2:32 p.m.
I like Doris Lessing — or, technically speaking, I like her writing. I’ve never personally met Ms. Lessing, but after seeing this video clip, I rather wish that I had:
What a perfect response.
The first book I read of hers was Briefing For a Descent Into Hell. I was in my mid-twenties and only shortly out of college with a (quite useless) degree in literature, and I was absolutely blown away by the depth and breadth of ideas sprawled across the pages. I had not been introduced to Doris Lessing when I was in school, so I quickly set about to rectify that terrible misfortune.
I dove into the rest of her science fiction works (The five piece Canopus in Argos series), tried (and failed) several times to get through The Golden Notebook, and the last novel of hers I read was Love, Again, a very frank yet tender account of falling in love when you’re supposedly past the age where falling in love is expected or even entirely welcome.
I’ve always admired her intelligence, if not her actual work (again, The Golden Notebook — god knows I tried!), and hearing that she won the Nobel Prize for Literature made me just a little bit happy, all quietly and privately at my kitchen table as I gulped the morning’s necessary and first cup of coffee.
