It did look for a while as if the recent student rebellions might change things, as if their impatience with the dead stuff they are taught might be strong enough to substitute something more fresh and useful. But it seems as if the rebellion is over. Sad. During the lively time in the States, I had letters with accounts of how classes of students had refused their syllabuses, and were bringing to class their own choice of books, those that they had found relevant to their lives. The classes were emotional, sometimes violent, angry, exciting, sizzling with life. Of course this only happened with teachers who were sympathetic, and prepared to stand with the students against authority—prepared for the consequences. There are teachers who know that the way they have to teach is bad and boring—luckily there are still enough, with a bit of luck, to overthrow what is wrong, even if the students themselves have lost impetus.
Meanwhile there is a country where…
Thirty or forty years ago, a critic made a private list of writers and poets which he, personally, considered made up what was valuable in literature, dismissing all others. This list he defended lengthily in print, for The List instantly became a subject for much debate. Millions of words were written for and against—schools and sects, for and against, came into being. The argument, all these years later, still continues…no one finds this state of affairs sad or ridiculous…Where there are critical books of immense complexity and learning, dealing, but often at second- or thirdhand, with original work—novels, plays, stories. The people who write these books form a stratum in universities across the world—they are an international phenomenon, the top layer of literary academia. Their lives are spent in criticising, and in criticising each other’s criticism. They at least regard this activity as more important than the original work. It is possible for literary students to spend more time reading criticism and criticism of criticism than they spend reading poetry, novels, biography, stories. A great many people regard this state of affairs as quite normal, and not sad and ridiculous….
When I recently read an essay about Antony and Cleopatra by a boy shortly to take A levels. It was full of originality and excitement about the play, the feeling that any real teaching about literature aims to produce. The essay was returned by the teacher like this: I cannot mark this essay, you haven’t quoted from the authorities. Few teachers would regard this as sad and ridiculous…
Where people who consider themselves educated, and indeed as superior to and more refined than ordinary non-reading people, will come up to a writer and congratulate him or her on getting a good review somewhere—but will not consider it necessary to read the book in question, or ever to think that what they are interested in is success…
Where when a book comes out on a certain subject, let’s say stargazing, instantly a dozen colleges, societies, television programmes, write to the author asking him to come and speak about stargazing. The last thing it occurs to them to do is to read the book. This behaviour is considered quite normal, and not ridiculous at all…
Where a young man or woman, reviewer or critic, who has not read more of a writer’s work than the book in front of him, will write patronisingly, or as if rather bored with the whole business, or as if considering how many marks to give an essay, about the writer in question—who might have written fifteen books, and have been writing for twenty or thirty years—giving the said writer instruction on what to write next, and how. No one thinks this is absurd, certainly not the young person, critic or reviewer, who has been taught to patronise and itemise everyone for years, from Shakespeare downwards.
Where a Professor of Archeology can write of a South American tribe which has advanced knowledge of plants, and of medicine and of psychological methods: “The astonishing thing is that these people have no written language…” And no one thinks him absurd.
Where, on the occasion of a centenary of Shelley, in the same week and in three different literary periodicals, three young men, of identical education, from our identical universities, can write critical pieces about Shelley, damning him with the faintest possible praise, and in identically the same tone, as if they were doing Shelley a great favour to mention him at all—and no one seems to think that such a thing can indicate that there is something seriously wrong with our literary system.
Finally…this novel continues to be, for its author, a most instructive experience. For instance. Ten years after I wrote it, I can get, in one week, three letters about it, from three intelligent, well-informed, concerned people, who have taken the trouble to sit down and write to me. One might be in Johannesburg, one in San Francisco, one in Budapest. And here I sit, in London, reading them, at the same time, or one after another—as always, grateful to the writers, and delighted that what I’ve written can stimulate, illuminate—or even annoy. But one letter is entirely about the sex war, about man’s inhumanity to woman, and woman’s inhumanity to man, and the writer has produced pages and pages all about nothing else, for she—but not always a she—can’t see anything else in the book.
The second is about politics, probably from an old Red like myself, and he or she writes many pages about politics, and never mentions any other theme.
These two letters used, when the book was as it were young, to be the most common.
The third letter, once rare but now catching up on the others, is written by a man or a woman who can see nothing in it but the theme of mental illness.
But it is the same book.
And naturally these incidents bring up again questions of what people see when they read a book, and why one person sees one pattern and nothing at all of another pattern, and how odd it is to have, as author, such a clear picture of a book, that is seen so very differently by its readers.
And from this kind of thought has emerged a new conclusion: which is that it is not only childish of a writer to want readers to see what he sees, to understand the shape and aim of a novel as he sees it—his wanting this means that he has not understood a most fundamental point. Which is that the book is alive and potent and fructifying and able to promote thought and discussion only when its plan and shape and intention are not understood, because that moment of seeing the shape and plan and intention is also the moment when there isn’t anything more to be got out of it.
And when a book’s pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author—then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new.
DORIS LESSING
JUNE 1971
Free Women: 1
ANNA MEETS HER FRIEND MOLLY IN THE SUMMER OF 1957 AFTER A SEPARATION
The two women were alone in the London flat.
“The point is,” said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, “the point is, that as far as I can see, everything’s cracking up.”
Molly was a woman much on the telephone. When it rang she had just enquired: “Well, what’s the gossip?” Now she said, “That’s Richard, and he’s coming over. It seems today’s his only free moment for the next month. Or so he insists.”
“Well I’m not leaving,” said Anna.
“No, you stay just where you are.”
Molly considered her own appearance—she was wearing trousers and a sweater, both the worse for wear. “He’ll have to take me as I come,” she concluded, and sat down by the window. “He wouldn’t say what it’s about—another crisis with Marion, I suppose.”
“Didn’t he write to you?” asked Anna, cautious.
“Both he and Marion wrote—ever such bonhomous letters. Odd, isn’t it?”
This odd, isn’t it? was the characteristic note of the intimate conversations they designated gossip. But having struck the note, Molly swerved off with: “It’s no use talking now, because he’s coming right over, he says.”
“He’ll probably go when he sees me here,” said Anna, cheerfully, but slightly aggressive. Molly glanced at her, keenly, and said: “Oh, but why?”
It had
always been understood that Anna and Richard disliked each other; and before Anna had always left when Richard was expected. Now Molly said: “Actually I think he rather likes you, in his heart of hearts. The point is, he’s committed to liking me, on principle—he’s such a fool he’s always got to either like or dislike someone, so all the dislike he won’t admit he has for me gets pushed off on to you.”
“It’s a pleasure,” said Anna. “But do you know something? I discovered while you were away that for a lot of people you and I are practically interchangeable.”
“You’ve only just understood that?” said Molly, triumphant as always when Anna came up with—as far as she was concerned—facts that were self-evident.
In this relationship a balance had been struck early on: Molly was altogether more worldly-wise than Anna who, for her part, had a superiority of talent.
Anna held her own private views. Now she smiled, admitting that she had been very slow.
“When we’re so different in every way,” said Molly, “it’s odd. I suppose because we both live the same kind of life—not getting married and so on. That’s all they see.”
“Free women,” said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinising glance from her friend: “They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.”
“Well, we do, don’t we?” said Molly, rather tart. “Well, it’s awfully hard not to,” she amended, hastily, because of the look of surprise Anna now gave her. There was a short pause, during which the women did not look at each other but reflected that a year apart was a long time, even for an old friendship.
Molly said at last, sighing: “Free. Do you know, when I was away, I was thinking about us, and I’ve decided that we’re a completely new type of woman. We must be, surely?”
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” said Anna, in an attempt at a German accent. Molly, irritated—she spoke half a dozen languages well—said: “There’s nothing new under the sun,” in a perfect reproduction of a shrewd old woman’s voice, German accented.
Anna grimaced, acknowledging failure. She could not learn languages, and was too self-conscious ever to become somebody else: for a moment Molly had even looked like Mother Sugar, otherwise Mrs Marks, to whom both had gone for psycho-analysis. The reservations both had felt about the solemn and painful ritual were expressed by the pet name, “Mother Sugar”; which, as time passed, became a name for much more than a person, and indicated a whole way of looking at life—traditional, rooted, conservative, in spite of its scandalous familiarity with everything amoral. In spite of—that was how Anna and Molly, discussing the ritual, had felt it; recently Anna had been feeling more and more it was because of; and this was one of the things she was looking forward to discussing with her friend.
But now Molly, reacting as she had often done in the past, to the slightest suggestion of a criticism from Anna of Mother Sugar, said quickly: “All the same, she was wonderful, and I was in much too bad a shape to criticise.”
“Mother Sugar used to say, ‘You’re Electra,’ or ‘You’re Antigone,’ and that was the end, as far as she was concerned,” said Anna.
“Well, not quite the end,” said Molly, wryly insisting on the painful probing hours both had spent.
“Yes,” said Anna, unexpectedly insisting, so that Molly, for the third time, looked at her curiously. “Yes. Oh I’m not saying she didn’t do me all the good in the world. I’m sure I’d never have coped with what I’ve had to cope with without her. But all the same…I remember quite clearly one afternoon, sitting there—the big room, and the discreet wall lights, and the Buddha and the pictures and the statues.”
“Well?” said Molly, now very critical.
Anna, in the face of this unspoken but clear determination not to discuss it, said: “I’ve been thinking about it all during the last few months…now I’d like to talk about it with you. After all, we both went through it, and with the same person…”
“Well?”
Anna persisted: “I remember that afternoon, knowing I’d never go back. It was all that damned art all over the place.”
Molly drew in her breath, sharp. She said, quickly: “I don’t know what you mean.” As Anna did not reply, she said, accusing: “And have you written anything since I’ve been away?”
“No.”
“I keep telling you,” said Molly, her voice shrill, “I’ll never forgive you if you throw that talent away. I mean it. I’ve done it, and I can’t stand watching you—I’ve messed with painting and dancing and acting and scribbling, and now…you’re so talented, Anna. Why? I simply don’t understand.”
“How can I ever say why, when you’re always so bitter and accusing?”
Molly even had tears in her eyes, which were fastened in the most painful reproach on her friend. She brought out with difficulty: “At the back of my mind I always thought, well, I’ll get married, so it doesn’t matter my wasting all the talents I was born with. Until recently I was even dreaming about having more children—yes I know it’s idiotic but it’s true. And now I’m forty and Tommy’s grown up. But the point is, if you’re not writing simply because you’re thinking about getting married…”
“But we both want to get married,” said Anna, making it humorous; the tone restored reserve to the conversation; she had understood, with pain, that she was not, after all, going to be able to discuss certain subjects with Molly.
Molly smiled, drily, gave her friend an acute, bitter look, and said: “All right, but you’ll be sorry later.”
“Sorry,” said Anna, laughing, out of surprise. “Molly, why is it you’ll never believe other people have the disabilities you have?”
“You were lucky enough to be given one talent, and not four.”
“Perhaps my one talent has had as much pressure on it as your four?”
“I can’t talk to you in this mood. Shall I make you some tea while we’re waiting for Richard?”
“I’d rather have beer or something.” She added, provocative: “I’ve been thinking I might very well take to drink later on.”
Molly said, in the older sister’s tone Anna had invited: “You shouldn’t make jokes, Anna. Not when you see what it does to people—look at Marion. I wonder if she’s been drinking while I was away?”
“I can tell you. She has—yes, she came to see me several times.”
“She came to see you?”
“That’s what I was leading up to, when I said you and I seem to be interchangeable.”
Molly tended to be possessive—she showed resentment, as Anna had known she would, as she said: “I suppose you’re going to say Richard came to see you too?” Anna nodded; and Molly said, briskly, “I’ll get us some beer.” She returned from the kitchen with two long cold-beaded glasses, and said: “Well you’d better tell me all about it before Richard comes, hadn’t you?”
Richard was Molly’s husband; or rather, he had been her husband. Molly was the product of what she referred to as “one of those ’twenties marriages.” Her mother and father had both glittered, but briefly, in the intellectual and bohemian circles that had spun around the great central lights of Huxley, Lawrence, Joyce, etc. Her childhood had been disastrous, since this marriage only lasted a few months. She had married, at the age of eighteen, the son of a friend of her father’s. She knew now she had married out of a need for security and even respectability. The boy Tommy was a product of this marriage. Richard at twenty had already been on the way to becoming the very solid businessman he had since proved himself: and Molly and he had stood their incompatibility for not much more than a year. He had then married Marion, and there were three boys. Tommy had remained with Molly. Richard and she, once the business of the divorce was over, became friends again. Later, Marion became her friend. This, then, was the situation to which Molly often referred as: “It’s all very odd, isn’t it?”
“Richard came to see me about Tommy,” said Anna.
&nbs
p; “What? Why?”
“Oh—idiotic! He asked me if I thought it was good for Tommy to spend so much time brooding. I said I thought it was good for everyone to brood, if by that he meant, thinking; and that since Tommy was twenty and grown up it was not for us to interfere anyway.”
“Well it isn’t good for him,” said Molly.
“He asked me if I thought it would be good for Tommy to go off on some trip or other to Germany—a business trip, with him. I told him to ask Tommy, not me. Of course Tommy said no.”
“Of course. Well I’m sorry Tommy didn’t go.”
“But the real reason he came, I think, was because of Marion. But Marion had just been to see me, and had a prior claim so to speak. So I wouldn’t discuss Marion at all. I think it’s likely he’s coming to discuss Marion with you.”
Molly was watching Anna closely. “How many times did Richard come?”
“About five or six times.”
After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out with: “It’s very odd he seems to expect me almost to control Marion. Why me? Or you? Well, perhaps you’d better go after all. It’s going to be difficult if all sorts of complications have been going on while my back was turned.”
Anna said firmly: “No, Molly. I didn’t ask Richard to come and see me. I didn’t ask Marion to come and see me. After all, it’s not your fault or mine that we seem to play the same role for people. I said what you would have said—at least, I think so.”
There was a note of humorous, even childish pleading in this. But it was deliberate. Molly, the older sister, smiled and said: “Well, all right.” She continued to observe Anna narrowly; and Anna was careful to appear unaware of it. She did not want to tell Molly what had happened between her and Richard now; not until she could tell her the whole story of the last miserable year.
“Is Marion drinking badly?”
“Yes, I think she is.”
“And she told you all about it?”
“Yes. In detail. And what’s odd is, I swear she talked as if I were you—even making slips of the tongue, calling me Molly and so on.”
The Golden Notebook Page 3