies. By chance, James stumbles into her car and over a four-day period he convinces himself that she is the love of his life and they have an affair. She becomes pregnant and to him this is a lifelong commitment. Then he is sent on a mission and fully expects her to be divorced and ready to marry him if/when he returns from the battle. She, on the other hand, is conventional and provincial, despite her indiscretion, and has no desire to speak to him or ever see him again. This romantic man and the pragmatic woman represent a major feature in Lessing's work, i.e., the miscommunication between intimates that leads to heartbreak, disillusionment, even madness. The way she details their psychological and physical problems makes for fascinating reading --- she points to another way to view human behavior and its consequences, regardless of the chilling effect it may leave.

In her early memoir, "A Small Personal Voice," she talks about the plethora of letters she receives from young women wanting answers to the "big" questions of life. While somewhat flattered, she is more frustrated with these readers. She wants them to explore the issues she raises and analyze the ideas she proposes. THE GRANDMOTHERS is a perfect vehicle with which to approach Lessing's work if you have not read her before. Fans can rest assured that these novellas are pure Lessing, radiating with everything that brought you to her work in the first place. She has always had the chutzpah to say what she believes, even when she is not willing to explain why. And at the end of "A Love Child" much is left to the reader to decipher. This collection is a keeper!

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

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I must detest racist author's work.......2004-03-16

Anybody who heard the March 15th Interview of Ms. Dorris on Public Radio must have supprised how racist she is.
She deliberately kept on using discriminatory words although the DJ tried to correct her.
Beautiful sentences cannot hide the ugliness of her personality.

Read it for "A Love Child".......2004-03-10

I almost rated this book "5 stars" in spite of the fact that the first novella ("The Grandmothers") is almost unreadable, because "A Love Child" is one of the most moving and beautifully-written things I have ever read. I almost missed it because after I read "The Grandmothers" I nearly put the book away in disappointment.

Book Description

A disturbing allegory, centered around a planet called Shikasta, which bears remarkable similarities to Earth. Through time, a higher planet, Canopus, has documented the progress of Shikasta and tried to distract its inhabitants from the evil influence of the planet Shammat, but the Shikastans continue to hurl themselves toward annihilation.

Customer Reviews:

Great work of Literature.......2007-05-03

In Shikasta Ms. Lessing writes about a planet's misfortune, that started as a planetary potential for Human Evolution. An experiment that could have gone right or wrong. This book starts with a series of story's about the beginning and present states of a planet called Shikasta (earth ) that fell from grace after a galactic miss- alignment, and a tampering from a malignant force. Canopus ( a civilized planetary intelligence within this sector of the Universe, given permissible action to help stranded Planets gone backwards, or to seed new planets with potential for growth and evolution ) Is overseeing the progress made by their agents being sent to Shikasta in different time periods.
Ms Lessing goes on from Story to Reports to human behavior in a moments notice. Be prepared to jump from one subject to the next just like a student attends a History class at 9:00 AM to Sociology at 10:00 AM to Psychology at 11:00 AM.
Shikasta is a marvelous work of literature, giving us examples of human creation and miscorrelations. Perhaps the biggest impact is the similarity to our own planet earth's history. Makes me wonder is fiction really a meager attempt at explain the little truth we know about our own planets evolution. In my opinion Ms. Lessing comes dangerously close to what really happened on a small little planet called earth.

Like the series, but ..........2005-10-15

Lessing's criticism of the twentieth century is pointed, somtimes funny, and ultimately hopeful. The other four books in her 'Canopus' series are much stronger, though.
Shikasta - the outsider's name for Earth - is presented in a series of vingettes, case studies, and partial exchanges of letters. Perhaps the intent was to create a mosaic from those many pieces. I just found it fragmentary; somehow, it never formed a whole, coherent image for me. Also, this book is longer than the others in the set. In those, Lessing makes her points concisely; this book's increased length just gave more of the poor organization.

I recently re-read the other four books (not the proper order of the set of five), and came away more impressed than ever. Singly and as a set, they are wonderful. I'm glad I read this one last. If I had read this before the others I might not have bothered with them - that would have been a true loss on my part.

I recommend the Canopus series most highly. The other books are among the finest literature I know. It is unfortunate that Shikasta does not rise to their standards, and it would be sad if a new reader judged the series by it's first member.

//wiredweird

Last and first men.......2001-10-22

Shikasta is the first, the largest (in bulk and in scope) and the most epic of the quintet collectively titled Canopus in Argos: Archives. It's a stunning work, one of the very few science-fiction novels to show any awareness of the cosmic perspective of Olaf Stapledon (Last and First Men, Star Maker), let alone adapt it into another, wholly independent vision. Shikasta is the name Canopus use for Earth; the word means broken, wounded, suffering. The book falls into two parts. The first is a science-fiction revision of the Old Testament, an astounding overview of the Canopean Empire's colonising efforts over vast forgotten tracts of time which have come down to us as fossilised, distorted myths. It makes for a breathtaking two hundred pages, rivalled for sheer dizzying cosmicism only by Stapledon, the best of Lovecraft and some of Stanislaw Lem. The second part of the book is the story of the Sherban family during the last days of Western civilisation; and particularly the story of George Sherban, an agent of Canopus who (as many times before) has taken on human shape in order to guide the evolution of the human race. Sherban's efforts, observed through the bewildered but movingly sympathetic eyes of his sister Rachel, and later by a thoughtful and humane Chinese colonial administrator, culminate in a vast show trial of the white races (the natives of what the Canopeans, with a fine sense of perspective, call "the Northwest fringes") for thousands of years of horrific oppression. Despite the glorious writing, admirable originality and a total refusal to settle for easy answers, I'm not altogether sure this second part quite comes off - after the merciless dissection of human frailties in Part One, it just doesn't seem credible for Sherban's scheme to work. And the ending comes perilously close to suggesting that if we could only kill off nine-tenths of the population and live in geometrically perfect cities, all our problems would be over. That said, however, Shikasta remains a great and compelling work, always fascinating and often deeply moving - an amazing synthesis of the cosmic perspective with the political and the personal. Small wonder that it took Lessing four more books to work out the implications as fully as she wished.

far away so close.......2001-06-08

I don't read a whole lot of novels, and truth be told I've never been able to read anything else of Lessing's. Yet this book remains indelible and forever in my heart. Lessing herself said that this work felt born through her as much as from her, and considering the discrimination and intellect of the woman, I take that as a powerful statement.

And truly visionary this work is- it's able to zoom into the heart and process of darkness in our contemporary world without comprimise, then give the reader a view from above without sentiment or easy platitudes, with compassion and true insight.

This is a true work of spirituality- that is bringing the heart and the intellect together, without resorting to easy answers. May each one of us aspire to the dedication and tireless compassion as does Johor in order to benefit beings.

a visionary marvel.......2000-12-13

Shikasta is one of those rare creations that defies classification, a gripping novel which through the medium of fantasy reveals deep truth. For its rich humanity, its scope and its uncanny perceptions of the human condition, this work is sure to last forever.

Average customer rating:

Not a Sucker
Not just an autobiography
masterful autobiography
Unvarnished.
From Bronzed Artemis to Published Author

Under My Skin: My Autobiography to 1949
Doris May Lessing
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060171502

Book Description

"I was born with skins too few. Or they were scrubbed off me by...robust and efficient hands."

The experiences absorbed through these "skins too few" are evoked in this memoir of Doris Lessing's childhood and youth as the daughter of a British colonial family in Persia and Southern Rhodesia Honestly and with overwhelming immediacy, Lessing maps the growth of her consciousness, her sexuality, and her politics, offering a rare opportunity to get under her skin and discover the forces that made her one of the most distinguished writers of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Not a Sucker.......2007-06-24

This is a hard-hitting piece of autobiography. Lessing looks at her parents and their world of colonial mastery from the point of view of her younger, increasingly disenchanted self. Lessing was gathering steam in those years, to emerge as one of the prominent novelists of the post-war era. In this, the first of a two-volume autobiography, she is beginning to grow critical of her parents, colonialism, white supremacy, men - her husband in particular - and just beginning to flirt for a short time with the great experiment in group-think of the period known as Communism. She falls for it for a time, but not for long. It will take her a while, but she finally emerges along with George Orwell as the most articulate critic of this mindless, toxic form of self-imposed mental slavery. She writes of her fellow-traveling, communist-sympathizing friends as silly people, which strikes me as as good a way to think of them as any. Lessing provides, along with her political autobiography, a lovely evocation of Africa, the landscape and people, about whom she wrote as a young novelist and to whom she has continued to refer throughout her long and continuing career as a writer.

Not just an autobiography.......2003-04-21

Doris Lessing has led such an interesting life, and writing a diary all the time. She writes of a time completely foreign to me, living a history of the changes in Southern Afica. I find her autobiography a great read, and prefer it to her novels. Interesting and moving, and explains much about her!

masterful autobiography.......2003-02-07

Under My Skin

Doris Lessing's autobiography traces her political and emotional development from her earliest childhood memories to her growing, overwhelming, disenchantment with provincial (as she saw it) small town life. "Small town" life for her was pre-WWII Salisbury in the (then) British colony of Southern Rhodesia. Salisbury was a complacent capital city of 10,000 white settlers in a country the size of Spain.
Lessing is quick to debunk the myth of the prosperous, close knit, white farming community - poverty was a real fact of life both for blacks and whites. Her most vivid childhood memories are of escaping from the family home and off into the limitless veld. The emptiness of the veld parallels her youthful emptiness and her growing convictions that the communist party represents a real hope for the world.
The book, a masterpiece of autobiographical writing, is brutally honest in parts and wilfully obscure in others. Some of her emotional mistakes are hardly glanced at (leaving her first two children, for example) but others (the joys of being part of a fast, hard drinking sect, embracing radical politics) are wonderfully engaging. Reading her thoughts you could be forgiven for thinking that the "party" was the only opposition to conservative white rule in Salisbury. This is what makes her book so appealing, her supreme skill as a novelist allowing us to enter the heady world of rushed meetings, leftist newspaper deliveries, drinks on the sports club verandah and back in time to find the cook still waiting to prepare supper. Naturally it couldn't last and Lessing is far too intelligent to think that that is all there is to life. The book ends in 1949 as she arrives in London, apprehensive and hopeful in the capital city of her parents.
This is more than a `who-did-what' from a long time ago, times and dates are (probably deliberately) rarely mentioned. It is the personalities and the ideas - most of all the ideas - sliding from youthful enthusiasm to mature realism which fuse the book with life and vitality. `Under My Skin', published in 1992, is that rare thing, a candid autobiography written by a consummate novelist with skills to spare. Doris Lessing is a national treasure.

Unvarnished........2002-12-11

This is a candid autobiography with as main themes love, sex (good sex, as Doris Lessing calls it, is a right for everybody) and politics in South-Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) ruled by a blank minority.
It is a gripping, moving and realistic picture, wherein the author tries to find answers to personal and more general human questions: why was she so outspoken rebellious and, on the contrary, so strictly loyal to the communist movement?
Why are people fighting relentlessly each other, and on the other hand, striving for happiness?
Are the people of her generation all children of World War I? Why was her father a freemason?

This book is written like an irresistible waterfall. Not to be missed.

From Bronzed Artemis to Published Author.......2001-09-03

I loved every moment of reading this book.

It begins with the story of how Doris Taylor's parents' met in the aftermath of World War I, in the hospital where her mother was a nurse and her father was recovering from the loss of a leg. With remarkable vividness she describes her earliest experiences, first in a country house in the mountains of Persia (now Iran) and then in the city of Teheran.

The Taylors then moved to a farm in Southern Africa. Except the farm wasn't actually there yet - when they got there, the land had to be cleared and the house built. Doris describes her father sitting and smoking with the native African foreman of the crew that was building the house, talking with great profundity but just a few words, while the little Doris played nearby. This scene stood out for me, because it seemed to explain why the young Doris always took it for granted that the indigenous people were human beings deserving of equal rights, when the society she was growing up in was based on the premise that they were not. Yet she never mentions her father, whom she also describes as criticizing her mother for speaking disrespectfully to the servants, as a positive influence in this area.

I loved the book's evocation of landscape; the plants, animals, earth and sky of southern Africa. The girl whose story this is seems a part of that landscape, a creature of bush and veld and vlei. She struck me as unflappable, irrepressible, sensual, and somehow larger than life. When she describes the first money she earned, by shooting some birds and selling them to the local butcher, I imagined her a bronzed Artemis, striding through the bush with a rifle over her shoulder. It seems this was her true home, which she loved passionately, yet where she could not live, because the exploitation of the indigenous people was intolerable and would have driven her insane if she'd stayed. She hasn't exactly described the loss, in so many words, but I feel it, poignantly.

This autobiography is also a remarkable piece of history, vividly documenting British colonialism in Southern Rhodesia during this period, as well as World War I and its effects on an entire generation, World War II, and the influence of colonial racism in pushing whites who couldn't stand the injustice into communism.

If you are a Doris Lessing fan, you must read this book. If you'd like a first-hand history of the first half of the 20th century, read it. If you're not a Lessing fan because you've tried to read her work and found it too wordy or intellectual, you might really enjoy this one. Loved it!

Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way (Arkana)
Average customer rating:

very reccomended !! open your mind

Looking to form a critic review group on Idries Shah's and related works?

Let's face it

compassionate conspiracy of awakening for somnambulists

Revealing much about our 'self'

Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way (Arkana)
Idries Shah
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140195130

Book Description

"Learning How to Learn" contains the authentic material from the Sufi standpoint, written in response to more than 70,000 questions prompted by Shah's books, his university lectures and radio and television programs. He answers government leaders, housewives, philosophy professors and factory workers around the world, on the subjects of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social and spiritual problems.

The lively question-answer format provides readers a direct experience of a Sufi learning situation. More than a hundred tales and extracts - ranging from Eastern parables of Jesus, the ancient Sufi classics such as Omar Khayyam, the Mulla Nasrudin teaching-figure, to today's newspapers and contemporary encounters with teachers and students - are woven into Shah's narratives of how and why the Sufis learn, what they learn, and how spiritual understanding develops and deteriorates in all societies.

Many of the concepts which Shah has introduced - including the vital role of the right time, place and company of higher studies, the very concept of 'learning how to learn' and the instrumental, specialized function of ordinarily automatically performed exercises and rituals - have recently been widely copied by serious psychologists and gurus alike. This book contains the authentic material, however, on these and dozens of other subjects.

Customer Reviews:

very reccomended !! open your mind.......2007-05-19

this book was reccomended to me by a good freind and as he said it contains a new point of view of life and how we sould look as it.
a truely must have book

Looking to form a critic review group on Idries Shah's and related works?.......2005-08-25

Although it's been nearly 4 years since having read this book, I cannot get it out of my mind & heart. I am looking for the opportunity to network with people - mainly with regard to Idries Shah's works and possibly other related interests. (...)
Nathan

Let's face it.......2005-08-01

How long are we going to delude ourselves with that kind of message ? From the very beginning of the book a doubtful story about rabbis let us in the tune with what we'll have to accept if we are to get the "master"'s approval. Of course each and every of our suffering is supposed to be a proof of our "foolishness". So if you follow this reasoning : every one who's suffering does deserve it. Killed children deserve it ? Raped women deserved it ? Humiliated, exploited, tortured men DESERVE IT ? The answer is yours.

compassionate conspiracy of awakening for somnambulists.......2004-02-18

no need to repeat other reviewers...and no need to listen to the nay-sayers who cry charlatan...(?)(how odd)...(what would they think of bob dobbs?)...anyways, i suggest someone read and or take further the thesis whispered in the Octagon Press release (early 1980's) of The People of the Secret. one last note: sufism, like wicca, does no missionary work exactly: it works by deed, action. watch. then watch yourself. sufism transcends and weaves. it is wonderful within Islam. and it is just as bright if not brighter outside of the hadith-fundamentalist limitations of Islam...i dare suggest one can read Shah along with Hakim Bey/Peter L. Wilson as well as Starhawk...various, creative "Directorate" bubblings on the surface of current poly-culture.

Revealing much about our 'self'.......2003-12-13

"If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it.
If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it.
If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why.
If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?" - The Late Idries Shah.

IMO, genuine seekers after Truth needn't be swayed by these (negative/positive) appeals to colorization of the Shah Corpus. Sometimes the glowing reviews of Shah's work are as completely off the mark as the dimming ones.

According to an old saying "Those who taste know." I'd really suggest you read this title to find out for yourself, and should you find the need, please reserve your judgements until you've managed to discuss your assesments with a living, authentic Sufi teacher.

Amazon.com

The married couple in this novel pull off a remarkable achievement: They purchase a three-story house with oodles of bedrooms, and, on a middle-class income, in the '70s, fill it to the brim with happy children and visiting relatives. Their holiday gatherings are sumptuous celebrations of life and togetherness. And then the fifth child arrives. He's just a child--he's not supernatural. But is he really human? This is an elegantly written tale that the New York Times called "a horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse . . . a moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's 1984."

Book Description

A self-satisfied couple intent on raising a happy family is shocked by the birth of an abnormal and brutal fifth child.

Customer Reviews:

Disturbing, Thought-Provoking and a Pleasure to Read.......2007-02-03

In college I read one of Doris Lessing's short stories and remember it as being "good." I don't know if it was just that particular piece that warranted only a "good" rating or whether I was woefully mistaken in my perception of her talents but FIFTH CHILD is stellar. It's a short book - always a plus if done correctly - and this one is. The characters are developed but not overly so. There are still some mysteries/unknowns. Is Ben really all that bad of a child? I think so but Lessing leaves it to the reader to decide. After some of the books I've read in recent months, this was a breath of fresh air and a reminder that there really are talented writers out there for whom writing is a craft and who are still able to tell a good story.

Well written but absurd.......2006-02-14

I too saw Doris Lessing interviewed by Bill Moyers and was so impressed with her intellect that I read the Fifth Child. She is truly a great writer indeed. Perhaps the Fifth Child is dated but I found some of the events a bit ridiculous. A family sits around the dining room table and decides to commit a child without ever having him tested or hospitalized? Most of us know the process of having a child committed and it is not decided the morning after a family breakfast. When Ben is finally institutionalized, it is the worst snake pit that could ever be described in literature. Are there no laws in England about how institutions are to be regulated? I never knew one could just go pick their loved up from an institution without a formal discharge! This was unbelievable. After Harriet decides she cannot handle Ben, she hires a street gang to watch over him! Call DCFS please! Harriet's meeting with the psychiatrist was the most stereotypical encounter with a doctor I read in a long time. The doctor desperately needs a class in bedside manner ethics. The absurd events go on and on like this. Overall, the book was over the top and just too incredulous to ever accept as possible in anyway.

A harrowing novel.......2006-02-09

Harriet and David met at an office end-of-the-year party. David Lovatt was a successful architect and they decided to marry the following spring. Soon they found a large Victorian house within commuting distance of London.
Their first son Luke was born in 1966. Then followed Helen, Jane and Paul in 1973.
Then Harriet was pregnant for the fifth time. But it was a difficult pregnancy, the foetus kicking and punching, but eventually their fifth child, Ben, was born. At four months, he already looked like an "angry, hostile little troll".
Later on, he became so aggressive and repulsive that Harriet and David had to protect themselves and other members of their family from his kicks and bites. Finally David decided to take him to an "institution". But soon Harriet could not tolerate the situation and on her own accord drove to the North of England to bring Ben back home. What she found there constitutes the most harrowing scene of the novel and is no doubt Mrs Lessing's sharp critique of the way such institutions used to treat mentally retarded children. Then follows Harriet's desperate attempts to re-educate Ben for social life, to the disgust of the other members of the family.
A moving and very disturbing novel in which Mrs Lessing brilliantly shows that a mother can love and devote herself to a child even if it is no more than a monster or an alien.

A Chilling Tale of Dreams Gone Awry.......2005-11-23

The Fifth Child is a delightfully haunting little piece of literature that questions the nature of the family/family values on several levels. Though Doris Lessing often takes the tone of a children's story, the vocabulary and themes of The Fifth Child make it an experience intended for adults.

Harriet and David, with old-fashioned style and old-fashioned (and naïve) dreams, set out to buy a large Victorian home and fill it with happy children. They accomplish this a little sooner than planned, as Harriet keeps becoming pregnant before recovering from the last childbirth. Then the fifth child comes along, which--Harriet eventually assumes--must be from a race of the past, a vehement little beast with abnormal strength. It then becomes a story of how baby Ben affects the family and Harriet's sanity. Harriet's internal struggles are endless, as she must somehow distribute her attention to all her children while controlling Ben, decide whether or not to send him to an institution, and deal with consequences of her supposedly moral choices. Her regular doctor and a new doctor both make her feel that Ben is "completely normal" and that she is the one with the problem, while Harriet insists that she's done everything she can to nurture and love him. Who is right?

The book presents an irony (I won't reveal too much) that deals with the attempt to save someone, only to have that person turn into a destructor; so as a result, you preserve one life but ruin many. Lessing tells the story with charm and force, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

An unforgettable book.......2005-09-14

This has to be one of the most memorable books I have ever read. I read it years ago, maybe even before I had children, and then picked it up not long ago at the library to read again.

This book can be read on many levels, but what comes at me most of all is that we truly can't foresee our future. We can try to plan for it, some of it anyway, but that is about it. There will always be surprises and tragedies that we could never see coming, even if, God forbid, we tried to imagine them.

After my most recent reading I discovered that there is a sequel: "Ben: In The World". The sequel makes it clear that Ben is supposed to be an evolutionary throw-back and follows him through his young adult years. There is a lot of sadness in both of these books. One scene that still haunts me from the first book is of the institution where Ben's family wants to leave him. His mother goes there to bring him home, over the objections of the rest of the family, when he is a small boy. His mother tries her hardest to love Ben, after all it is so easy to love her other children, but she can't really love someone that she can't hope to ever understand, someone who is so obviously "other". Ultimately she must make a choice between Ben and the survival of the rest of her family.

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A first-person tale of transformation
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Earth through an Alian's Eyes

The Sirian Experiments
Doris Lessing
Manufacturer: Flamingo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0006547214

Book Description

Shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize. The Sirian Experiments is the third volume in Doris Lessing's celebrated space fiction series. 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'. In this interlnked quintet of novels, she creates a new, extraordinary cosmos where the fate of the Earth is influenced by the rivalries and interactions of three powerful galactic empires, Canopus, Sirius and their enemy, Puttiora.blending myth, fable and allegory, Doris Lessing's astonishing visionary creation both reflects and redefines the history of own world from its earliest beginnings to an inevitable, tragic self-destruction.

The Sirian Experiments chronicles the origins of our planet, the three galactic empires fight for control of the human race. The novel charts the gradual moral awakening of its narrator, charts the charts the gradual moral awakening of its narrator, Ambien II, a 'dry, dutiful, efficient' female Sirian administrator. Witnessing the wanton colonisation of land and people, Ambien begins to question her involvement in such insidious experimentation, her faith in the possibility os human progress itself growing weaker every day.

Customer Reviews:

A first-person tale of transformation.......2003-10-20

At heart, this book is about how people see themselves and each other. The form of the story is a first-person journal, written in a deliberately academic tone.

The content, though, is one person's total change of her place in her world. The writer's initial view looks down on the world around her, as filled with inferior beings. After some time and much confusion, she learns to look up towards the higher qualities she might aspire to.

The crucial moment in the book may be the phrase, "They should be treated as they treat others." Of course, the author (at that point) can not say "I should be treated ..." From then on, the author's broadening of view accelerates. Lessing may romanticize personal advancement, but is brutally honest about the costs that it can entail.

Lessing carefully paces the book to end at the highest point of the story. It's a pleasant change from authors who run out of things to say 50 or 100 pages before reaching the back cover. A small accident of history mars the book only slightly. Many years after the book was written, a new sleep medication was put on the market: Ambien, the name Lessing coincidentally assigned her protagonist. This book has a few slow moments, when that accident of name seemed apt. Still, this is an excellent book for unhurried reading.

Experiment successful.......2001-10-23

The Empire of Sirius, formerly the enemy of Canopus, has now for some time been its uneasy and mistrustful ally. Though highly advanced technologically, and despite being sophisticated social engineers, the Sirians are suffering some upheaval because of the many members of their population who feel that their life lacks a worthy purpose. Ambien II, a member of the Five who govern the Empire, is befriended by Klorathy, an agent of Canopus, in the course of their mutual dealings upon and around the planet Rohanda. Ambien II's education in the means and motives of Canopus, and her eventual realisation that, doubtless unique in the history of galactic diplomacy, Canopus means what it says and does what it promises, is the major subject of The Sirian Experiments. Doris Lessing has written, "I could like Ambien II better than I do;" which is a pity, for Ambien II, along with Rachel Sherban in Shikasta and the incensed innocent Incent in The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire, is one of the most appealing characters in the quintet. Her growth from efficient, obedient social scientist (who deplores the changing of our planet's name from Rohanda (Fertile) to Shikasta (Wounded) as showing "a mixture of poeticism and pedantry typical of Canopus") into willing pupil, sometime rescuer, and eventually into that amazing paradox, the clear-headed visionary, is a triumph of characterisation. Her report - careful, thorough, just and drily humorous - betters Shikasta in its fusion of the personal with the cosmic, and contains one of the most spectacular set-pieces in the whole series, as well as some of its most poignant personal encounters. The ending is quietly ironic, without the sense of definite progress which was present at the end of the previous two books - the major breakthrough here takes place inside Ambien II herself, though further, exterior victories may just possibly be on the way. This book (not to mention the quintet as a whole) is the kind of thing science fiction was meant to be all about.

Earth through an Alian's Eyes.......2000-01-08

This was the first Doris Lessing book I ever read. Because the protagonist is a dry technocrat, the writing is written in that style. Nevertheless, I found the book gripping. Lessing gives a fascinating and enlightening perspective of the development of human society as a whole. Of course, the awakening that takes place in the protagonist's mind as she works with the Canopeans has its own gems of wisdom buried in it. Of the five books in Canopus in Argos: Archives, this one is my favorite.

The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbor and If The Old Could

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The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbor and If The Old Could
Doris Lessing
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0394729552
Release Date: 1984-10-12

Amazon.com

These two extraordinarily engaging fictional diaries narrated by Jane (Janna) Somers crackle with energy, dry takes on the foibles of modern life, and bracingly grating relationships that often ring true. The impeccably turned-out editor of a trendy London magazine, Janna has a horror of commitment and unpleasant scenes. Her smooth carapace is cracked by Maudie Fowler, a fierce, angry old woman who lives a dirty, tumbled-down life but knows "how things ought to be." Through that steadily enlarging crack wriggle several other needy souls. In book two, Janna's exasperated benedictions fall on her sad-sack, semi-punk niece Kate, who slumps around her aunt's apartment in sluggish counterpoint to a frenzied, impossible love affair Janna embarks upon.

Book Description

These two novels show Lessing returning to an earlier narrative style with fresh power.

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