Love, Again

by Doris Lessing

"She has revealed that brilliant kernel at the heart of it all that we recognize as the truth." — Francine Prose, Washington Post Book World Love, Again tells the story of a 65-year-old woman who falls in love and struggles to maintain her life as she knows it. Widowed for many years, with grown children, Sarah is a writer who works in the theater in London. During the production of a play, she falls in love with a seductive young actor, the beautiful and androgynous 28-year-old Bill, and then with the more mature 35-year-old director Henry. Finding herself in a state of longing and desire that she had thought was the province of younger women, Sarah is compelled to explore and examine her own personal history of love, from her earliest childhood desires to her most recent obsessions. The result is a brilliant anatomy of love from a master of human psychology who remains one of the most daring writers of fiction at work today.

Genres: Fiction, Nobel Prize, Romance, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, British Literature

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

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

[Dolors · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Love, again” is a ruthless examination of the intricate web of human emotions. It’s without any reservation that Lessing analyzes the multidimensional levels of the amorous geometry, going through sexual desire, the shifting sands between romantic love and friendship, obsessive and idolatrized love and the anguish of heartache and loss that can engulf us into the most asphyxiating darkness.
Lessing provokes the reader by presenting a female protagonist in her mid-sixties, Sarah Durham, who suffers the effects of falling in love, not once but twice, with much younger men. A widow for more than twenty years and the leading director of a theatre company, Sarah believes she’s grown immune to the slanted arrows of love, but while working on a new play based on Julie Vairon, a XIX century artist with a tragic ending, first in France and later in the UK, she is overwhelmed by such a devastating passion that she loses all sense of direction, present and past.

Lessing’s style feels comfortably familiar; pungent, ironic and with sporadic but blinding bursts of melancholic poetry. But unlike some of her other books, in this case the story moves forward very slowly, a year in Sarah’s life seems like an eternity. The many featured characters; actors, sponsors, theatre managers, the family of Sarah’s brother, of which she feels inexplicably responsible, make it challenging to keep some cohesiveness among the several narrative lines, and the practical aspects of Julie’s play outshadows Sarah’s introspective meditations on love, grief and guilt, of which I didn’t get enough.

On the other hand, I admired Lessing’s critical glance into the unfairness of discarding those in their senior years as useless, outdated and incapable of being swept away by sexual neediness, which makes me think this book might have autobiographic vibes because Lessing wrote it when she was in her eighties.

All in all, I might have not picked this one at the right time, as all the necessary ingredients for a masterpiece, elegant literary references included, are present, along with the main protagonist of the story: love. Love as reason to be, but also as a trap, a maelstrom…the one and only word. Love, again.


“So that eternal love in love’s fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye in his page.”
Sonnet 108, Shakespeare.

[AiK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Саре Дурхам 65 лет, но она выглядит на 50 лет, и все успешные красавцы в книге, много младше нее, пали в любовной муке у ее ног. Вот кратко о чем эта книга. Автора хотела написать роман о том, что дамы в возрасте тоже могут влюбляться. Но получилось фальшиво и неестественно. Этот роман не выделяется ничем, это самый заурядный любовный роман, каких очень много. Поиски в Google, существовала ли Жюли Вэрон, ничего не дали. Удачная конъюнктурная находка, когда спрос на феминистские произведения, а в особенности небелой женщины, намного превышает предложение, помогла не только Саре и ее компаньонам продержаться целый театральный сезон с перспективой на второй, а городку Бель-Ривьер заработать на туристах. Этот конъюнктурный спрос помог и Дорис Лессинг. Язык произведения довольно скуден, как и бедно идеями содержание книги. Возможно, это перевод плох. Некоторые фразы прямо резали слух, например, "Элизабет пригласила Сару погулять в саду, к чему та немедленно и приступила." ,"исчез с воспламенительной улыбкой." или "через спинку спереди повернулся к ней Эндрю, поигрывая кривой усмешкой." Неоднократно подчеркиваемые подростковые поведенческие реакции нашей пожилой героини, усиленные неуместными сравнительными оборотами, вызывают раздражение:
"Едва только она просыпалась, на нее наваливались дневные грезы, как будто вызванные галлюциногенами. Она могла целый день провести в грезах, как подросток."
Режут слух и трубадурные мелодии, сочинённые квартеронкой с Мартиники в конце XIX века.
Автор пытается поднимать темы СПИДа, в то время бывшего важной темой из-за стигматизации его носителей, межкультурных различий и понимания, но все как-то неубедительно.

"Пышный экзотический антураж не смог прикрыть скудость замысла…", - так написали газеты после спектакля. Также можно написать и о романе Лессинг.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In lots of ways, this is probably a 3 star book. It's not very exciting. Most things that are suggested may happen never happen. But as with the other Lessing book I've read, the quality of the insight is so good that it can't be discounted. Usually I copy my favorite passages from dog-eared pages into my Goodreads review, but this time there were 20 of those pages and they required their own Google Doc. And, like with the other book, they're a little scary.

I liked this book right away, because a lot of what I like is right in the bones of the thing. It's kind of a miraculous recipe. I heartily approved of Sarah and all of the threads in her life. Her work at the theater is tantalizingly realistic (there is such a thing). Her quick friendship with Stephen is wonderful and touching right away. Her unusual obligation to raising her niece Joyce, though Joyce's parents are perfectly viable but unwilling, felt immediately serious to me. And the exposition of Julie Vairon, the thread stitching everything here together, was extremely appealing.

The characters spend the book at work on a play (with music) about Julie Vairon, an obscure 19th century (fictional) figure who became famous after death as a composer, artist and diarist, of a background "like Napoleon's Josephine". She lived alone in a forest outside a small French town, had a few serious love affairs, and drowned herself while in her thirties.

I am pretty sure that if this all were true, I would really like Julie Vairon the figure. She seems extremely real and I can really imagine the way she would be appreciated now. A Women's History Month kind of person. I don't think however I would like Julie Vairon the play very much, but I suspended disbelief enough to let the characters think so. The play's evolution is one of the book's major signals -- the characters all have very distinct ways of relating to Julie, and their "take" on the play is the way we place them in Sarah's moral spectrum. France and England are characterized by their different responses to the productions, and at the end, we are bitterly disappointed when someone wants to make a musical.

The atmosphere of the book is a really strong element, first the portion during the production in Julie's semi-hometown in France, and then the portion where Sarah becomes a welcome guest of Stephen's English country estate where the next production happens. That place and their relationships to it reminded me a little of Brideshead. I wished she'd spent even more time there, as all the time spent absorbing Stephen's life was excellent, his quiet psychosis and strange marital situation. Really good.

What's funny about this book is that in a lot of ways the plot -- older woman falls in love with younger men, twice -- makes it sound really Oprah-friendly. But Lessing is such a brutal writer. It seems there's always some dark insanity involved. A bit of danger, as these people will never recover from this ordinary pain.

Sarah goes through so much pain with these feelings it's almost enough to disconnect you from the story. All this for Bill, really? Bill sucks! Henry doesn't suck. Henry is great. But much, much time is spent in the detail of her unconsummated passions, which really go nowhere. For all the self-referential comparisons to bedroom farce, not one single bed gets hopped this whole time. (Well, one off-screen, and not Sarah's.) I suppose that's part of the point, but France was mildly oppressive to read through with all of this. (Though maybe because I really didn't care about Bill, at all.)

Once those are over, though, what she's left with is moving, as is her effort at caring for Stephen on his parallel paths. Between Stephen and her brother and Julie, so much of the thematic purpose of the novel comes together in the last 50 pages, it's so strong. A little odd because it seems it wasn't present earlier, but really it was, just quietly. In the scene when Elizabeth is so angry, and says it's so irresponsible, I really thought she was directing the reproach at Sarah, because it sounded exactly like the senseless blame her brother always levied about his daughter. Her reflections on being alone at the end go really deep.

So I'm really glad I read this, even though "nothing happened".

[Fulya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çok ilginç ve aslında çok karmaşık bir kitap.
Kitap aslında durağan ama bir o kadar da örümcek ağı gibi.
Sarah 65 yaşında yirmi yirmi beş senedir dul, çocuklarını büyütmüş, Londra'da bir tiyatroda yazarlık, yapımcılık, aslında herşeylik yapıyor. Eşi öldükten sonra sevgilileri olsa da çok uzun süredir romantik ve erotik hayattan elini eteğini çekmiş. Asla anlaşamadığı kardeşinin küçük kızı serseri Joyce sokaklarda yatmayı tercih etmediğinde Sarah'da kalıyor.
Ve Sarah, neredeyse bir asır önce yaşamış ve sonra kendini öldürmüş yarı siyahi, besteci ve yazar Julie Varion'un hayatını oyunlaştırmaya karar veriyor ve her şey birbirine giriyor. Oyunun bir nevi sponsorluğunu yapan İngiliz iş adamı Stephen ile oyun için buluşup bir anda derin bir dosluk kuruyorlar. Stephen, Julie'ye aşık. Evet seneler önce ölmüş birine aşık. Bu aşk Stephen'ı kemiriyor tam anlamıyla. Stephen evli ama eşiyle aralarında sadece bir tür anlaşma var. Eşinin de lezbiyen bir ilişkisi var. Stephen, Lessing'in "Büyük D" dediği derin bir depresyonda.
Sarah'ya gelince... Oyunun provaları ve sahnelenmeleri sırasında iki kere aşık oluyor. İlk kez 28 yaşındaki androjen Bill'e. Bill çevresindeki herkesi etkilemek istiyor. Bu yüzden Sarah'ya olan ilgisi aşk mı yoksa narsisizm mi bilemiyoruz. Sarah sonra Bill'in çekici adam kostumünden sıyrılmış karakterini fark ediyor ve aşkının büyüsü yok oluyor. İkinci kez ise 35 yaşındaki Henry'ye aşık oluyor. Bu daha olgun bir aşk. Çünkü sadece fiziksel çekicilik üzerine kurulu değil, aralarında gerçekten bir bağ var ve bu karşılıklı. Ama Henry evli ve Sarah'yla hiçbir zaman bi ilişki yaşamıyor. Kİtap boyunca cinsel tansiyon aslında çok yüksek ama asla sevişme, fiziksel birleşme yok. Herhalde ilk defa bir kitabı okurken bunun OLMAMASINDAN rahatsız oldum. Genelde yerli yersiz olmasından rahatsız olurum çünkü. Erkekler Sarah'yı çekici buluyor ama onunla hiç sevişmiyorlar. Bu da okura 65 yaşındaki kadının çekiciliği ile seksapelitesinin aynı şey olup olmadığını sorgulatıyor. Acaba adamlar kendi anneleriyle yatmış gibi hissetmek istemediklerinden mi yatmıyorlar; korkuyorlar mı, istemiyorlar mı? Aşkın yarısı erotik merak bana göre. Ve bu merakın sadece merak yönü kitapta var. Tatmin yönü ise yok. Ama Sarah'nın gözünden bakmamız istendiği için aynı acıyı hissediyoruz biz de.
Kitap aşkı değil, Sarah açısından bakıldığında aslında 65 yaşında aşık olmayı anlatıyor. Duygular aynı ama deneyimler ve bedenler bambaşka artık. Bill ve Henry'yi hep Sarah'nın gözünden görüyoruz. Sanki Sarah olmasa onlar da yokmuş gibi. Kimi zaman Sarah her şeyi uyduruyor mu diye bile düşündüm. Bu anlamda anlatım eksik ama Lessing bunu bilerek yapmış gibi.

Kitap aslında dört yıldızlık. Yer yer insanı sıkabilecek bir boyutu var kitabın. Aksiyonsuz ve herkese göre değil. Ama ben kitabı çok sevdim ve bir daha okuyacağımı da biliyorum. Kitabın eleştirilerine baktığımda 65 yaşındaki bir kadına bu kadar çok genç erkeğin aşık olmasının ve o yaştaki bir kadının bu derece erotik hisler beslemesinin inandırıcı olmadığını yazan eleştiriler okudum. Peki. Ama neden olmasın? Lessing kitabı seksenlerine doğru yazmış, galiba 65 yaşındaki bir kadının neler hissettiğini bu noktada Lessing'ten daha iyi bilemeyeceğiz.

Sarah'nın hikayesi ayna karşısında başlıyor ve seneler sonra yine ayna karşısında bitiyor. İnsan galiba kendiyle hesaplaşmasından hiç kaçamıyor.

[Deea · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one review Lessing’s books so as to make justice to her genius? That I identify a lot of my thoughts in what she wrote is not a secret to me anymore, but this book simply blew me away. If the title might indicate that the story is about a romanticized love affair, well, the book is not about this. In fact, when I read the blurb, the story itself seemed a rather non-appealing one: a 65-year old woman falls in love in her old age and talks about her sorrows and tribulations. After reading it, I congratulate myself for having chosen to do so.

We would all expect that with the onset of old age, our ability to fall in love and our necessity to be loved (I mean erotical love) diminish in intensity. Lessing’s character is surprised to find out it is not really so.

"But how often is shock no more than a moment of half-expected revelation?"

She falls in love after 20 years of normality (and normality is defined as the lack of foolishness and irrationality one feels when falling in love). She doesn’t fall in love with just one person, but with different persons, one of whom is outrageously younger than her. She falls in love with them in different ways and as irrational as these feelings might seem, she cannot suppress them, nor the longing, and the feelings of shame she constantly has don’t diminish the intensity of the craving or the lust.

Love seen as suffering… well, many books have probably treated this subject or the subject of unrequited love, but Lessing goes further and talks about how relationships with parents during childhood can mess us up and can condition our whole behavior as adults, can condition our whole understanding of what we need to do in order to be sure we deserve love of a partner in return (there is a scene she added at the end of the book with a little girl whose mom strongly dislikes her and adores her brother which I think is autobiographical and explains a lot the actions of the main character and the attitude towards her brother’s child.

Lessing talks about how differently we can love different people. It is never the same and what we like in different persons does not follow any rational pattern. I found her (friendship) relationship with Stephen very touching. The way she loved the others was interesting (she was strongly attracted to Bill, she loved Henry because he loved her and this made her like herself etc), but the way she connected with Stephen was really touching. The way she felt at ease with him from the very first moment as if she had been knowing him for years or as if he had been her best friend in another lifetime maybe, well, I’ve had that with one person a lifetime ago and it really took me by surprize. They don’t become lovers, but sharing such closeness with someone is also a form of love.

"But they could not doubt that when they were together they were in a pleasantness, an ease, an air different from quotidian life. A charmed place where anything could be said.”

But, as Lessing’s character highlights in the end, if we haven’t lived these kinds of experiences she writes about, everything Lessing writes in this book might just seem words on a page. This book might not strike any sensitive chord in our souls and might not speak to us if we haven’t experienced similar feelings in our lives. After all, when one is reading a book and resonating with it, it is because the characters are vicariously enacting moments/ideas the reader is somehow familiar with. The characters of this book spoke to me in so many different ways that I am amazed with Lessing’s sharp mind once again.

"To whom was she writing these messages like letters in bottles entrusted to the sea? No one would read them. And if someone did, the words would make sense only if this someone had experienced this pain, this grief. For as she herself looked at the words pain, grief, anguish, and so forth, they were words on a page and she had to fill them with the emotions they represented."

I haven’t by far touched the rich supply of ideas of this book, nor do I present it in a complete or consistent way in this review and I seem to be unable to do this in an orderly fashion with any of Lessing’s books. This is a book I will read again, for sure, sooner rather than later.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

I added below a list of quotes for myself, to read them when I feel I miss the ideas from this book. I advise you not to go through them if you want to read this book as seeing them out of context before might diminish its charm. If you feel like reading them in spite of my warning, well, you have been warned.

There seems to be a rule that what you condemn will turn up sooner or later, to be lived through.

This room was calm, usually calming, and like the other three rooms in this flat held thirty years of memories. Rooms a long time lived in can be like littered sea shores; hard to know where this or that bit of debris has come from.

When the sun shone in, the room filled with light, shadow, and moving reflections, a place of suggestions and possibilities.

But why do we assume it always means the same thing to everyone-being in love? Perhaps “little inflammations” is accurate enough for a lot of people.

When people tell you about their lives-well, the plot, they don’t tell you much about themselves.

I met this woman. She was an Indian woman. Older than I was. And it was there… we knew each other at once. You have to trust in this kind of thing. If you don’t, you are denying the best part of life.

In short, they behaved as they had to in this ancient business of the French and the English finding each other impossible, to the satisfaction of both. But perhaps each nation’s need always to find the same traits in the other imposes a style, and so it is all perpetuated.

But this place, and this group of people […] were charged with some subtle fascination, like the light that fades from a dream as you wake.

Ah, but you’re my lover, and that cancels the friend.

There are as many shades of being in love as there are graduations of colour on cards in the paint shop.

And what did he mean by saying All my love? (Her mind did inform her that she had done this a thousand years ago, finding everything she felt in a phrase or a word: one did this, when in love.)

But she wrote retrospectively about Paul: thus do we make safe stories about the raw pain of the past.

…she knew that she was housing separate blocks or associations of emotions that were contradictory to the point it seemed impossible they could live together inside one skin. Or head. Or heart.

For people are often in love, and they are usually not in love equally, or even at the same time.

There is a terrible arrogance that goes with physical attractiveness, and far from criticizing it, we even admire it.

She was determined not to raise her eyes to the balcony where she might see Bill: even the possibility he was there was enough to exert a gravitational pull down that side of her body, while her back had become a separate sensory zone.

He liked her, it was clear. Well, she liked him-banal words for mysterious processes. It became a game.

It’s good to love in a moderate degree, but it is not good to love to distraction.

The fact is, there are not so many ‘real’ relationships in a life, few love affairs.

There is a stage in love when the two stare in incredulity: how is it that this quite ordinary person is causing me so much suffering?

How little we do know about what goes on inside our nearest friends, let alone agreeable acquaintances.

Her eyes were all pupil. Drugs enlarge pupils. Like the dark. Or like love.

there is only one thing to do at the vanishing away of a wonder: put a clamp on your heart.

Yet fear or, if you like, caution did not prevent that process familiar to everyone submerged in the why of something. Clues accumulate and fall into place. You pick up a book apparently at random, and it falls open on a page where what you are thinking about is explored. You overhear a conversation: they are talking about what preoccupies you. You switch on the radio - there it is..

He was occupied deep within himself, he was busy with an inner landscape, and did not have the energy for the outside world.

By early summer Sarah’s anguish had lessened to the point that she would say it had gone. That is to say, what remained was mild low spirits of a kind she could match easily with this or that bad patch in her life, but they were as far removed from the country of grief as they were distant from happiness. She stood in a landscape like that before the sun comes up, one suffused with a quiet, flat, truthful light where people, buildings, trees, stand about waiting to become defined by shadow and sunlight. (after falling out of love)

For if she was removed from grief, she was removed too (her emotions insisted) from the intimacy which is like putting your hand into another hand, while currents of love flow between them.

But Sarah was silently telling the child: Quite soon a door will slam shut inside you because what you are feeling is unendurable. The door will stand there shut all your life: if you are lucky, it will never open, and you’ll not ever know about the landscape you inhabited-for how long? But child time is not adult time. You are living in an eternity of loneliness and grief, and it is truly a hell, because the point of hell is that there is no hope. You don’t know that the door will slam shut, you believe that this is what life is and must be: you will always be disliked, and you will have to watch her love that little creature you love so much because you think that if you love what she loves, she will love you. But one day you’ll know it doesn’t matter what you do and how hard you try, it is no use. And at that moment the door will slam and you will be free.

The point of hell is that there is no hope.

The Calamity had overwhelmed her:but could anything be absolutely bad that had led to so much new understanding?

[Luisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pessimo questo mio primo incontro con la Lessing, una gran fatica finire questo libro.
Si tratta in realtà di una storia nella storia: la protagonista, Sarah, mette in scena con la sua squadra di autori teatrali i diari di Julie Vairon, una giovane donna i cui amori non vedono mai il lieto fine. Sarah è un’affascinante donna di circa 65 anni che si riscopre innamorata ad un’età in cui pensava di essere al sicuro da simili “fenomeni”. Si ritrova a fare i conti col mal d’amore e a patire quel male fisico che si scatena dal cuore sofferente. La trama sembra interessante ma la prosa è pesante, poco scorrevole, lo stile spesso pomposo. Sembra quasi che l’autrice si sia concentrata in un esercizio di stile più che sull’andare della storia. Durante la lettura, lo ammetto, mi sono annoiata, quasi distratta, e spesso dovevo tornare indietro a rileggere un periodo per capirne il senso. Difficilissimo entrare in sintonia col personaggio. Tra l’altro la storia ad un certo punto perde quasi di realismo: non è difficile immaginare una donna, anche di una certa età, che si innamora, quanto mandar giù che riesca a far girare la testa a 4 uomini più o meno nello stesso periodo e tra l’altro tutti più giovani di lei. Per quanto fascinosa…mi sembra un po’eccessivo. Inoltre, si snodano nel racconto filoni secondari che non hanno una loro vera collocazione e che non danno poi chissà valore al resto della storia. Sicuramente non consiglierei questo libro, ma mi riprometto di leggere un altro testo della Lessing per capire se si sia trattato di un “libro sbagliato” o se proprio tra noi due non ci sia alcun feeling :D

[Arielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lessing, Doris. “Love, Again.”
New York: HarpersCollins, 2007

Doris Lessing‘s novel, Love, Again, is about an aging woman by the name of Sarah Durham. Sarah is in her mid-sixties and, having been widowed by the time she was in her mid-thirties, believes herself to be past her prime when it comes to love. The story opens with Sarah trying to piece her life together when she unexpectedly falls for two men: a director half her age, yet mature for his own, and a young actor almost forty years her junior.
Lessing‘s style of writing is somewhat erratic in this novel. Lessing jumps from subject to subject, as well as character to character, which is distracting. At times, Lessing jumps back and forth between third and first person narration, though the novel is mainly written in the third person. It seems as if Lessing is trying to get inside Sarah’s head, but can’t quite get there. In many places, it is hard to keep up. The impersonalized third-person narration coupled with the first hand look at Sarah Durham’s thoughts creates a disconnection between character and reader. If the novel were written completely in first person, we may be able to see the story through Sarah’s eyes and in turn, have more of an emotional connection with her situation. As it is, the novel seems to pick up in the middle of Sarah’s day, and the reader is left to pick up clues along the way as to what’s going on in the story, all the while trying to digest Sarah’s overwhelming background information.
Just as I am struggling to form an image of Sarah in my mind, several more characters come into play, in quick succession. It is, at times, hard to keep the characters in the novel straight because there are so many. Furthermore, the author seems to take too many “side roads” as well. The book is supposed to be about a middle-aged woman who finds love again, yet there is so much back story that the true story line takes a while to appear. I believe that the author’s intent for going into so much detail about Sarah’s history is to emphasize the change from push over to independent woman in which Sarah undergoes. However, the author goes into unnecessary detail in several areas of the novel that have nothing to do with furthering the plot. That being said, I am reminded of something a creative writing professor told me once: having too many characters, as well as including too much back story, can take away from your novel, and end up doing more harm than good. I wasn’t sure I agreed at the time, but I understand now as this book is a prime example of both issues.
Overall, I did enjoy the main concept of the story; how one woman, who spends her entire life taking care of others and allowing them to walk all over her, finally allows herself to seek a happiness that is all her own. However, I feel that if the author would have kept the main plot on track, while keeping the back story to a minimum, the overall outcome of the story would have had more of the desired impact.

[David Hinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished this book, I gave it a four star rating. But now, after three months of thinking abut it and deciding to review it, I have given it 5 stars. Why the change?

My original demotion to 4 stars was due to the plot, because as a now 65 year old male I found the story's premise that two much younger men, one an attractive young actor and the other, a married man in his early forties, would fall in love with a 65 year old woman. 55 years old? certainly, but 65 was a bit too much of a stretch for me.

So, not much for the story line but as a meditation on the changing nature of love as we progress through life, it's excellent. When I find a particularly good sentence, paragraph, or passage in a book I make a slight parenthesis around it and then put a small yellow post-em note on the page. The top of this book is lined with post-em notes.

Just a tip to the story line....a 65 year old woman, who was widowed at age 40 and left with two small children, finds herself giving in to feelings of love which she has repressed after her husband's death. Flings, affairs, yes, but no burning romance for a quarter of a century, until now.... As she is pursued by younger men, and as she finds herself giving in to these repressed longings, she commentsw on the nature of love.

"There are as many shades of being in love as there are graduations on cards in the paint shops," is one of her early musings. Do we believe that, and if so, what shade of being in love manifested in our lives. Her love for her husband, she comes to realize, wasn't a deep shade of red. "And had she ever loved him, her great love, with this burning, craving love? No, that had been a gradual love, leading to the satisfactory marriage that followed."

"Satisfactory marriage?" Is that how we define the successful marriage, that it was "satisfactory ?" Is the gradual kind of love the only kind that can lead to a satisfactory marriage, while the burning, craving kind of love burns itself out, either on one end or both ends, and by its nature can only lead to to short, tumultuous, and unsatisfactory marriages?

And finally,can intense feelings of love still be ignited at the age officially designated as the beginning of "elderly?"

If you want to contemplate these questions, this is a great book to do it with.

[Tuti · Rating 2 out of 5]

this started well... sarah durham is a 65-year old theatre producer, one of the four friends making up the company of „the green bird“ theatre. they are preparing for a production of a play, with music about „julie vairon“, an artist and musician living in the provence around 1870. during the rehearsals in london, sarah develops a relationship with co-writer stephen, who is in love (no quote marks...) with julie vairon. yes, he knows how crazy that is, but... then she falls in love with the 26 year old actor playing paul, julie‘s first lover - and stephen with 23 year old molly, the actress playing julie... then... towards the middle of the book, the company is in france and they are all in love, and talking to each other in verses, or singing to each other song titles, and also crying a lot... then sarah falls in love with henry, the 35 year old director of the production etc. during all this time she is deeply suffering, as is stephen etc. they are crying a lot etc. this is all very sad, for a variety of reasons.

[Sandra Nedopričljivica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prvi čitateljski zadatak za klub Nedopričljivi... tada još nismo imali ni ime, ni ocjena nije bila važna a bez obzira na to, izvučena je hrpa citata, a rasprava je bila više nego odlična.

[astried]

What I've just realized about Doris Lessing's writings is this. They grab me by the neck the way you pick up a cat and won't let go. It didn't matter if I didn't really enjoy reading it, I couldn't break away. The simple act of betraying a book being read now for another, thing that I've done times and times again without any hesitation became impossible. So I read through boring part, annoying part, ruminating part until she has finished telling her story; then I stopped reading. This is not a reading experience I want to have all the time.

If I have to guess on the reason of my inability to enjoy reading it completely, it'll be the accursed Julie Vairon. With the entire population of the book falling in love with her, her music, her beauty, her journal, I only can roll my eyes. This is a stiff obstacle in reading a book revolving on her. If Lessing hadn't grabbed me by the neck, I'd have gone long way before the first 50 pages.

The rest is a thoughtful read. I have to admit my rather constant preoccupation with love. The question of definition, symptoms, impact, worthiness; all those things that people in love won't bother to spend time on and only those standing at the edge think endlessly. This time it's about contracting the disease when as a woman you've reached the enviable seemingly peaceful time of old age.

Is 60ish old enough to be called old? Old enough for stable life, not old enough to die with some asinine comment of having enough time to live fully (how much time would a person need to live fully? a minute or eternity). In a way, old enough to re-written and soften their own life story into a smooth comfortable globe. Then come love, again. Unbidden. And all hell broke loose. The illusion of peacefulness, the memory of love as a tame pet is destroyed. This is feeling all the physical pain induced by the heartache. Having it when you're not protected by youthful thoughtlessness and burdened by years of experience. Is there anything worse?

I suppose I kept on reading out of the respect for this story. Of going through it with Sarah Durham until the end and not ditching her midway. This, if loyalty to fictional character ever make any sense.

3 stars.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't finish this. That says something because I'm what I call a 'generous' reader--I'll hang in with a book for some time if I like the author, have liked his or her work in the past, like certain aspects of the writing, hoping that things will improve...

But this novel by Lessing, written by her late in life, reads very differently--as least by my memory--from her earlier work. I have found myself repeatedly pulled out of the narrative flow by word choices, overlong and overly meandering passages, stilted and unbelievable dialogue, and more.

Tried to read it around five years ago, tried it again the last few weeks.

Throwing in the towel!

My personal take on this book is that it could have used a firm hand by an editor, but that, when written, Lessing's stature was too big to allow that!

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tries to explain far too much at once with far too many characters. A real effort to finish this one.

[Gláucia Renata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah Durham está nos seus 65 anos, mulher bem resolvida profissionalmente, mãe de dois filhos já criados, viúva de um bom casamento estável aos 40 anos. Fundadora de uma companhia de teatro independente e respeitada, o livro se inicia com a protagonista trabalhando no roteiro de uma peça musical sobre Julie Vairon, filha mestiça de uma negra da Martinica com um oficial francês. A jovem, linda e talentosa, desperta amor por onde passa e dois irmãos de uma rica família tradicional francesa se envolvem com ela. A história de amor é alvo de preconceito social e a moça é um exemplo de superação se tornando uma artista dá pintura e compositora de uma espécie de música trovadoresca.
Durante a produção e encenação da peça notamos um entrelaçamento direto entre a trágica história de Julie e a vida dos personagens, todos se sentem envolvidos em maior ou menor grau por esse fantasma, a música exerce um poderoso fascínio sobre todos eles que passam a experimentar sentimentos de paixão, abandono e carência de amor.
Sarah é uma mulher que está sofrendo as agruras e dores de amor numa idade em que isso normalmente não ocorre, de forma pungente e muito dolorosa. Só não avaliei o livro melhor pois comecei a gostar mais dele no finalzinho. Passei a notar como todos os personagens sofrem de uma espécie de vazio por falta de amor e como cada um lida com isso. Isso os nivela entre eles e a Julie Vairon.
Me emocionei com a parte final da mãe e seus dois filhos.

91% (329 de 362)

"Eu acredito que suicídios devem ser simplesmente ignorados, e não celebrados em óperas e peças de teatro e coisas assim. São um mau exemplo para todos. A maioria das pessoas é realmente muito fraca."


88% (319 de 362)

"A gente esquece que as pessoas sabem a nosso respeito muito mais do que gostaríamos e nos desculpam muito mais."


78% (283 de 362)

"Só existe uma coisa em que podemos realmente confiar. Graças a Deus. O que sentimos num ano não será a mesma coisa que sentiremos no ano seguinte."

29% (106 de 362)

"Quando se sente dor no coração, raras vezes é por uma única razão, principalmente quando já se amadureceu um pouco."

28% (100 de 362)

"Em Londres, de quando em quando, algum jovem que quer chamar a atenção proclama que Shakespeare não tinha talento."

6% (23 de 362)

"As memórias de Sarah dividiam sua vida em duas eras, ou paisagens diferentes, uma ensolarada e sem problemas, outra toda esforço e dificuldade. (E no entanto a guerra com todas as suas ansiedades se acomodava na primeira parte ensolarada. Como era possível?)"

4% (15 de 362)

"Fácil pensar que aquilo era um quarto de despejo, silencioso e abafado numa cálida penumbra, mas uma sombra se moveu, alguém veio à tona para afastar as cortinas e abrir as janelas."

[Tei · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it intriguing until midway through the book. Lessing pulls off a difficult trick: she creates a character, Julie Vairon, that all her characters are supposed to find so fascinating they can't get her out of their minds. That's not the trick - the trick is that Julie actually IS fascinating to the reader, which is hard to do. So frequently characters who are meant to be charming to all the other characters in the book are not charming to me.

That said, having pulled off that difficult trick alongside the difficult trick of accurately portraying the stupidity of falling in love with someone you know is absurd to fall in love with, Lessing seems to drop the ball midway through. I felt no rising climax, no resolution, no understanding. Everyone seems to simply fade away into whatever emotion drove them through the first half of the story, and Julie also fades. I understand that this is half Lessing's point - that emotions that drive us so vividly at first frequently disappear with no fanfare, leaving us with the puzzlement of why we should have felt so strongly in the first place - but in execution, it makes for a dull latter half of the book. I found myself wondering when someone was going to DO something, and even when one of the characters decidedly does something quite immense, it has no shock and no feeling. It just happens, and then it's done, and no one seems to much care. Which is about how I ultimately felt about the story overall.

[helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

anava tan forta la doris lessing que va dir ‘solo la gente monógama puede enamorarse...quiero decir, realmente’ i es va quedar la mar de bé

[Mar +9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fa forces setmanes que llegeixo la Doris Lessing i com passen els anys de la Sarah Durham, poc a poc, aturant-me per a subratllar gairebé cada paràgraf i en acabat, segueixo meravellada per la introspecció i capacitat d'anàlisi d'aquesta bona dona, de parlar de la pressa de la joventut, dels jocs, d'amagar-se rere el desig, dels cossos, l'envelliment, el retorn de l'amor inesperat i les angoixes posteriors.

[Guilie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In literature, one mostly finds love portrayed in one of two ways: it's either the chaste, almost 19th-century platonic, Victorian romance where the lovers slow-fade into the sunset (and, presumably, into lifelong happiness together)... or it's the lustful, carnal, no-holds-barred passion, primarily of the flesh. The funny thing is I'd never remarked on this duality before—and it really is remarkable, because anyone who's been in love—in any of its variations, long-term or one-night-stand—knows how utterly false this is. Love, Again is the first book I've read, ever, which portrays love in all its messiness, all its contradictions, all its unpredictability. And it is a wondrous thing to behold.

[Sara Solomando · Rating 4 out of 5]

La primera vez que intenté leer “De nuevo, el amor” fue en febrero de 2020 estaba en Madrid; lo sé porque siempre que comienzo a leer un libro estampo en las primeras páginas mi nombre y apellidos, la ciudad en la que estoy en ese momento, la fecha y mi firma. Es una fórmula que sigo desde los 13 años que, además de servir para saber que un libro me pertenece, me aviva la nostalgia. Decía que lo empecé en esa época que fue cuando lo compré porque lo recomendaron las Deforme, creo que Lucía. Intenté leerlo y lo dejé al cabo de un par de días porque se me atragantaba su lentitud, su narrativa me parecía excesivamente introspectiva y no conseguía conectar con nada. Volví a intentarlo un año después; sé la fecha gracias a Goodreads, una aplicación que uso para registrar lo que mi memoria de pez va a olvidar. Y ahí llevaba como libro comenzado dos años hasta que la semana pasada le eché mano otra vez. Y me pasó algo parecido, me costaba entrar en sus páginas con naturalidad, pero poco a poco empezó a sucederme algo y es que, aunque no estaba enganchada como para no parar de leer, tampoco era capaz de renunciar a coger el libro cada día un ratito. Y ahí apareció: con la excusa de un montaje teatral en el que participa la protagonista del libro, Sarah Durham, Doris Lessing nos mete de lleno en los debates internos de una mujer de sesenta y cinco años, que, como muchas, o como yo, se descubre en lucha con su cuerpo cuando su corazón y su cerebro son despertados por el amor y el deseo tras un largo letargo. Si tuviese que resumir con una sola palabra su lectura, no lo dudo: delicia. Os copio algunos de mis subrayados (también en comentarios, hasta que IG tenga a bien ampliar caracteres) , porque a buen seguro alguna de vosotras estáis o transitareis por ese camino.

La mayoría de los hombres, y más aún las mujeres-mujeres jóvenes, temerosas de sí mismas-, castigan a las mujeres mayores con mofas, las castigan con crueldad, cuando ponen de manifiesto inadecuados signos de sexualidad.

Aquella invisible línea trazada alrededor: “no me toques….”, aquella mirada sexualmente altanera propia de alguien, más joven, que aún no ha cumplido los veinte, y dice: no soy para ti, persona impúdica, pero si supieras lo que podría hacer contigo si quisiera… Una mirada acompañada de la ronca (silenciosa), burla del adolescente, lleno de agresión sexual, deseo y dudas sobre sí mismo

Estar enamorado es una condición poco importante, e incluso cómica. No obstante, hay pocos estados más dolorosos para el cuerpo, el corazón y -peor aún- la mente. […] por qué las personas enamoran con frecuencia y no se enamoran en condiciones de igualdad, ni tan siquiera al mismo tiempo.

Envejecer, o incluso hacernos mayores, es tan cruel que mientras gastamos todas y cada una de las energías en intentar despistarlo o posponerlo, en realidad raramente conseguimos que su constatación no nos hiera aguda y fríamente.
Millones de personas pasan sus vidas, tras feas máscaras, suspirando por la simplicidad desde el amor conocidas por la gente atractiva. Ahora no hay diferencia entre mi persona y aquellos excluidos del amor, pero es la primera ocasión en que me doy cuenta, puesto que a lo largo de mi juventud, me encontré entre la clase privilegiada sexualmente, pero nunca pensé en ello o lo que podía significar no serlo.

Inesperadamente, llegó a un estado en el que dormir sola era un don, y una gracia, y no podía creer que tan recientemente hubiera llorado y sufrido por la compañía del cuerpo de un hombre.

Imágenes de sus propios encantos no podían alimentar el erotismo como, solo ahora lo comprendía, habían hecho en otro tiempo, cuando se había sentido casi tan ebria de sí misma como del cuerpo masculino que amaba el suyo. Ni se podía permitir recuerdos de cómo había sido ella, Puesto que comportaban una seca angustia de pérdida.

Cómo pude vivir cómodamente durante años y años, y luego, de repente, caer enferma de añoranza… ¿de qué? ¿qué es lo que permanece despierto en el oscuro, cuerpo y corazón y mente, enfermo, por el anhelo de afecto, de un beso, de consuelo?

La realidad es que no hay tantas relaciones auténticas en una vida, pocas historias de amor.


Una mujer de cierta edad se planta delante de su espejo, desnuda, examinando esta o aquella parte de su cuerpo. […] Lo que no podía evitar (tenía que afrontarlo) era que cualquier chica, por poco agraciada que fuera, tuviera algo que ella no poseía. Y que nunca más volvería poseer. Era algo irrevocable. No se podía hacer nada. […] Había ido llegando aquella situación resignadamente, como se supone que se debe hacer, y luego, de repente la caída en el abismo. […] Hay dos fases en esta enfermedad. La primera es cuando una mujer mira, mira más de cerca: sí, aquel hombro; sí, aquella muñeca; sí, aquel brazo. La segunda es cuando se obliga a ponerse delante de un espejo real, para mirar dura y fríamente a una mujer que envejece: se obliga a volver al espejo, una y otra vez, porque la persona que está mirando siente que es exactamente la misma (cuando está lejos del espejo), que a los veinte, treinta, cuarenta. Es exactamente la misma que la muchacha y la mujer joven que se miró en el espejo y contó sus atractivos. Tiene que insistir en que esto es así, esto es la verdad: no lo que yo recuerdo… Esto es lo que estoy viendo, es lo que soy. Esto. Esto.

El poeta hablaba del amor, no del dolor. Después de todo, es posible estar enamorado y no desear estar muerto.

Había estado pensando, con excesiva frecuencia: nunca más tendré un cuerpo de hombre joven en mis brazos. Nunca. Le había parecido a la sentencia más terrible que el tiempo pudiera dictar.

Y hablaba como si lo hiciera de una rodilla rota o de una jaqueca, y no de un brutal puño que golpear repetidamente en el corazón de uno.
“No sirvo para el dolor” había dicho él. Bien, tampoco ella servía. Ni creía en ello. ¿Para qué servía el dolor? ¿Qué es lo que duele? ¿Por qué duele nuestro corazón físico? ¿Qué es este peso que llevo dentro? Parece una piedra pesada sobre mi corazón.



-Creía haberlo aceptado todo, pero no es verdad. Por lo tanto, vuelta empezar.

Con este telegrama, quería decir: pensaba que había aceptado que no me casaría, ni tendría un amante serio con quien vivir, porque mi madre está enferma y empeora y, en cualquier caso, estoy envejeciendo, aparecen canas en mi pelo y era muy desgraciada pero lo había aceptado, pero ahora…

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine Frau Mitte 60, die nicht mehr mit Liebesverwicklungen rechnet, sich stark mit ihrer Arbeit identifiziert und sich während der Inszenierung eines Stückes über eine ungewöhnliche Frau zu ihrer eigenen Überraschung in einen der wesentlich jüngeren Schauspieler verliebt. Und auch alle anderen am Stück Beteiligten kämpfen mehr oder wenige mit ihrem Gefühlschaos. Daneben schildert Lessing auch gut die eigene Welt, die beim Proben und Inszenieren eines Stückes von dem Ensemble Besitz ergreift; die aufrührende Wirkung, die Worte und Musik ausüben können. Ein sehr bewegendes Buch, dass nicht nur emotionale und körperliche Leidenschaften beschreibt, sondern auch Freundschaft, Sympathien, die Komplexität von familiären Beziehungen und was die Kindheit an Sehnsüchten und Wunden in uns anlegt.

[Uttiya Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best romances are those which chronicle the impossibility of love itself. And this is one. It is possibly the most engaging romance novel i have read in ages, and it delivers so. Sarah is a brilliant character but, the central character remains Julie, whose story for the most part drives the narrative. One wonders about how Lessing manipulates her characters through this almost phantom like epic figure that is Julie, their perceptions of her, their ways of thought. Love is found and lost and you stay there, hungry and perhaps lustful, but, always a believer of love, even if you are not 'in love'.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A female friend once asked me if I thought women over 40 had any realistic chance of meeting new men. I suggested she might want to read this book.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an aching, unresolved, and disquieting novel.

Julie Vairon haunts the book, particularly the first half, in a way that's so strongly drawn that I found myself wanting to read her Wikipedia page to learn more about this figure they're focusing a play on. It's easy to forget that she's not a historical figure at all, but rather just another character Lessing invented.

So it is interesting that as immersive as this part of the book was, I still found it extremely hard to consistently return to the book. I don't even know how long it took me to read, but it was a very long time. It was just never the book I chose to return to whenever I picked something up to read.

The book is primarily about longing that is never fulfilled. For anyone. For the main character, standing on the cusp between late middle age and being truly old, it's an awakening of things she hadn't felt in a long time and never expected to feel again. But every single character in the book is longing for something, often love, and I don't think it's really a spoiler to observe that none of them get what they were hoping for.

Lessing has some poignant turns of phrase when thinking about aging.

When one's heart aches, this is seldom for a single reason, particularly when one is getting on a bit, for any sorrow can call up reserves from the past. [94]

She sat approaching—cautiously—depths in herself she did not often choose to remember. Few people can reach even middle age without knowing there are doors they might have opened and could open still. [207]

On aging,

There was nothing to be done. She had lived her way into it, and to say, 'Well, and so does everyone,' did not help. [243]

The end of the book is both banal and striking. I asked myself, "was there any point to that?" And then wondered the same about life.

[Allegra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love, Again" est une lecture comme j'en ai rarement rencontrées. Le livre fait à peine plus de 300 pages, pourtant j'ai mis un mois à les parcourir. Ça n'a en aucun cas été parce que je trouvais leur lecture ennuyeuse. Au contraire, la densité du récit et de la vie intérieure des personnages était si vive que mon esprit avait besoin d'avancer à tout petits pas, de réaliser des pauses, de contempler la vie à la lumière de certains mots et de certaines phrases avant de retourner à la lecture.
Doris Lessing propose de suivre quelques mois de la vie de Sarah Durham, une femme d'une soixaintaine d'années qui travaille dans un théâtre londonien. Alors qu'elle pense que "l'amour" est un stade qu'elle a dépassé depuis longtemps et auquel elle ne sera plus confrontée, voilà que plusieurs rencontres viennent ébranler ses certitudes et cet équilibre si calme en apparence. Une histoire à la fois unique et tout à fait banale, que Doris Lessing décrit avec une main de maître. La place qu'elle laisse à chaque pensée, à chaque émotion, même les plus infimes, est percutante. L'autrice nous emmène dans un monde intérieur sculpté à coups de contradictions, de fragilités, d'interrogations et de fulgurances. Impossible de ne pas y trouver des échos personnels, des réminiscences d'expériences passées...ou même simplement de réflexions fugaces. Le talent de Lessing pour mettre à feu des choses aussi tenues, presque invisibles, est rare et puissant. Il faut une forme de courage pour écrire un livre dont les trois quarts reposent sur les pensées plutôt que sur les actions. Un pari valeureux, relevé avec panache.
La lecture de "Love, Again" a été une véritable traversée. Lente, laborieuse par moments, mais dont chaque passage s'est ancré dans ma mémoire avec entêtement.

[Ladyce West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doris Lessing ficou conhecida por testar seus próprios limites narrativos e se reinventar a cada publicação. Assim sendo suas obras tendem a diferir muito em estilo e temática. "Amor, de novo" é diferente de outras obras que li da autora. E até agora a que menos me agradou, ainda que aborde temas importantes como o amor e a juventude.

Esta foi uma leitura do meu grupo de leitura e 80% dos leitores não gostou. Gostei com reservas. Por volta da página 80 duvidei muito que chegasse ao final. Mas fui em frente principalmente pelo que já havia lido de Lessing. No entanto este é um texto complexo, com duas realidades sendo abordadas: uma no palco e a vida dos atores fora do palco. Sim, elas se complementam e se espelham, mas texto é pesado, dá espaço à confusão e tive que lutar contra o tédio.

Não há dúvida de que esta é uma excelente escritora. Mas nesse livro parece se perder. Para salvar a leitura de "Amor, de novo" há a importância dos tópicos examinados, sobre o amor e o envelhecimento. No fundo, não recomendaria esse livro como uma boa introdução à leitura de Doris Lessing. Para isso recomendo "As Avós".

[Charmaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. All about age and gender and growing up with feelings of desire and love. Very heartfelt.

[Erwin Maack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Existe um risco não pequeno de você terminando o livro se apaixonar pelo personagem principal, alguém que com a leitura de outras obras você perceberá que é ninguém mais que ela mesma — a autora.
Tais os detalhes, tal a certeira acuidade daquela personalidade anfitriã e imaginária, e por isso mesmo, perigosamente atraente.

[Rae]

DNF
Not for me but it was such an effort to read the portion that I read, that I'm counting it as read.

[Andrea Neves António · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um mergulho no mundo do teatro, da criação, da história de Julie Vairon.
A profundidade dos sentimentos que acompanham o avançar da idade, do amor, das relações...
O revirar de tudo, do conforto e do conformismo, das rotinas, quando o amor ou paixão surge. A violência dos sentimentos e a esperança e desesperança que acompanha o despertar.
A depressão está presente, mas entendo que este livro pretende nada esconder, e é sem vergonha e com realismo que expõe a angústia, a dor, a percepção do espaço e tempo.
Um livro definitivamente diferente, original, rico, despretensioso, por isso único.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Doris Lessing. Her books have been part of my life from her early short stories through The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor to the Shikasta series and some years ago The Fifth Child. All of them shook me in different ways so seeing this somewhere was a no choice. The tone and style and mood was the same that coloured all the books above. Reading it felt like catching a bus and going to visit an old and dear friend in a familiar room somewhere after not having visited for years. It was lovely just to read her again. It did, to me, suffer a little from class snobbery in the depiction of some characters and moments of self congratulation that goes with that sort of cloistered world but I remained entranced to the end, as I always am. And there were golden moments where her observations flung open doors that shook me with what they revealed accuracy - like she always did. Shining light in corners of human behaviour that had always made me uneasy without knowing why - and showing me why.