[lbo-talk] Doris Lessing on her Nobel

[John Thornton]

BklynMagus wrote:
>> Has anyone read any of her more recent stuff (from 
>>     
> about 1979 on) which I found quite unreadable and 
> obscure?
>
> My introduction to her was her Canopus in Archives 
> series of novels which I liked.
>
> The later novels seem to me to be good with a clunker 
> now and then, but certainly not as bad as Bloom says.  
> His big complaint in the way she depicts men.
>
> There is also the bias against speculative fiction --
> certainly unworthy of being awarded the Nobel Prize -- 
> probably why Stanislaw Lem never won it though he is 
> one the greatest writers of the 20th century.  FIASCO 
> is his masterpiece.
>
> Brian

I'm not at all familiar with her work but I had the misfortune to read 
"The Cleft" and there is nothing there for Bloom to object to in its 
depiction of men. Far from it.
It was not terribly well written though so that complaint seems very 
valid. I was hugely disappointed but I have only "The Golden Notebook" 
to compare it with since those are the only two works of hers I have read.

John Thornton