Doris Lessing on the writing life

I went to listen to Doris Lessing (in conversation with Hermione Lee) at the Southbank Centre on Tuesday night. The Literary Saloon drew my attention to Ben Hoyle’s article in The Times about Lessing’s thoughts on contemporary authors and their promotional duties. This grand old dame, frail in body but still strong and edgy in spirit, expressed sympathy for the young writers of today, particularly young women. It’s interesting to think about whether the media profiles of authors – readings, signings, literary festivals, talking head appearances on TV and radio and the like – have a detrimental effect on the quality of writing they produce.

I’ve not read much Lessing, and only went along because it was her first public appearance since being awarded the Nobel. But it was a rather marvellous experience!

She began by reading the opening from her new novel, Alfred and Emily (due from HarperCollins in May 2008). It’s about her parents, about how WWI changed them so drastically that she thinks she never met her “real” parents, the people they’d have been but for the war. She described how the first half of the novel gives them the lives she imagines they had while the second half is about what actually happened to them (at least as far as she knows). It opens in 1902, Edwardian England, with the village cricket match at which the 16 year old Alfred meets the 18 year old Emily.
She said it will be ultimately be “quite anti-war”. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Lessing was witty and sharp, quite like her fiction really. She spoke intelligently and movingly about WWI, about how it was the foundational event of the 20th century, twisting and shaping everything that came after it, but yet doesn’t get the time or attention she thinks it deserves. She spoke about Zimbabwe, about the friends she still has there and the daily struggles they face. And if it’s bad for them (who are comparatively well off) it must be brutal for poorer people.

I recently finished Lessing’s The Fifth Child. It’s a slim novel, but still powerful. Harriett and David Lovatt are out of step with the Swinging Sixties, being “conservative, old-fashioned, not to say obsolescent”. Their shared dream is to create the perfect family, to provide a loving home to a brood of children in a rambling Victorian house. As the first four children are born the reality almost surpasses the dream. The children are healthy and charming, the parents are brimming with love for them and each other, the extended families are brought together, with wounds from the past being healed during shared Christmas and Easter holidays in Harriet & David’s house.

The plot turns sinister when Harriet falls pregnant with the fifth child. None of her pregnancies had been easy but this one is tortuous. The baby quickens early, and the movements gradually build into a crescendo of agony for Harriet. She starts to think “this savage thing inside her” is the enemy. When Ben is born at 8 months there are no reserves of maternal love for this monstrous child, so different from the other Lovatts. The cracks have well and truly appeared in the Lovatts’ charmed family life.

This almost reads like a fairy tale, a reworking of the ancient fear of giving birth to a monster. The taboo of the mother who despises her child. But there are shadows lurking in Harriet and David’s life before Ben’s birth, and Ben is not a complete monster (I felt quite tender towards him at times, at his isolation within his family), and it’s this complexity that made this an interesting read. I would say it’s a good book, good enough to seek out more Lessing.