ALFRED Y EMILY

by Doris Lessing

En Alfred y Emily, Doris Lessing rinde homenaje a sus padres imaginando qué habría sido de su vida si la Primera Guerra Mundial no hubiese truncado el porvenir de la joven pareja. El peso del conflicto fue como un castigo que planeó sobre la pequeña Doris desde su infancia... "Aquí estoy, intentando escapar de esta monstruosa herencia, intentando ser libre", escribe la autora. Para conseguirlo, en la primera parte del libro Lessing inventa para sus padres una vida donde no hubiera existido la guerra, y en la segunda cuenta cómo fue su vida en realidad, primero en Inglaterra y luego en África, intercalando en las páginas del texto unas viejas fotos familiares.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Africa, Nobel Prize, British Literature, Historical, War

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

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

[Vicky "phenkos" · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rather enjoyed the first part of the book. I found the idea of re-inventing the lives of one's parents interesting and relatively well executed. I therefore had high hopes for the second part, where, I thought, the truth would be revealed, the actual lives compared with the real ones and a conclusion reached. I did not yet know what that conclusion might be, and that roused my interest. Would it be that Emily and Alfred were not, after all, victims of circumstances but had in fact brought their misery on themselves? Or, conversely, that circumstances had been eveything; had Alfred not been at the Trenches, had Emily's first love not died at a sea, their lives would have been, oh, so different! I read on with expectation.

Alas, the second part was nothing like I'd hoped. We do find out about Emily's bitter diappointment at not being able to carry on with the 'social butterlfy' role once in Southern Rhodesia, but there is preciously little linking the two parts together. If there were any conclusions to be drawn between the fictional and the real lives, Lessing certainly does not draw them, and leaves it to the reader to do the hard work. But there's not even a hint of where that reader should look.

Another criticism I have is that where the first part of the book is focused and coherent, the second part is disjointed and without a central theme. "Lessing's childhood experiences in Southern Rhodesia" might be a more accurate description of the second part than "Alfred and Emily". I had the sense thoroughout those 137 pages that Lessing had lost the plot, that the book was more about her than it was about her parents. And this brings me to a more serious flaw I could see in the book, namely that the issue of the legacy that parents bequeath their children, this handing down of emotions that take hold but are often unwanted and imposed ('a legacy I could have done without', writes Lessing) is not fully addressed. We know that these feelings exist because we are told so by the author but we are not shown it.

I will admit that I rushed through the last 50 pages or so, the book could just not sustain my interest, and I felt I ought to be doing something more productive with my time. It feels a bit like a missed opportunity, this book. Something else could have been made of it, I think.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange read!

I must admit that I was a little intimidated to read it. Let's face it: the whole Author Was A 2007 Nobel Laureate thing is a bit overwhelming for a girl whose last couple reads were a YA novel and a poorly written mystery. For the first half, at least, though, the book is downright delightful. I loved it - I was ready to go out and read everything Doris Lessing has ever written. Then, abruptly, the beautiful fiction ends and some seemingly random nonfiction begins. The book jacket tells me that the book is about Lessing's parents - the first half is what their lives would have been like if there had been no war, and the second half is an examination of what their lives really were like. Um, okay....but I don't know of many readers who can switch gears like that or who would want to even if they could. Besides, the nonfiction part...well, I'm not quite sure what to say about it. The part that really was an examination of Lessing's parents' lives felt a bit dull. (Then again, that could have been because I absolutely didn't want to leave the fiction part.) The thing is, though, that part of non-fiction section wasn't really about the parents at all and was almost more like an autobiography.

I'm wondering - was this book simply over my literary head? Did other people find this to be a tour de force of sorts? To me, it was just kind of weird.

Don't get me wrong - I still want to try a few more of Lessing's books, but I'll stick with the full-fledged fiction ones, thankyouverymuch.

[Londi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Combining fiction and non-fiction, this exploration of her parents' lives begins with a 137-page novella, a golden-hued re-imagining of what might have happened if her parents had never married. The second half returns to reality: Alfred loses a leg in the trenches, meets Emily in the Royal Free Hospital and then leaves for Persia and Rhodesia. Would Emily have been happier if she could have become a matron, if she could have re-connected with her love of literature? Would her daughter have pursued a writing career of her own with such energy if her mother had found fulfilment? #theGuardian

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've put off reviewing this one a bit, because I'm not entirely sure what to say. This book was really, really important to me — but this book is wacko, and probably you should read everybody else's reviews of it instead.

It makes very little sense, I will say that much. Objectively, it's a weird read and really fragmented and even inside each of the fragments there is tons of narrative hopping around like it's normal. Doris Lessing won a Nobel Prize ("Oh, Christ"), wrote this book not long after, and not all that long after that, she has died. Obviously this book couldn't exist if it hadn't been written by her, but I suppose what I mean is… maybe it wouldn't have been published, if it hadn't been written by her.

But that's okay, actually. She is a person we are grateful for, as a culture. That thing they say about actors reading the phone book, it's true of some writers — give us your grocery lists and post-it notes, we don't care, they belong to us, they're our canon. You're our literature. And this is her last book.

(I don't think it really is accurate to term this her last novel, as Wikipedia does — it honestly isn't one, and people will be even more confused if that's what they expect. That real distinction seems to belong to 2007's The Cleft , which looks… perhaps even stranger than this, but at least thoroughly fictional.)

What it really is more like is reading her journal. I'm reviewing backwards, apparently, because this is what the last sections of the book are like. But in the idea that there is merit in publishing whatever some writers write, that's what I was thinking while I read it. It is more like a notebook than a real book: names of neighbors get dropped in without being introduced, there are mentions of events without any context, and most significantly, she skips through the timeline without any thoroughness or transition whatsoever. A normal person planning a book wouldn't really write it this way, but I think Lessing was just writing whatever she wanted. So, it is what it is.

This second half of the book is Lessing's nonfiction account of her parents, but really it is more of these unstructured impressions than a true report. (Some chapters are not even to do with her parents at all, but are reminisces on a certain topic, e.g. "Provisions," about what they ate.) This is a bit disappointing because it's a story worth telling in her own words, but I'm hopeful that her actual memoirs include more of a front-to-back explanation of her life, including her parents' background. Lessing's childhood really demands rather a lot of context — though inexorably English, she was born in colonial Iran (Persia) and raised in colonial Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), where she lived until the end of her second marriage. She doesn't really explain, in this book, what her parents were even doing in these parts of the world. They picked up a pamphlet, it sounds like. But there's clearly more to it than that.

It is the novella in the beginning of the book that is its most attention-worthy portion, but it is not free from these odd traits either. In particular, the timeline issue is… weird. She kind of wafts in and out, describing something going on in the characters' lives that you think is important… and then in a new paragraph, years have apparently passed. It could drive you crazy, or you could just go with it, which is what I did, because I just wanted to see.

This novella is the "important" part of this book. Lessing has written an alternate history of her parents, in which they did not marry or ever leave Britain, during a fantasy alternate history in which the First World War did not happen. (Or rather, there is some talk of the Turks and the Serbs, but their conflicts have not touched Western Europe or elsewhere.) Objectively, this is a bit interesting as an experiment, although I would venture to say that its execution is probably not universally appealing. It's not eventful, and does not speak very much to the subject of war. (She does suggest that Britain's youth "needed" a war of some kind, and indeed the fictional next generation shoots off to parts of the world where there is important soldiering and nursing to do — which I suppose we could debate, though it was not especially convincing or significant to me.) Probably, Literature-with-a-capital-L was hoping that Doris Lessing would really write this book about war and its fingers through generations of history, rather than what she did write, which is more about the cricket playing of parents-that-weren't. Why did she write it, then? What was the point?

The answer to this is what gets me. The fact that Doris Lessing felt, before she stopped writing forever — her final book — that she needed to write a life for her parents without each other, chills me to my heart. To me, it explains itself: she is unwriting her life, offering it to history, less for the greater good of the world (and remember, she unwrote a war) than for the debt of a child to its parents. It's a proposal for an existential truce in which she acknowledges that not only did such a war devastate these individuals, but the marriage that resulted from it did them worse.

Oddly, though, it is a proposal that she seems to say is inherently silly. Because it isn't quite as simple as "My parents would have been better off if they'd never married." Both the fictional Alfred and Emily endure a good amount of life's inescapable angst, which (she concludes) takes you up no matter what you do with yourself. That is part of what's hard about her outlook on them as individuals, and is typically brutal of Lessing's writing to suggest that avoiding the most painful time of their lives here only decreased the sum total of their pain by a portion. (You can get a taste of the sort of thing she says about them in this rough and hilarious interview.) It is the final act of a child's passive-aggression: "Have it your way, see how great it would be!"

But the pain that she probes, in their alternate life, is immensely interesting. This is where she is unpacking who these people were. What is at the core of them? She knows, because they carried it into their true lives in which they raised her. In another light, what happened to it? Interestingly, in the pretend story of her parents' alternate lives, after seeing them both into good marriages (to other people) she does not spend very much time on Alfred. The lesson, perhaps, is that her father's pain did come from the war only — in their real life he lost a limb and his health, he married and brought his wife to parts of the world they didn't belong. Avoiding these obvious disasters (undoubtedly it is a preferable alternative to keep all one's limbs, at least), his life turns out pretty average.

Emily is the heart and soul of the novella. It is crystal clear that the problem to solve, the knot really at the heart of Lessing's childhood was not her father, but the mother that she says she hated. In their real life, her mother suffered a "breakdown" in Africa, when she realized they would not go home again. In Emily's fictional life, she is actually not spared a breakdown at all — but what she gets is, perhaps, a more honest one. If, in Africa, her outward complaints were for her superficial dreams (the scene with the ruined ballgowns!), then in fiction Emily's daughter has managed to write for her the real catharsis to her life story. Because Emily's backstory does not change, from version to version. The climax of her youth was, always, her father's renunciation, his rejecting her forever when she chose her career. Surprisingly, it is Emily's parents that need to be resolved, as well.

Throughout the novella, Emily continually returns to her hometown when she is shaken and in need of comfort. She does not have many friends, but seems to be drawn there anyway, to solve a problem she cannot name. She visits a neighbor, rather than her father, who disowned her when she became a nurse ("wiping the bottoms of the poor") against his wishes that she go to college instead. In the city, she is popular but empty. She bravely follows a calling to build Montessori schools for the poor, which is wildly successful, and she is a hero of London. But she is nagged by the inadequacy of a life without familial, community love. She does good work, but love isn't the result.

Lessing seems to write novels inevitably to stab them in the heart. She draws conclusions so blunt as to almost be silly, which they would be if they weren't so simply devastating. Here, Emily's self-discovery comes during and after her (fictional!) badly chosen marriage, through which she fights to orient her goals and her identity. This is a Lessing story all the way, and the great grace of it is that the author does the job with generosity, performing the surgery and sewing her back up. Emily is never well understood, and she is never very happy, but she finds her road to heroism and carries on with strength. At the end of the book, she is raw with discovery: she can't stop crying lately, and she is ravaged by revelation after watching a nursing newborn — a conclusion so harsh it cannot be maudlin. The questions to her life are not resolved, but at last she asks them.

Maybe this doesn't seem important to everyone? Maybe it doesn't universally answer the "why" of this book. But it is very important to me. My own life's major theme, the "why"s of me, will always be the link of debts paid between generations. Lessing's mission to write about parental love's lambent cruelty might tear the fabric of the world apart, but it is a needful sacrifice for us. She asks our questions, and shows us whether they are answerable.

The more I read of Doris Lessing (and it's not really been so much) the more I see her to be one of the authors who has written directly upon my life. She wrote as if she knew me, or so it feels. And that is the most important feeling that readers ever receive; it is the real gift of books, and the part of literature that is religion. I wish she did know me, though I fear what she'd say. And perhaps I hope for it, too. To be understood by the person who understands. I need writers like her. This book will always be important for me, and I guess it's just as well that it doesn't need to make sense to do so.

[Pinar Celebi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kitabın ilk 20-25 sayfası gayet iyi başlamıştı. Yazarın annesinin ve babasının hayat hikayelerini farklı bir kurguda anlatmasını ve anlatım tarzını sevdiğimi sandım ama birinci bölüm ilerledikçe sıradanlaşmaya, tekrarlamaya başladı. Dedim olaylar herhalde ikinci bölümde evrilecek. Yazar birinci bölümdeki kurgusal hayatları ikinci bölümde anne ve babasının gerçek hayatlarıyla kesiştirecek. Meğer ilk bölüm kitabın en güzel kısmıymış. İkinci bölümde her şey darma duman oldu. İkinci bölümde anlatılanları ilk bölümle hiç ilişkilendiremedim. Hadi onu geçtim. İkinci bölüm o kadar yamalı bohça gibiydi ki yazar oradan oraya niye atlıyor anlamadım. Akıştan koptum. Zaten ikinci yarı ne Alfred'i ne Emily'i anlatmış yazar. Daha ziyade kendini anlatmış.

Böyle Nobel ödüllü veya çok bilinen yazarların ilerleyen yaşlarında böyle anlamsız eserler verdiklerine sık rastlanıyor. Artık yayınevleri mi bu yazarları zorluyor "Siz ne yazsanız satar" diye, yoksa bu yazarlar mı seneler içinde akıllarının kıyısında köşesinde ne kaldıysa yazıyor da yayınevlerini zorluyor, bilemiyorum ama bir daha ödüllü, başarılı yazarların ilerleyen yaşlarında yazdıkları (özellikle de anısal nitelikteki) kitaplarını okumayacağım.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Agradable pero menor.-

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. Relato novelado de una ficticia realidad de los padres de Doris Lessing, Alfred Tayler y Emily McVeagh, evitando la Gran Guerra y algunos de los episodios reales de sus vidas, para a continuación ofrecernos fragmentos novelados de sus vidas verdaderas sin ficción y episodios autobiográficos relacionados de la propia escritora.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Crazytourists_books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το τελευταίο βιβλίο της Lessing και το πρώτο της που διαβάζω.
Το πρώτο μέρος το βρήκα υπέροχο, όμορφος λόγος, που έρρεε αβίαστα. Την ιδέα το να χαρίσει στους γονείς της τη ζωή που ονειρεύονταν (και ποτέ δεν έζησαν) τη βρήκα εξαιρετική.
Το δεύτερο μέρος, (αυτο)βιογραφικό, αρκετά ενδιαφέρον και πολύ προσωπικό παρότι αποσπασματικό και ασυνεχές.
Σίγουρα θα υπάρξει κι άλλη συνάντησή μας.
(3.5 αστεράκια)

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book. It's in two parts: the first novella is based on what she thinks her parents’ life might have been had things been different at the start; it is lightweight and formulaic yet plodding and leaden. They did this. Then they did that. It doesn't seem that Lessing could write anything that trite. Yet her parents' actual biography that follows is totally different – a sensitive and insightful account of two people who were completely unprepared and unsuited for Rhodesian farm life. 1-2* for the first part, 4* for the second makes 3?

[Hermien · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 stars for the first half, the fictitious story of Doris' parents if WWI hadn't happened. The second part is the real story of her relationship with her parents and part of her growing up in Rhodesia. That was 5 stars for me, especially as I read and loved almost all the books Doris did when she was young.

[Έλσα · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/ 5

ΠΡΩΤΗ ΕΠΑΦΗ ΜΕ ΤΗ ΓΡΑΦΗ ΤΗΣ ΛΕΣΙΝΓΚ Κ ΔΗΛΩΝΩ ΓΟΗΤΕΥΜΕΝΗ. ΕΧΕΙ ΕΝΑΝ ΟΙΚΕΙΟ, ΒΙΚΤΩΡΙΑΝΟ ΤΡΟΠΟ ΓΡΑΦΗΣ ΠΟΥ ΣΕ ΤΑΞΙΔΕΥΕΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΙΣ ΠΡΩΤΕΣ ΓΡΑΜΜΕΣ. ΤΟ ΣΥΓΚΕΚΡΙΜΕΝΟ ΒΙΒΛΙΟ ΧΩΡΙΖΕΤΑΙ ΣΕ ΔΥΟ ΜΕΡΗ. Η ΣΥΓΓΡΑΦΕΑΣ ΚΑΤΑΓΡΑΦΕΙ ΟΥΣΙΑΣΤΙΚΑ ΣΤΟ ΠΡΩΤΟ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΤΗ ΖΩΗ ΤΩΝ ΓΟΝΙΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΟΠΩΣ ΘΑ ΗΤΑΝ ΧΩΡΙΣ ΝΑ ΕΧΟΥΝ ΒΙΩΣΕΙ ΤΗ ΔΙΝΗ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΥ Κ ΣΤΟ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΤΗ ΖΩΗ ΟΠΩΣ ΤΗ ΒΙΩΣΑΝ ΩΣ "ΕΡΜΑΙΑ" ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΥ. ΟΠΩΣ ΕΧΩ ΔΗΛΩΣΕΙ Κ ΣΕ ΠΑΛΑΙΟΤΕΡΕΣ ΜΟΥ ΚΡΙΤΙΚΕΣ ΛΑΤΡΕΥΩ ΤΑ ΨΥΧΟΓΡΑΦΗΜΑΤΑ ΔΙΟΤΙ ΜΕΣΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΓΡΑΦΗ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΕΙΔΟΥΣ ΑΙΣΘΑΝΟΜΑΙ ΠΩΣ ΕΡΧΟΜΑΙ ΠΙΟ ΚΟΝΤΑ ΣΤΟ ΣΥΓΓΡΑΦΕΑ. ΕΠΙΖΗΤΩ ΕΝΑ "ΑΓΓΙΓΜΑ" ΨΥΧΗΣ.

ΣΤΗΝ ΠΡΟΚΕΙΜΕΝΗ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΩΣΗ ΤΟ ΑΓΓΙΓΜΑ ΤΟ ΕΝΙΩΣΑ ΜΟΝΟ ΣΤΟ ΠΡΩΤΟ ΜΕΡΟΣ. ΤΟ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΜΕ ΑΠΟΓΟΗΤΕΥΣΕ Κ ΣΕ ΚΑΠΟΙΑ ΣΗΜΕΙΑ ΘΕΩΡΟΥΣΑ ΠΩΣ ΟΙ ΛΕΠΤΟΜΕΡΕΙΕΣ ΗΤΑΝ ΑΝΟΥΣΙΕΣ Κ ΑΔΙΑΦΟΡΕΣ. Η ΓΡΑΦΗ ΜΟΥ ΦΑΝΗΚΕ ΒΕΒΙΑΣΜΕΝΗ Κ ΕΜΠΛΟΥΤΙΣΜΕΝΗ ΜΕ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΑ ΣΥΓΧΥΣΗΣ.

[Sarah Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has such an interesting premise - the first half is a fictional novella where Lessing imagines the lives her parents would have lived had WWI not set them on a very different path. In the second half of the book, Lessing writes a memoir that delves into the reality of her parents' largely unhappy lives, destroyed by the Great War.

While I was intrigued by the creative premise of this book, I was frustrated by the stilted and distanced feel to the narrative in the novella section. The only other writing by Lessing I have read is The Fifth Child, but the narrative style and tone were worlds away in this work. I did appreciate that the fictional lives she creates for her parents are far from perfect but are still far more satisfying and less tragic than reality. Although it did feel somewhat disjointed because Alfred and Emily themselves never really cross paths in a substantial way so the novella feels like two distinct stories and its difficult to make the two lives mesh within one novella. In both novell and memoir, the emphasis is greatly skewed to Emily, with Alfred always playing a minor role.

The memoir half of the book was broken up into multiple chapters, all with a different focus. I expected this half to be heavily focused on her parents' lives and relationship, but instead it largely dealt with Lessing's troubled relationship with her mother. The overwhelming and predominant image of her father is just that of a man very ill with diabetes.

Overall, I think this book was a way for Lessing to come to terms with a troubled childhood, caused largely by two individuals who were deeply scarred by the war. I was frustrated by Lessing's assumption that the reader would catch on and overlooks major plot detail. For example, she jumps from the fictional account to the memoir where she is unexpectedly growing up in Africa. I wanted more of the backstory of her parents and how they ended up together and on another continent. However, a very creative premise and interesting exploration of what might have been.

[Zanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all about Emily though. Emily is the mystery Lessing wrestles with, turns over and over like a seashell, without finally solving.

The first half, the imagined biography of her parents as if the war never came, is at times as strange and subtly sinister as the speculative, dystopian Memoirs of a Survivor, varying its tone unobtrusively from the stilted distance of real biography to the intimacy of loving concern, to the gossipy energy of anecdote. Unromanticised, yet edifying pictures are drawn of rural English life. Above all, the character of Emily is painted again and again as it changes curiously in the lights that fall on it.

The second half, the biographical and autobiographical unravelling, is clear and sharp as a cold morning after a dream. With the revelation that Lessing hated her mother comes appreciation for her generosity in reimagining her life and attempts to understand her. The details, the stories she offers here are fascinating flashes of her own extraordinary life and passions - I did not expect this gift.

I find myself wanting to tell you that Lessing's tone, manner, style is 'objective', a word I never use and don't believe in, and that must be nonsensical applied to intense autobiographical writing seething with emotions and trauma. Yet there is something balanced and distanced about this book, a holding-in-tension that is perhaps the solitary strong ligament keeping it together, making it possible to reveal this personal reflection in all its resonance.

[Luke Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept -- part memoir, part fiction, telling the story of her parents both as they were and how they might have been had World War I not happened. The end product is a little disappointing though: Not a very compelling novel and a memoir that, while interesting, doesn't delve deep enough.

I thought there might be more exploration of the gravity of history and fate and how our lives are shaped by forces beyond our control. Echoes of this, perhaps, but not enough to sustain my interest.

[Serbay GÜL · Rating 3 out of 5]

En sevdiğim kadın yazarların başında gelen Doris'in en sevdiğim eserlerinden biri olamadı maalesef. Kitap arkası tanıtımını okuduğumda fikir çok iyi gelmişti fakat bir şekilde ilk bölümü hiç sevmediğim ve edebi değerini bir türlü anlayamadığım Jane Austen eserlerine dönüverdi. Açıkçası anne ve babasının biyografisi diyebileceğimiz ikinci bölüm çok daha güzeldi.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'autrice immagina e regala ai suoi genitori una vita diversa da quella reale che hanno vissuto, una vita non tragicamente e irrimediabilmente segnata dalle due Guerre Mondiali.
A volte è bello sognare e immaginare, per sé e per chi si ama, vite serene di personale realizzazione, senza eventi traumatici, anche se resta ben chiaro che la storia non si fa né coi se e né coi ma.

[Odai Al-Saeed · Rating 2 out of 5]

شعور رتيب طوال الوقت وبطء الأحداث يحث على البلادة في قراءة النص ....لست آبها من تكون دوريس وجوائزها وكأنها اختارت حواشي الهوامش من قصصها لتؤلف هذا الكتابالذي لم يمتعني أو يضف لي فائدة تذكر...أقل من عادي

[Fio · Rating 1 out of 5]

me costó horrores sentarme a leerlo y después me costó horrores sentarme a terminarlo

la segunda parte me pareció nada que ver a la primera, había mucho potencial para explotar con el concepto del libro y la tipa se enroscó hablando de ella misma

literalmente podría ser 100 páginas más corto por lo menos

[Cryssilda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passionnant !

[April Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando somos jóvenes tendemos a ser críticos de nuestros padres, los sentimos como esa fuerza ajena que condiciona la voluntad y casi nunca satisface nuestra hambre emocional. Pocos son los que en la juventud comprenden que todos los humanos somos el resultado de nuestras experiencias, que la vida nos moldea y determina nuestro ser; menos son los que abrazan y reconocen en sus padres seres que han sufrido y merecen comprensión. “Alfred y Emily” es el intento de Doris Lessing de empatizar con esos padres que no fueron lo que ella deseó.

Doris creció viendo en su padre, a un soldado que había perdido una pierna en la Primera Guerra Mundial, y en su madre, la enfermera que se había unido a un matrimonio decepcionante. Ella percibió en ellos el reflejo de vidas arruinadas. Se convirtió en una gran escritora, ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura y después, a los 89 años volvió la vista al pasado y les regaló a sus padres una vida plena, sin la sombra de la Gran Guerra ni las consecuencias atroces que para ellos supuso. “Alfred y Emily” es un homenaje a sus padres.

El libro está dividido en dos partes: La primera es una novela de ficción en la cual Doris imagina la vida que podrían haber tenido. La segunda mitad ofrece un panorama más desolador, es un texto de no ficción que reconstruye la vida real de sus padres, con toda la claridad posible y lejos de sentimentalismos. En ambas partes resulta conmovedor el hecho de que una mujer de 89 años está lidiando aún por comprender la vida destrozada de sus padres.

La obra es un texto híbrido que mezcla la observación y la imaginación, el tono amable y condescendiente con la molestia, el arrepentimiento y el perdón. Doris también nos enfrenta al pasado heredado, el colonialismo, la segregación racial, el feminismo. Me sentí ante un experimento audaz que culminó con excelentes resultados, la lectura fue ágil, fresca y vigorosa.

Recomiendo la lectura por ser una obra que se divide entre la ficción y la evocación personal, para atacar desde múltiples ángulos la vida que aún le cuesta entender a la autora.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book a strong four, because of the entire concept. In the first half of the book the author sets up a story of two people whose paths cross as children and whose lives continue to cross throughout adulthood, but each in their own separate realm. Each person has the early background, the persona of the author's own parents. In the second half of the book the life story of Doris Lessing’s parents is actually revealed; and how differently their lives have played out, in Lessing’s feelings because of World War I. The author relates how various persons and experiences from real life have given her the characters she has formed in the first half of the book. In the telling of both stories, Lessing puts her own philosophies in perspective and gives an insight into how her own personality has been formed over the years.

The author’s own background emerges in Alfred & Emily - born in 1919 to English parents whose life circumstances have taken them to Persia (now Iran), the family soon moves to South Rhodesia in Africa, and it is here that Lessing cultivates the experiences and memories that will begin a literary career that will culminate in her receiving the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature.

At first glance Alfred & Emily seems somewhat lightweight; however it is a fascinating tale, and upon reading the story I found myself doing a bit of research to find out who Doris Lessing is. I am very much interested in reading her earlier books. I think it will be an enriching experience. I'm glad I read her last book first (she said it is going to be her last) because I feel there will be greater insight into the characters of the earlier novels and biographies, many which seem to have the author's own experiences woven in.

[Tubi(Sera McFly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ailelerimizin yaşamlarındaki talihsizlikler, belli başlı sıkıntılar olmasaydı nasıl bir hayat sürerlerdi diye düşündüğümüz olmuştur kimi zaman. Doris Lessing de böyle düşünmüş ve ebeveynlerinin 1.Dünya Savaşı'na katılmadığı alternatif bir hikaye yazmış. Kitabın ilk yarısında savaş yaralarına maruz kalmamış Alfred ve Emily'nin kurgusal öyküsü yer alıyor. İkinci bölümde Lessing çocukluğunu ve ilk gençliğini geçirdiği Güney Afrika'da ailesinin yaşamına ortak ediyor okuru. Çiftlik yaşamı, dönemin sömürgeci anlayışı, toplumda siyahlara biçilen roller, kadınlardan beklenenler, savaşın etkileri ve yazarın özellikle annesiyle olan çetrefilli ilişkisini okuyoruz. Bir kuşağın yaşam tarzını, günlük hayat alışkanlıklarını, insan ilişkilerini her zamanki gibi iyi irdelemiş Lessing. Kurmaca bölümü de, kurgu dışı bölümü de severek okudum.

"Afrika'da bir savaş, birkaç dönümlük çalı uğruna, anlamsız bir savaş patladığı zaman, ana babamın kuşağı şöyle derdi: 'İşte arkasında yine cephane yapımcıları var. Savaş vurguncularının işi.' Sonunda ne elde edilmişti peki? Birkaç yüz ölü ve silahlara harcanan, birilerinin cebine güzelce dolan, milyonlarca pound."

[Monica S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sentí mucha curiosidad mientras leida las primeras páginas porque no entendia lo que quería trasmitir la autora pero una vez introducida en la lectura la misma fluyó.
Con una redacción sencilla y ágil, Doris Lessing ganadora del Premio Novel en 2007 nos trasmite en esta novela parte de su biografia. En términos generales es una autoficcion y divide el libro en dos partes. La primera parte en como se imaginó que hubiera podido ser la vida de sus padres sino hubiera existido la Gran Guerra y una segunda parte la realidad de la vida de sus padres y lo que ella sintió y como la afectó. Su biografia en si desde lo colectivo hasta su yo íntimo. En un contexto amplio desde la Gran Guerra. la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Post Guerra hasta los primeros años del siglo XXI nos conduce por las relaciones familiares entre padres e hijos, hermanos, la vida en Inglaterra y luego en Rodesia. Con esta novela la autora escribe un homenaje a sus padres y un texto de liberación de un pasado que la marcó toda su vida.

[Bobbi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very odd book. The first part tells the story of how Doris Lessing's lives could have been if WWI hadn't happened. Not very interesting. The second half of the books tells the true story of her parents; her father lost a leg in the war, they lived in Persia and Rhodesia and eventually moved back to England. A lot more interesting than the first story, but as a whole the book was very disappointing.

[Lorena Suárez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leer este libro me costó, al principio no entendía muy bien cual era el sentido de esta historia, pero al investigar encontré que el libro es sobre la vida de Alfred y Emily, los padres de la autora y está dividido en dos partes, en la primera la ficción que imaginó Doris Lessing sobre cómo habrían sido sus vidas y en la segunda el relato de la realidad.
Debo decir que no me gustó la versión que ella inventó, por una parte no pude conectar con los personajes porque no llegué a conocerlos y no comprendía por qué actuaban así y por otra, se notaba la distinción en el cariño y relación hacia sus padres, ya que amaba a Alfred, su padre, entonces le quitó todo el sufrimiento y dificultades a su vida, haciendo que su historia fuera terriblemente aburrida y convirtiéndolo a él en un personaje plano, sin matices y muy soso. Y a Emily la odiaba y le recriminaba muchas cosas entonces aunque la presentaba como una mujer inteligente y habilidosa, hizo que su vida ficticia se sintiera frustrada y triste. Todos los personajes se sentían acartonados y muy forzados.
En cuanto a la vida real, me pareció muy interesante todo lo que contaba acerca de sus vidas en África y las anécdotas de la infancia y adolescencia de la autora, pero tristemente acá tampoco pude ver a Alfred y Emily, yo esperaba conocer cómo se conocieron, se enamoraron, se casaron, cómo se dió realmente su historia y cómo eran como pareja, pero la autora toma el protagonismo y habla sobre su vida y su relación con sus padres y su hermano. Se nota que ella compadecía a Alfred por sus heridas de guerra y por su enfermedad y juzgaba duramente a su madre por no sentirse cómoda en una vida tan agreste y que distaba tanto de la que había imaginado, siento que fue injusta con ella y más teniendo en cuenta su posterior actuar como madre.
Creo que Alfred y Emily eran personas realmente interesantes pero que Doris Lessing no supo captar del todo su forma de ser y cómo lo que tuvieron que pasar moldeó su personalidad. De igual forma no fue muy imparcial que digamos, así que no nos muestra realmente cómo eran Alfred y Emily, sino cómo los veía ella. Siento que la autora contó una historia desordenada y la dejó incompleta.

[Kai Weber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing out of the ordinary, but not a bad idea either: To rewrite the biography of one's parents, and to assume that they got to know, but not to love each other. And the to write an appendix recounting the true story, or at least parts of it. With this setup one could read the overall product on the one hand as two different biographical stories, and could gain a second level, that gives some poetological insights into the genesis of the overall work. I am speculating here; certainly I cannot be sure that the book ever intended to be what I think it might have been. What is certain is: It is not what it could have been.
The first part, the imaginary biography of Lessing's parents, is neither badly nor well written. It's a mediocre piece of literature about some British people in early 20th century. The best parts are - probably intentionally - a bit blurry to make the exact dating of the events in the story a little bit hazy in an interesting way. That feat reflects the status of this double biography on the microscopic level.
When the second, factual, part begins, I was glad at first to get a second level that would create some tension with the first, imaginary, part, and thus might have made it more interesting in retrospect. My hopes were in vain, though. The second part turns out not to be about the true biography of Lessing's parents. They are random fragments of childhood memories. Childhood memories naturally deal with parents a lot, but they are not the main focus here. Lessing, the girl, is all that this part is about. The prose here is garnished with tedious remarks of an old lady who is praising the progress in medicine (better treatments of diabetes, availability of psychotropics) and who exhibits her cultural pessimism (nowadays youngsters cannot imagine this or that anymore). Juxtaposition failed, execution of the second half: cringe-worthy.

[Ioannis Korovesis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Από τα λίγα βιβλία που μετανιώνω που διάβασα. Σκληρό αλλά δίκαιο.

Καταρχάς, καλύτερα ο τίτλος να ήταν σκέτο "Έμιλυ", αφού το βιβλίο έχει ως πρωταγωνιστρια εκείνη κι όχι τόσο τον άνδρα της.

Κατά δεύτερον, εξαιρετικά βαρετό. Δεν παρουσίασε το παραμικρό ενδιαφέρον σε κανένα σημείο του βιβλίου και παρακαλούσα να τελειώσει.

Μοναδικό ελάχιστα φωτεινό σημείο η γραφή της Ντόρις Λέσινγκ, που κι αυτή σε σημεία, ειδικά στο δεύτερο μέρος του βιβλίου, φάνηκε βιαστική.

Ενδιαφέρον τέχνασμα η εναλλαγή από fiction σε non-fiction μεταξύ των δύο μερών του βιβλίου. Μακάρι να είχε δουλευτεί καλύτερα.

[Μαρία Ντάμπου · Rating 3 out of 5]

Το πρώτο μέρος είναι μυθοπλασία και το δεύτερο περιγραφή της πραγματικής ζωής των γονιών της Λέσιγκ. Σε δυσκολεύει γιατί λείπει ένα ενιαίο νήμα αφήγησης. Το περιεχόμενο και η γραφή της δυνατά σημεία, αλλά μέχρι να καταλάβεις τη σχέση του πρώτου με το δεύτερο μέρος σου δημιουργούνται πολλά ερωτηματικά σχετικά με τα πρόσωπα. Αν ξεπεραστεί αυτό κινείσαι άνετα και απολαμβάνεις τη γραφή της.

[Pablo]

Muy bueno, muy triste, muy pequeño, muy útil, muy testimonial y muy imaginativo: es decir, un libro impresionante.

[bunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Marc Rigaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prachtige roman waarin de scheidingslijn tussen fictie en realiteit soms flinterdun is.