- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo (3 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007169779
- ISBN-13: 978-0007169771
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,609,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Doris Lessing has changed the way we think about the world.’ Blake Morrison
‘Thank goodness for Doris Lessing. While the rest of us flounder about noisily in the muddy waters of life, she never fails to expose with startling clarity the essential folly of our dreams and good intentions.’ Kate Chisholm, Evening Standard
‘She’s up there in the pantheon with Balzac and George Eliot. We’re lucky she’s still writing.’ Lisa Appignanesi, Independent
‘She has an extraordinary feeling for the peculiar vulnerabilities of the young and the elderly. And her portraits of human relationships are of quite staggering beauty.’ Ruth Scurr, The Times
Sunday Times
'...the first of these four novellas...is a delicate tale of trespass, possession and belonging...'
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Four long stories, all exhibiting Lessing's range and creativity and the wonderful sense that she knows completely the background of which she writes. In the first, a family on an extended holiday hides more than at first meets the eye. Erotic love is at the heart of this secret and while I was not quite convinced by the central premise, I was happy to go along with it to see what happened in the end. The second short story warns against the working classes (especially those who are black) getting involved with the insouciant, moneyed middle classes. This is a poignant story, especially when towards the end a working-class mother realises she has lost far more than she has gained. The third story is set either in the far future or the long distant past, or perhaps in a time and on a planet outside our universe. This is the least satisfactory of the stories and doesn't seem to have much of a point, other than that a favourite friend might not prove to be a clever leader.
The final story A Love Child, is the best in my opinion. It begins with boyhood friends but concentrates on events unfolding in the life of one of them, James, a young man who has enlisted and is sent to Cape Town during World War II. The privations suffered by the troops on board the ship that takes them there are harrowing and realistic. Once there James falls in love with the young and beautiful wife of an officer. The time spent there becomes a dream for him and he cannot forget his four days of passion with the beautiful Daphne. However, the troops are sent on to India and he has to leave. We then get a stunningly evoked picture of men waiting to go into battle, the boredom and sickness, the endless tormenting sun of India, etc., Lessing writes her settings seemingly effortlessly and with supreme assuredness. The story ends equivocally, years later, telling us, in fact, James's life story. It is a superbly told story.
I didn't feel this collection had quite the bite and atmosphere of some of her South African stories (for example in 'Five Short Novels') but the last of the four in this collection must rank as among her best.
The final story A Love Child, is the best in my opinion. It begins with boyhood friends but concentrates on events unfolding in the life of one of them, James, a young man who has enlisted and is sent to Cape Town during World War II. The privations suffered by the troops on board the ship that takes them there are harrowing and realistic. Once there James falls in love with the young and beautiful wife of an officer. The time spent there becomes a dream for him and he cannot forget his four days of passion with the beautiful Daphne. However, the troops are sent on to India and he has to leave. We then get a stunningly evoked picture of men waiting to go into battle, the boredom and sickness, the endless tormenting sun of India, etc., Lessing writes her settings seemingly effortlessly and with supreme assuredness. The story ends equivocally, years later, telling us, in fact, James's life story. It is a superbly told story.
I didn't feel this collection had quite the bite and atmosphere of some of her South African stories (for example in 'Five Short Novels') but the last of the four in this collection must rank as among her best.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I agree with the previous reviewer that the first two stoies in this collection are excellent, 10/10. But the last two are not of the same standard at all, 4/10 and 6/10 respectively.
Worth borrowing from the library.
Worth borrowing from the library.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Deserves five stars for the first two novellas in this set of four. The third is too science-fiction for my taste and the fourth is too loosely plotted; but all four are beautifully written, with a spartan style which is all the same vividly descriptive.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Book Club choice-not mine
Four novellas in one book. Well written but I found the first story's theme distasteful. I enjoyed the second and fourth stories the most . Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mrs. Joyce Davis
Four beautiful sad stories
Never been one for Doris Lessing - I tried the science fiction once and thought it was dreadful. But these four novellas are all very good, each in a different way. Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2010 by Jezza
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