[lbo-talk] Doris Lessing on her Nobel

[Russell Grinker]

Well I suppose the Nobel establishment had to wait thirty years for her work
to be entirely vacated of the radical politics of the early Lessing (and of
course for the demise of any left popular context within which such politics
might still have some resonance). Has anyone read any of her more recent
stuff (from about 1979 on) which I found quite unreadable and obscure? I did
read part 1 of her autobiography (Under My Skin, 1994) which was (for us
antipodeans) quite interesting and evocative and much more reminiscent of
her earlier novels. Those are - for me at least - remembered as important
formative texts at a time of the rebirth of resistance politics in South
Africa. 

Jim F wrote:

Doris Lessing had been in the running for the Nobel Prize
for something like thirty years or more.  If I had been
in the running for such a prize, for such a period of time,
and they finally granted me one at the age of 88, I'd
probably tell Stockholm to piss off.

Jim F.

-- (Chuck Grimes) <cgrimes at rawbw.COM> wrote:
Today, the press greeted Golden Notebook author Doris Lessing as she  
arrived at her home in a taxi. In the clip above, they tell her she  
was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and her response is, "Oh  
Christ. I couldn't care less."