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To Room Nineteen
Susan och Matthew Rawlings lever ett förnuftigt liv i Richmond med sina fyra barn. Deras år tillsammans har kantats av kloka beslut som lett till välstånd och lycka. Inte heller klandrar de varandra för den begynnande tristess som sakta smugit sig in i deras tillvaro. Och till och med när Matthew erkänner en tillfällig otrohet är Susan, om än inte helt förlåtande, så förstående. Ändå kan hon inte helt slå ifrån sig känslan av rastlöshet, av att vara en främling i sitt eget hus. Behovet av en egen plats blir alltmer central, men hur berättar man att man måste ta en paus från sin familj?Till rum nitton är en berättelse om känslan av att inte längre äga sitt eget liv, som mamma, som hustru och som kvinna. Doris Lessing belyser i många av sina texter den kvinnliga erfarenheten, och hennes skarpa iakttagelser är en fröjd att läsa.Novellen är hämtad ur samlingen A man and two women från 1963 och utgiven i nyöversättning av Alva Dahl.
72 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1983
6 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Doris Lessing
475 books3,179 followersDoris Lessing was born into a colonial family. both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.
In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.
In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.
In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.
She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org).
In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.
In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.
In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.
She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org).
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 17, 2015
This story had me at “The Rawlings’ marriage was grounded in intelligence”, because that’s the kind of statement that is a) a recipe for disaster; b) such a sardonic remark that sets the ironic tone right away – just the way I like it.
It turns out that I really like Doris Lessing. This is quite different from the book I’ve read of hers (The Cleft) and kind of reminds me of Atwood (for me, that’s a great compliment). They have the same dry sarcastic sort of writing. It also reminds me of Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, because of the claustrophobia and the hinting at mental illness caused by your run-of-the-mill domestic-environment patriarchy. Delicious stuff.
This short story starts off quite innocently, pairing up husband and wife in their seemingly equal circumstances… Up until the wife is singled out in the task of giving up her career to look after their children. Thus starts a divide between the couple. The wife ceases to have a life besides her family, while the husband is ever more absent from home, becoming entranced in his work and finding comfort outside of marriage. Their different circumstances are not the most harrowing part of the story, though, but the horror and disbelief with which the wife’s complaints are met. It’s like she’s insane – she believes it herself – because she obeyed the societal norms and now she’s still unhappy, unfulfilled. It’s a catch-22, because she could have disobeyed and have been met with disapproval, but the way it happens, she obeyed and she’s still considered unreasonable. There is no way to win this game.
But what is, then, room 19?
Another reviewer suggests it’s a creative space – for the woman used to work for an advertising firm as a creative worker. I’m compelled to agree. It’s certainly a space for her to express something in herself that she’s not allowed to express at home. It could simply mean ‘freedom’, as she phrases it – it’s quite sad to witness her begging her husband for petty amounts of money, for an au pair, for whatever. You realize just how little she has, despite on the surface having it all. Because it’s not truly having if it is mediated by her husband and her children, even by her maid!
And yet, the absurd in the situation, more than the situation itself, it’s others finding it absurd that she finds it absurd. Such a strange world we live in.
It turns out that I really like Doris Lessing. This is quite different from the book I’ve read of hers (The Cleft) and kind of reminds me of Atwood (for me, that’s a great compliment). They have the same dry sarcastic sort of writing. It also reminds me of Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, because of the claustrophobia and the hinting at mental illness caused by your run-of-the-mill domestic-environment patriarchy. Delicious stuff.
This short story starts off quite innocently, pairing up husband and wife in their seemingly equal circumstances… Up until the wife is singled out in the task of giving up her career to look after their children. Thus starts a divide between the couple. The wife ceases to have a life besides her family, while the husband is ever more absent from home, becoming entranced in his work and finding comfort outside of marriage. Their different circumstances are not the most harrowing part of the story, though, but the horror and disbelief with which the wife’s complaints are met. It’s like she’s insane – she believes it herself – because she obeyed the societal norms and now she’s still unhappy, unfulfilled. It’s a catch-22, because she could have disobeyed and have been met with disapproval, but the way it happens, she obeyed and she’s still considered unreasonable. There is no way to win this game.
But what is, then, room 19?
Another reviewer suggests it’s a creative space – for the woman used to work for an advertising firm as a creative worker. I’m compelled to agree. It’s certainly a space for her to express something in herself that she’s not allowed to express at home. It could simply mean ‘freedom’, as she phrases it – it’s quite sad to witness her begging her husband for petty amounts of money, for an au pair, for whatever. You realize just how little she has, despite on the surface having it all. Because it’s not truly having if it is mediated by her husband and her children, even by her maid!
And yet, the absurd in the situation, more than the situation itself, it’s others finding it absurd that she finds it absurd. Such a strange world we live in.
July 10, 2015
They had everything they had wanted and had planned for.
And yet...
That's the problem!
Too much of something is in itself a sickness that can drive you to madness. When you have everything you have ever wished for, have ever wanted and planned for, what is there more to have and look forward to then?
And yet...
That's the problem!
Too much of something is in itself a sickness that can drive you to madness. When you have everything you have ever wished for, have ever wanted and planned for, what is there more to have and look forward to then?
January 13, 2020
This story is about the problem that has no name, as Friedan put it, and the need to have a room of one's own, as Woolf noted. Lessing paints a picture of every mother and wife who loses the sight of who she is as a person, outside of these roles, and is desperate to reclaim that sense of being just herself.
November 10, 2019
När jag studerade engelska på högskolan för hundra år sedan läste vi novellen To room nineteen och jag minns att jag blev djupt tagen av den. Jag blev så glad nu när jag upptäckte den i Novellix nobelprissamling, att jag köpte boxen enbart på grund av detta.
Lessing har på sextio sidor sammanfattat vad som händer när Susans känslor inte får någon katalysator; hon lever ett på ytan välordnat liv, men under oket av medelklassens - och männens - konventioner. Hennes intellekt har ingen plats längre den dagen hon blir hustru och mor, kraven suddar ut hennes egen personlighet alltmer.
Boken kom ut på 60-talet, men jag tänker på att det även idag måste finnas så många som tvingas bli något annat än vad de är. Frågan jag ställer mig är om Lessing menade att man inte kan ha både familj och behålla sin egen kärna? Hur långt kan man kompromissa med sig själv - för vi vet alla att i ett familjeliv krävs kompromisser. Jag funderar också på varför Susan inte såg att det fanns något hopp, då det hela tiden var uttalat att hon skulle återgå till jobbet när barnen var stora nog, men kanske att hon innerst inne visste att det inte skulle hända.
Nu läser jag Till rum nitton med helt andra ögon än när jag var tjugo förstås, men det är fortfarande en av de bästa och mest gripande noveller jag vet.
Lessing har på sextio sidor sammanfattat vad som händer när Susans känslor inte får någon katalysator; hon lever ett på ytan välordnat liv, men under oket av medelklassens - och männens - konventioner. Hennes intellekt har ingen plats längre den dagen hon blir hustru och mor, kraven suddar ut hennes egen personlighet alltmer.
Boken kom ut på 60-talet, men jag tänker på att det även idag måste finnas så många som tvingas bli något annat än vad de är. Frågan jag ställer mig är om Lessing menade att man inte kan ha både familj och behålla sin egen kärna? Hur långt kan man kompromissa med sig själv - för vi vet alla att i ett familjeliv krävs kompromisser. Jag funderar också på varför Susan inte såg att det fanns något hopp, då det hela tiden var uttalat att hon skulle återgå till jobbet när barnen var stora nog, men kanske att hon innerst inne visste att det inte skulle hända.
Nu läser jag Till rum nitton med helt andra ögon än när jag var tjugo förstås, men det är fortfarande en av de bästa och mest gripande noveller jag vet.
March 16, 2018
To cut a long story short, a good kdrama recommended this book, so I went for a quick check on web only to find out that the book is actually a collection of short stories - and I picked only the main title.
To Room 19 is about a marriage woman longing for freedom she had during her maiden days - to disconnect with her husband and kids' commitment and to enjoy her own company; that she rent a room by herself just to escape to be alone once in a while.
Ending was unexpected.
To Room 19 is about a marriage woman longing for freedom she had during her maiden days - to disconnect with her husband and kids' commitment and to enjoy her own company; that she rent a room by herself just to escape to be alone once in a while.
Ending was unexpected.
August 30, 2020
"This is a story, I suppose, about a failure in intelligence: the Rawlings' marriage was grounded in intelligence."
Curt and sardonic. What a brilliant way to start this story off! With this first sentence Lessing got me hooked immediately and what started out promising proves to be one of the best short stories I've ever read. It is a heartbreaking and poignant tale that puts into words what Betty Friedan vaguely called "the problem that has no name", that drove countless women into depression and identity crises in the post-World War II period. And yet, "To Room Nineteen" leaves space for a number of different interpretations, which makes this text a pleasure to (re-)read!
Curt and sardonic. What a brilliant way to start this story off! With this first sentence Lessing got me hooked immediately and what started out promising proves to be one of the best short stories I've ever read. It is a heartbreaking and poignant tale that puts into words what Betty Friedan vaguely called "the problem that has no name", that drove countless women into depression and identity crises in the post-World War II period. And yet, "To Room Nineteen" leaves space for a number of different interpretations, which makes this text a pleasure to (re-)read!
May 3, 2023
Michael Plant.
September 7, 2025
I read this in my Brit lit class in college and the story def stuck with me. this is a story about a woman (married with 4 happy healthy children, stable income, etc) who has it all (on paper) but is deeply unsatisfied and unhappy with how she has lost her full identity to the service of others. Wife, mother, but who is Susan? She doesn’t know. We don’t know. We only know the lens in which her friends & family see her, which is a woman who doesn’t exist outside of what she does for her family, which is ultimately what society praises.
Absurd, funny, contemplative, and ultimately tragic.
Absurd, funny, contemplative, and ultimately tragic.
February 10, 2024
Ever since I watched (and loved) the kdrama Because This Is My First Life, I have been fascinated by this book and wanted to read it. But now after having read it, I realize I only love the symbolism it holds in the kdrama and didn't quite enjoy this book half as much as I would have expected to.
January 3, 2013
An interesting shortstory worth reading by all people, mainly because of the femanistic point of view. It is not the best thing I ever read, and even if it is not hard to read it has a deeper meaning to it.
I believe the story is a metaphor for the contemporary society. The fact that a woman should get married and have children, and live in a beautiful house is what is expected of a woman. But this might not be right for all women. The protagonist is just a product of society. She does everything to do things the right way, to be accepted, but instead she becomes deeply unhappy because she do not allow herself to have any feelings.
I find the room, to which she escapes to be alone, represents the issue that girls at this time did not have a room of their own while the boys often had it. They lacked the freedom to close their door and be alone and do what ever they liked in secret. Due to this they had less opportunity to think and explore themselves, and were not for example able to write literaure in the same extent as the boys.
What is realy remarkleble about this story is that it brings up subjects of discussions that, even today for many people, are considered better left alone. Even if many women today have the chanse to work and to educate, they never admit that marriage and children are not everything. Many women need more than just a family, they need to explore themselves in order to be truly happy. But society demands a woman to be the one taking care of the children and the hosehold, while the men mostly are suppose to bring the money and put food on the table. Since this is still common in todays society, the "To Room Nineteen" is still very relevant.
I believe the story is a metaphor for the contemporary society. The fact that a woman should get married and have children, and live in a beautiful house is what is expected of a woman. But this might not be right for all women. The protagonist is just a product of society. She does everything to do things the right way, to be accepted, but instead she becomes deeply unhappy because she do not allow herself to have any feelings.
I find the room, to which she escapes to be alone, represents the issue that girls at this time did not have a room of their own while the boys often had it. They lacked the freedom to close their door and be alone and do what ever they liked in secret. Due to this they had less opportunity to think and explore themselves, and were not for example able to write literaure in the same extent as the boys.
What is realy remarkleble about this story is that it brings up subjects of discussions that, even today for many people, are considered better left alone. Even if many women today have the chanse to work and to educate, they never admit that marriage and children are not everything. Many women need more than just a family, they need to explore themselves in order to be truly happy. But society demands a woman to be the one taking care of the children and the hosehold, while the men mostly are suppose to bring the money and put food on the table. Since this is still common in todays society, the "To Room Nineteen" is still very relevant.
November 29, 2016
This was a fascinating short story, not least because it was full of surprises. I would find it difficult to put it in any specific category - it could be anything from a tragic love story to a psycho-thriller, or maybe it's a bit of both. At any rate it was a really good read.
Incidentally (nearly forgot) the original title is "To Room Nineteen" and was first published 1963 in the collection "A Man and Two Women". If this one is any indication, it would probably be worth it to read the entire collection.
Incidentally (nearly forgot) the original title is "To Room Nineteen" and was first published 1963 in the collection "A Man and Two Women". If this one is any indication, it would probably be worth it to read the entire collection.
February 26, 2017
La verdad es que no esperaba mucho de esta novel corta, pero ha sido un relato que me ha acabado gustando mucho tanto por la escritura de la autora por la historia en si.
'To Room Nineteen' nos relata la historia de una 'pareja perfecta', la típica pareja americana que tiene buena relación, un buen trabajo, hijos, una buena casa... pero como siempre, no es oro todo lo que reluce. Doris nos narra todo lo que pasa por la mente de nuestra protagonista, la mujer de la relación, nos enseña sus deseos y sus frustraciones...
Simplemente espectacular!
'To Room Nineteen' nos relata la historia de una 'pareja perfecta', la típica pareja americana que tiene buena relación, un buen trabajo, hijos, una buena casa... pero como siempre, no es oro todo lo que reluce. Doris nos narra todo lo que pasa por la mente de nuestra protagonista, la mujer de la relación, nos enseña sus deseos y sus frustraciones...
Simplemente espectacular!
August 5, 2019
Doris Lessing escribe con maestría la historia de una mujer que se encuentra atrapada en el rol de madre y esposa perfecta del que ella siempre se ha sentido orgullosa, algo que cambiará el día en el que la protagonista decida buscar un lugar propio donde pueda ser libre de verdad.
Esta novela tan corta como fascinante nos presenta lo convulso y complicado que puede llegar a ser debatirse entre lo que la sociedad quiere de uno y lo que realmente queremos nosotros.
Esta novela tan corta como fascinante nos presenta lo convulso y complicado que puede llegar a ser debatirse entre lo que la sociedad quiere de uno y lo que realmente queremos nosotros.
July 15, 2020
En kortnovell som krävde två dagars läsning. Välskriven. Perfekt översatt, många bottnar och känslostorm mellan raderna som förtjänar att reflekteras över som någons livsöde. Finstämd. Deprimerande. Och så läsvärd.
November 8, 2016
Masterpiece!
July 11, 2017
An incredible story, deep and moving.
September 24, 2018
Brilliant.
March 27, 2018
I could somewhat relate to the main character in a certain way, feeling limits sometimes. The end was foreseeable and fitting.
December 30, 2019
Gripande och välskriven. Sorglig novell om en kvinna som inte riktigt klarar av att stå upp för sig själv.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews