Stories

by Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble (Introduction)

This wide-ranging collection of the stories by the renowned Nobel Laureate spanning more than two decades of her astonishing career highlights her singular gifts for portraying the complex lives of men and women in a modern, often alienating world.

Included are seminal stories like To Room Nineteen in which a woman reacts against the oppression of her banal marriage with dreadful results; One off the Short List which traces the surprising conclusion to a seduction gone awry; The Habit of Loving in which a lonely older man who takes a vivacious, young wife witnesses an unexpected reversal of intimacy. Here are two classic novellas as well: The Temptation of Jack Orkney and The Other Woman, which exemplify Lessing´s grasp of the most essential human psychology. Rich and various in mood and backgrounds, the settings ranging across England and France, these stories powerfully convey the uncompromising insight, intelligence, and vision of one of the most ardently admired writers of our time.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, 20th Century, British Literature, Classics, South Africa

655 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Doris 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).

Reviews

[T.D. Whittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is yet another of those books where I get several stories in, only to have it dawn on me that I've already read the whole collection. Anyway, the stories are excellent and worth re-reading. Lessing is a writer with extraordinary and subtle ways of revealing her characters' surface strengths and core vulnerabilities. She seems to notice all of those things which most of us can only get through a day, week, month, or lifetime by convincing ourselves that no one notices these things. In her understated fashion, Lessing quietly, sentence by sentence, lays bare the faulty architecture beneath the paint and plaster of our public personas, but she does not do it without care; she is not callous, though she can write with chilling detachment at times. I say "we" and "our" because one of the qualities about Lessing that interests me is how I can see myself and many others I have known reflected in her characters, easily and effortlessly. They are another people in another place and time, and yet, they are us too. She is both relevant and timeless, highly skilled at capturing the specific context of her characters' lives without over-explaining. I find her fascinating and plan to read the Children of Violence series once I get my hands on a copy.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, a large and almost unending collection of her short fiction, is probably the best introduction to the enormous ouevre of Doris Lessing, an incredibly sophisticated and intellectual writer. In it are all her trademarks; a perception of the highs and lows of relationships in rare acuity, private thoughts of joy and sorrow, the awkward social transitions between the classes, the mysteries of attraction. Some stories are deep character studies, some heralds of a bleak future, some mundane descriptions of a park or an ordinary day, some just a few pages of a brief glance among strangers and all that it could entail. Here is a stifled housewife, a desperate homeless person, grey London, a Europe still haunted by the Holocaust. A mere review is difficult in which to encompass all the places and feelings Lessing so masterfully put in this collection. Suffice it to say that it is a must for any Lessing and short fiction fan, as she is just as adept here as in any of her novels. This is a rare collection worth many re-readings.

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still reading Doris Lessing's "Stories" at random since I simply can't stand reading from "The Habit of Loving" (first story) till the end ("The Temptation of Jack Orkney") and I don't know why. I think it's not her fault, it's mine, in other words, we need to respect her as the 2007 Nobel Prize awardee for Literature, therefore, her literary stature is awfully formidable till we simply can't think/say anything that tarnishes her literary production.

Today (December 25) I've just finished reading her "An Old Woman and Her Cat" and I thought, "That's it, this is the one I'm waiting for". I can't help thinking of George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London" because both wrote exceptionally well in terms of in-depth description on the tramps, how the poor lived, the weather and other factors as affected to their ways of living in London. I sometime tell my students (who have never been abroad) that staying/living abroad is not like any paradise you dream of.

I like some stories too but, I'm sorry for some few which I don't.

Unhappily, last Monday (December 27) I finished reading her "To Room Nineteen" (a seminal story as stated on the inside of the book's front cover) and, I think, it's not for some acutely depressive readers since it ended with such an unthinkable 'dreadful result'.

Since last week I've finished reading "One off the Short List" in which I don't admire the hero at all, I keep asking myself why? Or is it Fate again? Why doesn't he leave Barbara alone?

Finally, I can finish reading her "Report on the Threatend City" as the last one, I've felt more familair with her narration as well as many good, precise vocabularies.
This is one of her unique styles I notice:

'Oh, no, you've got to stay!' said Dorothy, strident.
'Then stay till tomorrow, I want you,' said Dorothy, petulant.
'Mind what?' asked Stella, cautious.
'I read something in the newspaper yesterday, it struck me,' said Dorothy, conversational.
(pp. 284-5)

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find short story collections difficult to review. The lack of a single perspective or narrative thread throws me some, I guess. I also find Doris Lessing a little hard to write well about, which is odd because she is one of my favorite writers. Like a few other great writers I generally write short about — Primo Levi comes to mind — in her realist fiction, Lessing wrote, in direct, compelling language, about what she saw. She appears to have been mostly telling the truth, too, anyway the truth as she saw it. She didn’t have much of an “angle.” She was a feminist, but was never a movement person. She was a leftist, but left the Communist Party in the fifties and never got back into movement politics in that direction either. Her feisty, independent streak and extremely low tolerance for bullshit handicapped her in terms of following the ideologies of the time (arguably, any time). I’ve yet to read much of her science fiction, I plan on getting to that.

This is a collection of her short stories (except those about Africa, where she grew up in a South Rhodesian settler household, for some reason- maybe just length) ranging from a period from the 1950s to the late 1970s. With some exceptions — a great story about a boy determined to swim through a dangerous underwater tunnel, and another great one about British tourists creeped out by postwar West Germans — They cover many of the topics and concerns we see in her longer realist works, such as “The Golden Notebook.” We get some stuff about how being a communist was confusing, a fair amount of material about the hypocrisy and opacity of the British class system to which Lessing was something of an inside-outsider, and more than anything, we get Lessing’s depictions of women’s lives. The compilation includes stories of young women trying to find their way, middle-aged wives and spinsters negotiating the grind of marriage (or lack thereof), old women holding on to their dignity. In all of them, a combination of societal forces, internalized weaknesses, and the actions of inadequate men batter these women about, sometimes to their madness or death.

There are no plaster saints in Lessing’s work, no tiny violins playing for the victims of the world. The women are (almost) as cynical and self-dealing as the men- Lessing knows that oppression does not make saints out of people, it makes messes. Maybe this is one of the reasons I like Lessing so much. There is a lot of feeling in her work — love and it’s attendant miseries, grief, anger, isolation, fleeting stabs of joy — and there is no sentimentality, not even a whiff of it that I’ve noticed. Take, for instance, her notions on child rearing. Marriage has its compensations for women, in Lessing’s world; child rearing, almost none. She finds changing diapers and cleaning up after kids boring, a waste of a smart woman’s talents, and isn’t shy about saying so- wasn’t shy, in her own life, about leaving her children in Rhodesia to come up to London to start a literary career. A contemporary writer either wouldn’t say that, or hedge it in with so much self-analysis and back and forth it’d be rendered meaningless. Lessing says it, plainly, and explores the consequences of its truth. That is worth something, in this world. *****

[Alia Makki · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many beautiful stories about the miumius of domesticity. Beautiful because they ring true-true. True enough for me. True enough for you. Not because they're happyending stories, because true things rarely have flat emotional dimensions. True things undulate and curve and redefine the world, both within and out. And these stories, even when they stretch the logic, still bear that truth in them.

[Deea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were really good (I really liked for instance The Other Woman), but some were kinda boring. I would give 5 stars to the good ones and 1 to the bad ones and that would make this book a 3 stars book.

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doris Lessing was such an extraordinary writer. She was very prolific and I've had the pleasure to read many of her books and this collection of short stories is among her best. Most of the stories in the book can be broadly described as about relationships but there were a few exceptions. My favorite stories were Through the Tunnel about a young boy who finds an underwater tunnel in a rocky cove in the ocean, and An Old Woman and Her Cat about an old homeless woman who was widowed at middle age and abandoned by her children years ago barely surviving and living with a cat. Of the relationship type stories my favorites were The Other Woman and One Off the Short List. Another story I liked was Report On the Threatened City that was written in a style similar to her sci-fi series Canopus In Argos. Lessing's storytelling is exceptional and her writing is absolutely magnificent. Another thing I especially like about her short stories is that they are complete stories with an ending, unlike some writers who have a certain number of words they must write and then just end it without a satisfying conclusion.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection of short stories by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing far too long to read straight through as an introduction to her work and would strongly urge some well-meaning and sympathetic editor to provide a shorter selection of her best stories.

On the one hand, many of the stories are, though well written, quite unremarkable; on the other hand there are stories which stand out and are well worth reading closely. I will confine my remarks only to the stories which struck me as well worth reading.

Her first stories reminded me a lot of the Graham Greene of, say, Twenty one stories: the rubble of bombed out London, the shadow of World War II on the uneasy and uncomfortable postwar years, a certain impersonability, an interest for political periphery (albeit of a very different kind), British mores abroad, a fascination with psychological outsiders. As the stories progress, Lessing diverges more and more from Greene and increasingly studies and dissects gender-oriented couples conflicts, which resurface and are reworked in different stories from a more feminist point of view.

For example, a certain male single-mindedness is the crux of the early Through the tunnel, in which a young boy stubbornly makes himself find and swim through a very freudian underwater crack; this is the same singlemindedness driving the male protagonist of One off the short list into committing what would now be called date rape -perhaps the most shocking aspect of the story is the bemused, indifferent reaction of the victim. Many of her female protagonists tend to be rather inarticulate as they struggle towards more autonomous lives and have a depth to them which make them incomprehensible to the male of the species. Some stories feature working-class women which sometimes read almost like excellent model case studies to sensibilize social workers (An old woman and her cat); other stories feature middle-class wives extremely and deeply unsatisfied with their lives and their spouses (To room nineteen) or cold and ruthless social climbers (Notes for a case history). A very striking early story, The other woman interweaves in a fascinating way, the war years, life under the blitz, the contrast between the almost casual polygamy of a shallowly articulate, restless, working-class male and the deep, inarticulate but ultimately far worthier women he lives with, a story of the struggle of women for autonomy, for the right to follow their gut instincts and make their own decisions.... The theme is worked over and transposed into a professional middle class milieu in Not a very nice story.

In The habit of loving, the story the collection opens with, a divorced, successful and narcissistic man of the theatre, who after a string of affairs decides to remarry to stop his heartache, since rather banally :

George came to understand that the word “heartache” meant that a person could carry a heart that ached around with him day and night

After his marriage proposals to an old flame and to his ex-wife are lightly but firmly rebuffed, he winds up marrying a “young girl”, a not very successful actress who nurses him through a bad bout of the flu. The story dryly but effectly pokes holes in George who is shown to be more in love with the idea of being loved than in touch with reality.

The woman is the clumsy and elephantine clash of two elderly ex-officers, a German and an English, over a young Swiss waitress who couldn´t care less about either of them. In the end, each gentleman produces a very similar story of a youthful hotel conquest; the waitress mercilessly and cheerfully pricks what she takes to be ridiculous phantasies concocted as part of smug, arrogant, antiquated seduction strategies.

The story which most reminded me of Graham Greene is The Eye of God, in which a couple of psychiatrists vacationing in Bavaria just after the war, come across two very different but equally bizarre german doctors, one a war casualty slimily playing on his acquaintances to help him emigrate and the other an aristocratic director of of an asylum in a three-sided game of barely covered disdain and contempt.

The day Stalin died is a fine satire of a cross-section of ineffectual, well-meaning British activists, as the rather bumbling and unworldly left-wing sympathizer who is the narrator, takes her politically aware, upper-class aunt and cousin for a photographic session, turning their meaning and understanding of class-struggle into almost slapstick farce.

In Our friend Judith two well settled woman-friends of Judith watch and comment in fascination as their non-conforming, attractive, unmarried, intellectual and rather insensitive friend sleepwalks through life like a bull through a china shop.

Outside the Ministry is the only story in this (incomplete) collection to touch Africa, as two opposing veteran independence politicians and their aides meet and archly squabble trying to manoeuvre each veteran into a position of advantage for a coming meeting with the Minister. This is a very curious story to have been penned by Lessing, as it shows no real sympathy or empathy for the independence/post-independence problems in the new African states coming into being in the 1950s and 1960s.

The last story in the collection, The Temptation of Jack Orkney, is a sort of closure and an excellent psychological introspection of a veteran left-wing activist as his generation fumbles to pass the baton to a new generation. Jack Orkney looks back at his life on the eve and immediate aftermath of his father´s passing away, and compares his devotion to the cause -or to what have now become several liberal causes- with the attitudes and devotion to politics and religion of several of the solidly middle-class surviving members of his family (brother, sister, wife, and their adult children) and his circle of friends.

[Linda DiMeo Lowman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I savored every single short story in this collection. I've never read anything by Doris Lessing and now I can't wait to read every single thing she wrote. This collection of short stories will remain on my bookshelf and be re-read. If you are a writer, she is a must read. I have no idea why I've never read her or had another writer rave to me about her work. What an amazing writer!

From her Wikipedia page:
Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have great admiration for this author. There were quite a few stories I liked, but I've only mentioned the ones that I rated three stars or more. As with any collection of short stories or anthologies, there are only a few really good ones, the rest are just so so. I often feel resentful that it takes so much time to get through these, just to see if there's one more good one left.

Pleasure, 3 stars
The Witness, 4 stars
The Eye of God in Paradise, 3 stars
The Other Woman, 4 stars
Wow, does this author know men and
their lying ways! This was really
triggering for me.
One Off the Short List, 4 stars
Fabulous put-down of a boorish, gauche
man.
A Woman on a Roof, 3 stars
An Old Woman and Her Cat, 3 stars

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just dipping in to re-read old favourites - didn't read cover to cover

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A set of 35 short stories, all about relationships: husbands and wives, children and parents, friends and strangers. All masterly written. One of them is an interesting science-fiction perception of humans by invaders from the outer space. However, must admit they are for those with acquired taste for those kinds of things, which explains my rating. For many it could be five stars instead.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of course I'm not going to be faithful of you, no one can be faithful to one other person for a whole lifetime."

For me this collection was my introduction to Lessing, having no prior knowledge of her life or works beforehand other than her holding a formidable position in modern British literature. This book holds a collection of forty-something stories of varying length. Themes returned to frequently are marriage (and its inevitable demise), inescapable infidelity, the deterioration of love and the balance of power between men and women. Her characters are frequently women that are trapped in a situation dictated by the needs of others that try to break out and oftentimes suffer greatly for it. These themes and characters are my greatest gain from the collection and are what I will actively seek out when looking for new books by her to read. I especially enjoyed the way she makes her points; rather than writing you on the nose or holding sermons, she simply describes the situation at hand and the honest feelings of her characters, leaving the reader to consider what kind of society she feels lead to these choices.

There are several stories that fit this mold less well; notably, a young boy putting his will and all into a physical feat beyond his years, a pair of doctors on vacation in Germany a few years after WW2, a group of extraterrestrials maddening attempt to warn a human city of its impending destruction and a few shorts containing mostly scenery of London parks. These works were for me far less interesting and at times actually dreary. Perhaps they did not live up to my expectation, but they did draw down the full experience quite a bit and hold me back from enveloping myself in this author fully.

I would be careful as to who I recommend these works to, and would especially make sure that those I did mention this to had a bit of life experience. I imagine most of the interesting points Lessing makes would fly right past and over my 20-year old self.

[Vel Veeter]

1978 is a pretty good time to stop collecting the stories of Doris Lessing for publication. That's not to say that she didn't continue to write and write well thereafter (though I am waiting to read a few more things post 1980 for her to see exactly what she did write), but in the late 1970s is when she really dove into her science fiction phase with the Canopus at Argos books (which I actually love in their strange imperfection) as well as her Jane Somers books, an alter-ego/pen name, she used just to test out the publishing world. She also would be writing more overly political fiction and nonfiction in the 1980s and 1990s, and from what I have read there, I found it decidedly mixed. So!

This is a very strong collected stories. She's not primarily known as a story writer, but her stories are often masterly. She comes off as a novelist working in a different venue, but it's clear that she's working earnestly and exhaustively to figure out the story genre. Some of the stories run quite long, and most are publication length (5000 words or so), and because there's a separate book collecting her African stories, these do tend to be domestic to England of the 1950s-1970s. That's all good too, as The Golden Notebook and other novels she wrote in the 1960s and 70s showed that her growing up in Rhodesia is a compelling part of her narrative, but not the source of her genius. It's more Doris Lessing, working in her prime, if that's what you're into.

[Kathi Matich · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short story "Old Woman and Her Cat" included in this volume is one of the most heart wrenching, poignant and unforgettable stories I have ever read. The story reads like something Steinbeck would have written. If you like Steinbeck, give Lessing a try.

[Troy Farlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spot read some of her better known stories, but far from all of them in this edition. I wanted to give it a three but gave it a four out of respect and her talent.

Her issues that she addresses - very erudite and important and ahead of her time - what a treasure she is.

But her prose, I found lacking. And finally, her stories had a point - but it got to the point where they weren’t worth what she made you go through to get to them. Meaning longggg short stories - more like short novellas - and not that much payoff for time expended.

I am extremely glad my Everyman’s Library collecting/hobby brought Doris Lessing to my attention - and I’m glad to have read three or four of her stories, but I’m moving along.

[Alec]

#10
“I don’t expect they could spare the king’s horses,” he said, trying to make her laugh; but she replied seriously, after considering it: “Well, even if they could.” He smiled tenderly at her literal-mindedness, and suggested on an impulse: “Come to the pictures with me, doesn’t do any good to sit and mope.”

#21
At the school, which is charming, civilised, and expensive, the two children walked together across green fields, and I followed, seeing how the sun gilded their bright friendly heads turned towards each other as they talked. In Catherine’s left hand she carried the stories of Isaac Babel.

[Eider Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

It certainly took me a lot of time, but the way I see it, Doris Lessing's stories are not to be "binge read" but they must be savoured slowly, allowing the brain to embrace the whole meaning of every plot line, character reply or conclusion. These stories will make you laugh, cry, think, imagine and ponder about the limits of human thought. She's the best writer I've ever read and I recommend this book to anyone who has the time to have their mind moved around every range of human feeling and comprehension. Also, I do believe Doris understood the male mind like no other and is not afraid to mock it as well as represent it in its traumas. Magnificent.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

She definitely writes a particular kind of story - really good selection of short and somewhat short fiction...there were a couple near the end that felt like they were missing (characters?) but all in all a good collection and enjoyable read.

[Tom Leland · Rating 4 out of 5]

No super captivating stories. But many with such profoundly perfect descriptions of human foibles and fantasies and inner lives. What a mind.

[Tangi Carter Pryor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read all of Doris Lessing’s works (she’s my favorite author). This selection of short stories was one of my favorites. Truly a work of art.

[Rob Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enthralling in its variety, vitality, and humanity. A classic.

[Cari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories are excellent. Many are boring. Some make no sense, and a few are downright disturbing.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I re-read my favorite Doris Lessing story "To Room Nineteen". I wanted to see if it's still my favorite and it is.

[Laura M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by Lucy
The Witness - Which came first, ostracism or ostracizing behavior? Delusion. Should Brooke be pitied because he has been ostracized, or have his actions made it necessary for all those who know him to ostracize him? Is the weakness in certain peoples' souls more visible than in others?

Eye of God in Paradise - All over the blood-soaked soil of patient Europe, small figures built bright new houses among the ruins of war and waited for the feet of the jackbooted giants to stride among them and destroy their work again. Dr.Kroll - mentally he could not handle the incongruity of the healer within him with what he was forced to do to his patients under Hitler - or perhaps what he himself chose to do to them? As a man of science, does he view God as the source of the evil within himself simply because God is the Creator?

[Karima · Rating 4 out of 5]

HOW can we criticize this renowned writer????
This collection begins with an excellent introduction by Margaret Drabble and a chronology of Lessing's life (1919 -2008 when this book was published)which charts her life's events/writings with corresponding writing of the day and historical events, both of which had huge impact on her work.
I did not complete this book (far from it). It contains 35 stories and is 655 pages long. Our dear public library insists that I return it. I shall borrow it again and carry on.
Overall tone: BANALITY

[Ariel · Rating 2 out of 5]

i haven't finished this, but am putting it aside for now. i really love doris lessings books set in africa. for some reason these short stories haven't grabbed me as much - perhaps it's the rainy english setting reminding me too much of portland right now.

[Dr. M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The connecting link of all stories is the woman's point of view. Dealing with a variety of situations and problems the stories is beautiful. I liked all of them, long and short. This was quite a different experience from the one I expressed on her novel "The Golden Notebbok"

[Shubha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites: To Room Nineteen, Not a Nice Story, The Witness.