Al cincilea copil, de Doris Lessing, editura Polirom, 2008

Am citit romanul acesta "pe care critica l-a comparat cu Frankenstein" ca parte a unei sincronicitati ciudate care m-a urmarit saptamana trecuta. Port "Al cincilea copil" in geanta de cateva zile, cu gandul sa-l citesc in metrou sau in alte statii de autobuz. Nu apuc sa deschid nici prima pagina, nu stiu la ce sa ma astept de la el, comparatia criticii cu monstrul lui Mary Shelley e oricum prea vaga.

Ma intalnesc, fara sa-mi propun, cu o cunostinta care imi reaminteste rostul ei (si al tuturor oamenilor, dupa cum precizeaza): copiii. "Daca as fi putut, as fi facut sase sau chiar sapte copii. La ce bun timpul asta care se scurge aiurea? Toate celelalte bucurii sunt praf in vant, gesturi egoiste...". Marturisirea e pentru mine emotionanta pentru ca unul din copiii ei s-a nascut cu probleme si are nevoie de atentie si ingrijire speciala. "Nici nu stii cat ne distram." imi spune si o cred, pentru ca rar am auzit in ultimul timp destainuiri atat de pline de entuziasm. 

A doua zi, pe la pranz, tot cu "Al cincilea copil" in geanta, nedeschis, sunt intrebat de un taximetrist - tot de la Apolodor :) - "Mergeti sa va luati copilul de la scoala?".

Gizas, e ceva, imi zic si cum am o clipa libera ma apuc sa citesc. De la primele randuri aflu ca Harriet si David, un cuplu perfect, isi doresc foarte multi copii. Dupa ce isi cumpara o casa cat un hotel se pun pe treaba si isi implinesc rostul pe banda: copiii apar unul dupa altul, casa se umple de bunici, matusi, veri si prieteni. Party all the time. Totul pana cand se naste al cincilea copil care strica petrecerea, alunga musafirii, destrama familia dar probeaza puterea maternitatii. Nu vreau sa includ mai multe spoilere in acest post, deci nu mai spun decat ca o ador pe Doris Lessing. Dupa ce am citit "O coborare in infern" eram sigur de originile ei nepamantene. Iar acum am realizat de ce imi place atat de mult: reda sau reaminteste de lucruri/lumi/arhetipuri uitate sau ignorate, dar mult mai vii decat societatea de plastic in care ne sufocam. Iar eu nu numesc SF alunecarile ei de langa normalitate si teluric, ci luciditate.

Każdy mógłby napisać swoją księgę o tym, co jest za ścianą, w innym wymiarze istnienia, do pewnego momentu nieświadome, ale raptem ściana się uchyla. Zawsze tak jest, każdy w końcu przechodzi przez granicę bytu.

Doris Lessing mówi, że tam otwiera się piękne miejsce, które daje wszystko, a zrobione jest jak dywan z wzorzystych kawałeczków, wielki patchwork życia. Każdy położył swój kawałek, dołożył się do tego.  I rozmywają się ostatnie mury, gdy się to rozpoznaje.

Metafora tych wydarzeń jest prosta, chociaż same wydarzenia raczej złowieszczo opisane.  Życie jest takie, że jakiś ornament starej tapety, zatarty kolejnymi malowaniami, nagle rzuca się w oczy i zaczynamy widzieć inaczej, trochę jak czarownicy, Castaneda nazywa to drugą uwagą, a może to Mindell, w każdym razie obaj uczą o innym spostrzeganiu, które widzi inaczej. Ze snu się człowiek bierze i tam powraca. Pięknie to wszystko rozpisane na poszczególne etapy procesu przechodzenia przez ścianę, od uwagi zewnętrznej, do medytacyjnej, zagłębionej.  Warto przyjrzeć się opisom bieli, w tej książce wszystko ma znaczenie i myślę, że ta biel, tyle razy tam pojawiona, to ból różnych strat, które są straszne i naturalne.

Jawa tej książki, to znaczy jej główne dziejstwa, są nie do pozazdroszczenia, ale jakoś tak ze szczególnym wyczuciem czyta się to teraz, w tych dniach: z tobą też tak było, prawda?  Albo: wszyscy pamiętamy ten czas.

Przetrwać to przejść tam, gdzie wydawało się, że niczego nie ma.

Tu pisałam podczas czytania tej książki:

pamiętnik przetrwania >>

jak trwanie zmienia się w przetrwanie >>

to jest wtedy, gdy coś się kończy >>

ogrody górne i dolne >>

w drodze >>

centrum płaczu kobiet >>

miejsce które daje wszystko >>

The Slate Culture Gabfest, the culturally-motivated podcast from the good people at Slate, this week had a segment on the Nobel Prize and its place amongst awards including the Oscars and Grammy's, where the winner is often chosen through political, economic and diplomatic motivations rather than the quality of the work. They highlighted an excellent website, Great Books Guide, in which Ted Gioia lists all the Nobel Prize winners since the inception of the prize and an alternative list of all the possible winners snubbed over the years.

The lack of parity between the two lists - very few concur across both actual and deserving winner - is pretty shocking and also enlightening given the quality of the choices made by Gioia. He constantly picks works that are far more deserving of a grand and visible literary prize. Often the award seems to be given to writers well past their peak (Pinter) and, particularly in modern times, anywhere but to the US. The past two winners were Doris Lessing and this year, Jean-Marie Gustav Le Clezio. The latter I don't know at all but Lessing is certainly something of a deserving winner although, as previously suggested, well past her best.

As you go down the list, specifically in the past twenty-five years, the number of fantastic authors to have been snubbed becomes startling. The most notable, as called out on the Gabfest, is Philip Roth. An incredible, provocative force of literature, Roth is still working at some pace and with some quality. His finest work, American Pastoral, came over two decades from his debut and his books from the last couple of years maintain the level of quality and brutal, comic skill that characterise his finest pieces. Continue back and you find Don DeLillo, John Updike, Haruki Murakami, Tom Stoppard, Bob Dylan and Hunter S Thompson, all thoroughly deserving of the prize and all with the ability to create great work even in their latter years. 

It seems the Nobel has finally been inducted into this pantheon of awards that no longer have any power or meaning. Winning an Oscar means nothing as much as it used to while winning a Grammy means only another doorstop for west wing extension. The Pulitzer still works but can only give out anything to books from that year and can't quite provide the sense of tradition and history that the Nobel Prize does. The question is why the prize is needed outside of finance. Is there anything that these great writers get from being told by the Nobel committee that they are great in their eyes. They're already great. Perhaps its the certificate on the wall. Maybe it is just the money. Whatever it is, the prestige has fallen away.

Foarte tânăr, la numai 23 de ani, el obţine premiul Théophraste Renoudot pentru romanul său de debut „Le proces verbal”, important succes literar care‑l propulsează în rândul „scriitorilor vremii”, apreciat de marea critică literară pariziană. Din acel moment continua sa scrie dovedind o permanenta evolutie, ceea ce i-a si adus premiul Nobel pentru literatura. 1950‑51Jean‑Marie scrie un nou roman, Le Cheile blane, ale cărui personaje vor reveni mai târziu în romanul Désert. Apoi mai publica carti printre care: : Le Déluge, L'Extrase materielle , Terra Amata, Le livre des fuites, Les Géants,  Mydnosa ,Vers les icebergs, L'Inconnu sur la terre, Mondo et autre histoires, La Ronde et autre fais divers, etc. 

Principiul mişcării, al deplasării continue, însăşi principiul totalei libertăţi este principiul călăuzitor al eroilor lui Le Clézio, a căror existenţă e construită pe acest „dor de ducă”, care‑i salvează de la înnămolirea într‑o societate distrugătoare. 

Anul trecut, Premiul Nobel pentru literatura a fost acordat scriitoarei britanice Doris Lessing. Academia Regala din Suedia a apreciat lucrarile lui Lessing care descriu experienta feminina "cu scepticism, intensitate si putere vizionara". 

Premiile Nobel, create de savantul si omul de afaceri suedez Alfred Nobel, inventatorul dinamitei (1867), au fost decernate pentru prima data in 1901. 

Comitetul suedez a anuntat in aceasta saptamana castigatorii premiilor Nobel pentru medicina, fizica si chimie. In zilele urmatoare vor fi anuntati castigatorii pentru economie, cel mai asteptat moment fiind insa acela al anuntarii castigatorului premiului Nobel pentru Pace, in 10 octombrie. 

Pe 10 decembrie, castigatorii premiilor Nobel din acest an vor primi din partea Comitetului Nobel o diploma, o medalie si un cec in valoare de un milion de euro.

W "Pamiętniku przetrwania" Doris Lessing wszystko się kończy tak, jak można było przypuszczać od pierwszych stron, gdy ornament w ścianie ukazywał się i otwierał przejście. I wszyscy, którzy stopniowo odchodzili ze zrujnowanych miast, i od których nigdy, ale to nigdy nie było potem żadnej wiadomości, na pewno trafiali za tę ścianę, która dzieliła światy. Kiedy już zauważysz ścianę, dzielącą światy, możesz mieć pewność, że otworzy się i dla ciebie.

Ornamenty starej tapety stają się lasem, przechodzi się przez lesistą ścianę i jest tam miejsce, które daje wszystko. Ale i to miejsce się zmienia, zmienia się siłą ludzkiej obecności.  I jest pewna zapamiętana przez Doris scena, coś jakby ludzie w cichym pomieszczeniu pochylający się, by położyć właściwą część wzorzystego materiału na dywanie, który nie miał w sobie życia do momentu, gdy napełniały go nim te dokładnie pasujące kawałki -  w tym miejscu zrozumiałam potrzebę wielu swoich snów wzorzystych, z dywanami, mozaikami, mandalami, ornamentami, które mogą być złożone w jedno.

I tam, gdzie dywan świata, w miarę jak się weń zagłębiali, zwijał się i znikał, wszystko: drzewa, strumienie, trawy, pokoje, ludzie, zjawiła się Ta.

Więc jednak była to kobieta. Pozostali szli szybko za Tą, która prowadziła ukazując im drogę wyjścia z tego  upadłego małego świata w inny w ogóle porządek. Uśmiechnęli się, ale tak krótko, wszystko trwało chwilę, jedni pospieszyli za drugimi, gdy rozmywały się ostatnie mury.  Tak wszystko się skończyło, tak zawsze wszystko się kończy.

"Pamiętnik przetrwania" Doris Lessing

Z zamkniętymi oczami, dłońmi na udach, kołysząc się w przód i w tył, i z boku na bok Emily płakała jak  kobieta, to znaczy tak, jakby ziemia krwawiła. Chciałam powiedzieć: "jak gdyby ziemia postanowiła sobie popłakać" - ale nieuczciwe byłoby takie osłabienie wymowy . (...)

Kto jeszcze umie tak płakać? Na pewno nie stara kobieta. Łzy starości są żałosne, nieszczęśliwe, nie ma nic od nich gorszego. One jednak nie domagają się sprawiedliwości, zbyt wiele się nauczyły, nie ma w nich tego przepastnego wymiaru upływającej krwi. Dziecko potrafi płakać, jak gdyby przypadło mu w udziale całe cierpienie samotności wszechświata - ale w centrum płaczu kobiety nie stoi ból, nie, jest to ostateczna akceptacja zła. Tak było, jesst i musi być zawsze, mówią te zamknięte, roniące łzy oczy, to kołyszące się ciało, ten smutek. Tak, smutek - opłakiwanie. Zmierzono się z wrogiem, stoczono z nim walkę, ale bitwa została przegrana, nadszedł koniec, wszystko przepadło, nic nie zostało, nie ma już na nic nadziei (...)

O cóż w końcu ma obserwator pytać - mąż, kochanek, matka, przyjaciel, ale przede wszystkim rzecz jasna mąż lub kochanek?"Czego ty na Boga oczekujesz ode mnie, od życia, że płaczesz w taki sposób? Nie rozumiesz, że to niemożliwe, ty jesteś niemożliwa, nikomu nigdy aż  tyle nie obiecywano, by wywoływać takie łzy... nie rozumiesz tego? Ale to daremne. Niewidzące oczy patrzą na wskroś ciebie, widzą jakiegoś prastarego wroga, którym dzięki Bogu nie jesteś ty.

Nie, to Życie, Los, Przeznaczenie, jakaś tego rodzaju moc  ugodziła w samo serce tę kobietę, która teraz będzie już zawsze siedzieć, kołysać się w swym starym, strasznym smutku, a szloch, jaki się z niej wyrywa, jest jednym z filarów, na którym wszystko musi spocząć.

"Pamiętnik przetrwania" - Doris Lessing

"Pamiętnik przetrwania" - Doris Lessing

A potem przyznaje, że te ogrody może przechowuje w umyśle, bo tak naprawdę patrzy na prawdziwy, zniszczony przez "to" świat i wie, że to, na co patrzy, to rzeczywistość, realne życie.  Mówi, że tkwi mocno w tym, co każdy zgodzi się nazwać normalnością.

I ciekawe, jak z tego wyjdzie, bo przecież od tego realnego, zdewastowanego świata trzeba się jakoś wyratować. Jest jakieś wyjście, już niewiele stron.

"Pamiętnik przetrwania"- Doris Lessing

Może powinnam była właśnie rozpocząć tę kronikę od próby pełnego opisu "tego". (...).

Być może "to" stanowi ukryty temat wszelkiej literatury i historii, niczym zapis atramentem sympatycznym między wierszami, który wyłania się nagle ostrą czernią, przyćmiewając stary druk tak dobrze nam znany, gdy życie osobiste lub publiczne rozwija się w nieoczekiwany sposób, a my dostrzegamy coś tam, gdzie nigdy byśmy nie przypuszczali, że nam się to uda - dostrzegamy "to" jako podstawę zdarzeń, przeżyć.(...).

No dobrze, ale czym "to" jest? Z pewnością zawsze istnieli ludzie, którzy w czasach kryzysu mówili o "tym" w dokładnie taki sposób, bowiem staje się "to" widoczne w czasach kryzysu, a wobec siły "tego" niknie nasza zarozumiałość.

"To" jest bowiem siłą, mocą przybierającą postać trzęsienia ziemi, nadchodzącej komety, której fatalny wpływ narasta noc za nocą, wszelką myśl unicestwiając strachem - "to" może być, bywa, zarazą, wojną, zmianą klimatu, tyranią miażdżącą ludzkie zmysły, dzikością religii.(...).

Zapewne "to" było w ciągu dziejów przede wszystkim świadomością, że coś się kończy.

Jest o "tym" także we wczorajszej  notce bibliotecznej zatytułowanej "to"

Pamiętnik przetrwania - Doris Lessing

Na okładce objaśnienie: codzienność z jakiejś nieodległej przyszłości, z okresu zupełnego rozkładu gospodarki i życia społecznego, stanowi tło dla niecodzienności przeżyć poza czasem i przestrzenią, w syntetycznym świecie wyobraźni - a może nie tylko wyobraźni? Za ścianą mieszkania narratorki otwiera się inny wymiar - metafora ludzkiego losu ucieleśniona w obrazach, które objaśniają wydarzenia realnego życia i nierozdzielnie się z nimi splatają. Tworząca się tu mistyczna niemal całość obok prostej radośći trwania przynosi też gorzką i surową prawdę: wolę przetrwania.

Trwanie zmienia się w przetrwanie. Może teraz to nadeszło. Kończę już czytanie. Wydaje mi się, że książka została napisana we wczesnych latach siedemdziesiątych na ten czas, może na trochę późniejszy czas, jako fantastyka, której fantastyczność ograniczona została do tego, że trzeba porzucić zwyczajność codziennego świata.

"Pamiętnik przetrwania" - Doris Lessing

Czytam, widzę, co się dzieje, nie mogłam dziś podjąć pieniędzy w banku. Zaczęłam ten blog od niezwykłego dla siebie zainteresowania olimpiadą, ale nie chodziło mi o sport, tylko o to, co się zdarzy "przy okazji" olimpiady i zdarzyło się, i mam tu zapisane, i dalej są tego skutki.

Myślę, że Doris Lessing nie będzie mi miała za złe, że pożyczę sobie tytuł jej książki i przymierzę do tego bloga. Kiedyś już tak spróbowałam, ale obawiałam się, że tamto pisanie jest za bardzo osobiste. 

Ktoś mi powiedział dziś, że żyjemy w ciekawych czasach i niekiedy nie można w takich czasach zrobić nic innego, tylko obserwować. Ale tak tylko patrzeć, to nie. Będę zapisywać jak długo się da.

Oczywiście to, co niezamierzone i niechciane,  ledwie najwyżej przeczuwane, nazywam śnieniem.  Takie jest  dziś śnienie świata.

I have some obvious revelations to share.  The first is Doris Lessings' The Golden Notebook.  I'm in the middle of it, and with that, a big crush on the book itself.  I've read other of Lessing's works, but this one is a new delight to me.  It feels to cliche' to like it in the way that I do.  It does present women's relationships in a way that I don't think I have seen before. If I have, it has been rare.  Her characters are wonderfully cranky and judgmental, and constantly examining their crankiness and judgments.  Plus, the writing is exact and pretty.  Like Munroe, but with a different edge.  I read this paragraph, and thought of you:

"With strawberries, wine, obviously," Anna said greedily; and moved the spoon about among the fruit, feeling its soft sliding resistance and the slipperiness of the cream under a gritty crust of sugar. Molly swiftly filled glasses with wine and set them on the white sill. The sunlight crystallised beside each glass on the white paint in quivering lozenges of crimson and yellow light, and the two women sat in the sunlight, sighing with pleasure and stretching their legs in the thin warmth, looking at the colours of the fruit in the bright bowls and at the red wine.

Second obvious revelation: That pang of "is there more?" that happens in relationships, it must be a luxury of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  Once a certain round of qualifications are met, a new sphere seems possible to ask for.  I think of this regarding the mutual friend who would like to have a boyfriend she actually likes.  I think of this regarding my own panics, outraged that I am yet to be actualized (and seeing that first I must conquer that great beast of esteem).  This actually calms me a little, writing it, because it suggests the issue is some of my own.  Is the great "work" of marriage that everybody is always talking about really the climb of this ladder--actually a case of chutes and ladders?

Third obvious revelation: When I am out in the world with my husband, I think I experience less of it, and it is my own fault.  I was grocery shopping solo yesterday, and I had a very strong sense of my public self.  Usually, when I am with him, I have no concern for the public self--if we are grocery shopping, I am unaware of how I look, or that I am a person part of the milieu.  I almost go on autopilot, and I think this is because I assume he will make most of the decisions (and because I like him making most of the decisions (these are the tiny myriad of decisions that take place every day: things like driving, which store to go to, which card to put it on, which cereal, which parking spot)).  When I am alone, suddenly I have to make these thousand choices myself, and I feel my own weight again.  I'm not sure which I prefer, or if I even feel guilty writing this.  However, it has been observed.

Hope you are well,

Yours,

CF

 Lessing's attitude toward female confinement, repression, alienation, and escape is exposed in this story. She portrays Susan's character as one whose entire existence is a prison, which is shown with the use of illusions of confinement. Lessing describes Susan and Matthew's "big married bed in the big married bedroom" (397), which gives the reader a sense of unfulfilled emptiness. When Susan claims the spare room at the top of the house to seek solitude, she describes it as "the little top room" (404), where the description "little" creates the illusion of restricting confinement. Lessing describes Susan's experience of her embrace of her twin children as "a human cage of loving limbs" (405), showing that even in her motherly role, Susan is imprisoned. Lessing also foreshadows how Susan will escape her restricting life by suicide during a bedtime conversation between Susan and Matthew where he replies to her feelings of confinement, "But Susan, what sort of freedom can you possibly want - short of being dead!" (404). Susan becomes remorseful because she realizes that "[t]he good marriage, the house, the children, depended on his voluntary bondage as it did on hers" (404). She begins to "rationalize" her feelings as "quite natural" (401) and proclaims, "I have to learn to be myself again. That's all" (401). This statement shows the "rational" part of Susan as she reverts to her society-driven ideology that her feelings are irrational and abnormal.

Lessing's use of feminine imagery throughout the story symbolically describes women driven to escape the societal structures imposed by the existing patriarchal order. By describing the garden, the river, the demon, and Susan's reflection in the mirror, Lessing actually foreshadows Susan's suicide. Susan "went to the very end of the garden, by herself, and looked at the river and closed her eyes and breathed slow and deep, taking it into her being, into her veins" (Lessing 403). Wilfred L. Guerin's A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature defines archetypal symbols and approaches to literature, many of which are used in this story. In the handbook, one will discover that aside from the usual representation of paradise, gardens sometimes represent innocence or unspoiled beauty (especially feminine). Rivers are often used to represent death and rebirth, the flowing of time into eternity, and transitional phases of the life cycle. Brown is representative of death and decay (150-153). Lessing appears to be metaphorically revealing Susan's coming to the "end" of her innocence, the end of her "beautiful feminine life", and then uses the "slow-moving brown river" to foreshadow Susan's suicide, as if she is slowly breathing in death. In addition, Lessing uses elements of repetition and irony in the story. Susan and Matthew are constantly described as "intelligent," which is the very characteristic that is their downfall. The irony lies in the fact that although Susan and Matthew do everything "sensibly" in their minds, their repression of her as a woman is anything but intelligent. Canadian critic and educator, Virginia Tiger, in an essay entitled "'Taking Hands and Dancing in (Dis)Unity': Story to Storied in Doris Lessing's ‘To Room Nineteen' and ‘A Room,"  writes that:

Susan Rawlings and her husband plan everything ‘intelligently,' a word which appears in the text fifteen times, although its sense is carried, by my count, some fourteen additional times. Numerically the word allies itself with the cognate term ‘sensible' while warring with the libidinally evocative ‘garden,' a word appearing sixteen times and whose metaphoric sense is carried through seven scenes in which the protagonist visits the oceanic, heterogeneous, and haunting realm beyond her big, mortgaged, and beautiful white Richmond house. (263)

A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature defines the color white, in a negative aspect,  which represents death and terror (Guerin 151), almost as if Susan is terrified because she has realized that her life is "mortgaged." The handbook details the number four in association with the life cycle (Guerin 152). Lessing describes Susan as a mother of four children and her life with Matthew, her husband, as a snake biting its tail. Like the number four, the handbook defines this ancient snake symbol, referred to as the ‘ouroboros,' as a representation of the eternal cycle of life, (Guerin 152) showing Lessing's constant foreshadowing of Susan's death since she feels that her life no longer has meaning. Lessing further describes Susan's life, which "had become a desert" (399).  The constant description of this barreness is symbolic of her spiritual aridity, or of death and hopelessness (Guerin 153-54). In the mirror, as she brushes her "thick healthy black hair," Susan sees "the reflection of a madwoman" (Lessing 408-09) and thinks, "[m]uch more to the point if what looked back at [her] was the gingery green-eyed demon with his dry meager smile" (409). Again, Lessing uses symbols of color as defined in A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: black representing death and chaos, and green representing death and decay (150-51) as Susan looks at her inner "reflection" in the mirror. In an essay entitled "The Crucial Balance: A Theme in Lessing's Short Fiction," Virginia Pruitt describes Lessing's use of the "demon" as a symbol of "the objectification of the irrational self [Susan] wishes to banish from awareness" (202). She goes on to say that:

the intensity of Susan's inner struggle [ . . .] has placed her life in the most serious jeopardy. If, as Karl Menninger has asserted, a ‘self-imposed sentence of deprivation is a kind of slow suicide,' then Susan, by choosing to embrace death, actualizes the metaphor. By her own logic, she thus purchases ‘freedom' from the otherwise implacable demons. (203)

Lessing uses the demon to represent a force directly opposite to the values conventional society imposes. For Susan, following the demon would be an act of sin, but Lessing proves that for Susan, it is better to sin than to follow a lifestyle dictated by society. The demon represents a way out of her trapped and restricted life through the mirror. Tiger explains that "women and mirrors are intimately linked [ . . . and] Susan Rawlings' voyage through the looking glass will take the wayfarer-soul to room nineteen, there to remake interiority by unmaking intelligence" (263). By this explanation, Tiger conveys Lessing's use of the mirror as feminine imagery. The overall purpose and meaning of the text, however, has a larger theme, and presents a challenge to society to include women. In her interview with Roy Newquist in 1963, Lessing defined the work as "a depressing piece about people who have everything, who are intelligent and educated, who have a home and two or three or four beautiful children, and have few worries, and yet ask themselves ‘What for?'" (Interview 208). Lessing uses the legitimate depression often felt by women who work inside the home to enlighten readers of the need for radical action to include women in society. Judith Kegan Gardiner's essay "Gendered Choices: History and Empathy in the Short Fiction of Doris Lessing" details Lessing as "expand[ing] inquiries about female roles into larger, metaphysical questions about life's purposes and meaning" (218). Gardiner asserts in this statement the fact that Lessing wants readers to think about what has to change in society in order for women to take full advantage of its opportunity.

Women are sometimes driven to unfortunate solutions, such as suicide, in order to escape imposing societal structures, but these solutions do not provide true freedom. Orphia Jane Allen's essay entitled "Structure and Motif in Doris Lessing's ‘A Man and Two Women' states

[that] the result of [Susan's] confining motherhood is that life becomes a desert for Susan; her soul is not her own. As her resentment grows she rejects the prison of motherhood for the freedom of a room of her own - Room 19 in Fred's Hotel. Motherhood [ . . . ] becomes a dead end for Susan Rawlings. (199)

Allen is correct that motherhood has become a "desert" for Susan, but the idea that freedom was achieved in having a "room of her own" is not consistent with the point that Lessing formulates. Susan does not achieve freedom until the end of the story when she escapes all of her "prisons" by committing suicide. Not only is the room also a prison, her entire existence is a prison. Her physical escape to the hotel room is filled with emptiness and further affects her spiritual and mental health. Allen contradicts herself in the latter part of her criticism by describing the room as "the sterile room of alienation" (201). This theory proves that the room does not provide "freedom" for Susan, but is yet another form of confinement for her.  Allen does assert that "Lessing's ‘wordless statement' is that human beings are responsible and they can be free:  but the prerequisite for their freedom is the choice of a creative mean between alienation and the mindlessness of the collective" (201), supporting the fact that Lessing proposes a change in society.  Pruitt's essay describes the "achievement of freedom - that state which [. . . Susan apotheosizes] and [is convinced she has] secured  - [as] a condition of tragic vulnerability: vulnerability not only to varying degrees of nervous disorder but also to bodily injury" (203), proving that suicide is not the answer.

            Women are expected to cheerfully welcome their bondage under middleclass status and a patriarchal system, which tie women down to the point of breakdown and suicide. When Lessing described Susan and Matthew Rawlings as "people who have everything" in her 1963 interview with Roy Newquist, (Interview 208) she shows that women are confined even in seemingly luxurious lifestyles. Pruitt details Susan's displeasure in her middleclass "elegant home with handsome grounds and a garden" (202) from which she flees in order to obtain solitude in Room 19. Lessing describes the room as "hideous. It had a single window, with thin brocade curtains, a three-quarter bed that had a cheap satin bedspread on it, a fireplace with a gas fire and a shilling meter by it, a chest of drawers, and a green wicker armchair" (Lessing 410). Susan may have lived a lifestyle of little worries, but the restrictions of her expected role in her marriage drove her to severe depression and breakdown to the point of suicide. Katherine Fishburn, in her essay "Wor(l)ds within Words: Doris Lessing as Meta-Fictionalist and Meta-Physician," also asserts that Susan, "[n]o longer able to avoid the consequesnces of participating in a conventional marriage, [. . .] slowly goes mad and eventually kills herself - demonstrating once again that abiding by the social scripts can drive a woman crazy" (255).

Lessing is challenging society to have a radical change of attitude in the existing capitalist and patriarchal order towards women in order to allow them to gain true freedom, so that, desperate actions such as suicide are not the only solution for those driven to escape these societal structures. She illustrates her position by exposing her attitude toward female bondage and repression and the need for women to escape these strict societal barriers. The current patriarchal society often drives women into depression and into unfortunate and hopeless actions, such as suicide, when in actuality society needs a radical change. Lessing does not propose the exact answer, but insinuates through her portrayal of the life of Susan Rawlings that the existing order must be drastically modified to allow women full access to opportunity and include them as full participants in society.

© 2001 Michelle Jenkins

English essay entitled: Escaping Societal Structures in Doris Lessing's "To Room Nineteen" 

Works Cited

Allen, Orphia Jane. "Structure and Motif in Doris Lessing's ‘A Man and Two Women'." Modern Fiction Studies. (Spring 1980): 63-74. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 198-201.

Fishburn, Katherine. "Wor(l)ds within Words: Doris Lessing as Meta-Fictionalist and Meta-Physician." Studies in the Novel. (Summer 1998): 186-205. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Brigham Narins and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 94. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 252-60.

Gardiner, Judith Kegan. "Gendered Choices: History and Empathy in the Short Fiction of Doris Lessing." Rhys, Stead, Lessing and the Politics of Empathy. (1989): 83-120. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 214-20.

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 150-54.

Lessing, Doris. Interview with Roy Newquist. Counterpoint. 1964. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 208.

Lessing, Doris. "To Room Nineteen." 1963. Literature: An Introduction to Critical Reading. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1996. 396-417.

Pruitt, Virginia. "The Crucial Balance: A Theme in Lessing's Short Fiction." Studies in Short Fiction. (Summer 1981): 281-85. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 201-3.

Tiger, Virginia. "'Taking Hands and Dancing in (Dis)Unity.':Story to Storied in Doris Lessing's ‘To Room Nineteen' and ‘A Room'." Modern Fiction Studies. (Autumn 1990): 421-33. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Brigham Narins and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 94. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 260-5.

I say to these students who have to spend a year, two years, writing theses about one book: "There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remeber that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty of fifty-and vice versa. Don't read a book out of its right time for you. Remember that for all the books we have in print, are as many that have never reached print, have never been written down-even now, in this age of compulsive reverence for the written world, history even  social ethic, are taught by means of stories, and the people who have been conditioned into thinking only in terms of what is written-and unfortunately nearly all the products of our educational system can do no more than this-are missing what is before their eyes. For intstance, the real history of Africa is still in the custody of black storytellers and wise men, blackhistorians, medicine men; it is a verbal history, still kept safe form the white man and his predations. Everywhere, if you keep your mind open, you will find the truth in words NOT written down. So never let the printed page be your master. Above all, you should know that the fact that you have to spend one year, or two years, on one book, or one author means that you are badly taught-you should have been taught to read your way from one sympathy to another, you should be learning to follow your own intuitive feeling about what you need: that is what you should have been developing, not the way to quote from other people.

Excerpt from Doris Lessing's Introduction to the Golden Notebook. 1st Perennial Classics ed.

—Doris Lessing, Shikasta

Hi All,

I hope you are all doing well. We are here at Washington University right in the heart of the semester which is why the windows have been coming your way more slowly. Still, hundreds (yes, I mean hundreds) of new subscribers have joined these windows in the past weeks. Welcome! I hope you find these enjoyable and informative.

If you know of anyone who signed up but did not receive the windows, do please e-mail me. And now, to window number 42.

The Iran that Smiles!

Thanks to my cousin Abe Massoudi, I can open this window with a colorful slide show of a face of Iran that smiles: a beautiful wedding in a village in Gilan. To see the show, click here: Wedding in Iranian village of Gilan.

Columbia University Visit

Mr. Ahmadinejad's reception at Columbia continues to generate discussion particularly among the Iranian Americans here in the U.S. One favorite pastime has been looking up previous Columbia visitors who might be described as less than democratic. One of particular interest is another former Iranian leader (see the picture below). The caption reads: "A Petty cruel dictator in Columbia University, but wait he is receiving a Doctoral degree in Law!"

Current Issues

* The U.S. Government will impose new sanctions on Iran. While there is doubt about the actual effectiveness of the sanctions, and the agreement of other nations with it, nevertheless the move is another step away from reconciliation. Here is yesterday's N.Y. Times article on the new sanction: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/washington/25tehran.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin.

* A very interesting analysis of the catastrophic economic consequences for the world as a whole of a possible strike on Iran in today's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502840.html?wpisrc=newsletter.

* Reporting on Iran continues to be problematic. Words and images project images of religious fanaticism, or violence, even when the content of a report indicates the opposite. The coverage of the visit to Iran by Mr. Putin, the Russian president, in New York Times on Oct. 17 is a perfect example. According to the report, the Iranian, Russian, and other Caspian Sea nations oppose the possibility of a military intervension in Iran and call for a diplomatic approach to all conflicts - including the Iranian nuclear issue. The image used in the article (on the right), shows Mr. Putin and Ahmadinejad walking past a row of wall decorations depicting pre-Islamic Iranian guards symbolically escorting the two leaders. The caption to the image reads "Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran followed in the footsteps of Persian soldiers yesterday."

* Here is a NY Times article with more details on the visit of the Russian President to Iran which was itself a historic event. The main purpose of the event was  discussing Caspian Sea resources including oil. Besides Mr. Putin, leaders from Azarbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan expressed objections to further military action in the region: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/17iran.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.

* Matt Miller has shared a fascinating interview/article with the millitary historian Gabriel Kolok from Spiegel. It provides a very interesting analysis of a possible U.S. millitary attack on Iran. Thanks Matt: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,511492,00.html

* The identities of the six British Members of Parliament who were present at the meeting with Debra Cagan have now been revealed and yesterday, the New York Times reported a virtual re-confirmation by the MPs that Cagan did indeed say that she hates all Iranians.  The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) calls on everyone to ask journalists why they have not covered the story of Debra Cagan and her outragous remark, "I hate all Iranians." Take action here: http://capwiz.com/niacouncil/issues/alert/?alertid=10436826.

Cultural

* If you are in St. Louis on Wednesday, Oct. 30, come to Busch Hall, Room 100 at 7:00p.m. to see a film on ancient Iran by the award winning documentary maker Farzin Rezaeian. In this major new documentary called Iran: Seven Faces of a Civilization, Mr. Rezaeian uses the latest technology to showcase the 7,000-year history of Iran's art and archaeology.

* Iranians look upon the recent Nobel Lauriete Doris Lessing as a daughter of Iran: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/oct/1138.html.

* Iranian men and women chess players maintained their lead in Asian Chess Championship held in Manama, reported Gulf News on Oct. 19: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3588.

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Visual Delight

Time to close Window 42 with another painting exhibit. This time, the work of Vadjiheh Fakour, the painter from Tabriz. She has had many individual and group exhibits. And as you will see, she has a way with color. Enjoy: Vadjiheh Fakour Art.

Have a great weekend, until the next window on Iran.

Best,
Fatemeh
===================================
Fatemeh Keshavarz, Professor and Chair
Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures
Washington University in St. Louis
Tel: (314) 935-5156
Fax: (314) 935-4399
==================================

That was Doris Lessing! I read The Fifth Child standing up in a aisle of Tower Books in downtown Sacramento a bunch of years ago. Two interior decorating details are still with me: one was a long, long wooden dining table the couple had bought, the other is a strong impression of scary stairs. I left chilled and convinced of the unwisdom of having a big family.

I must tell you I watched Welcome to the Dollhouse for the first time ever, and spent most of the movie gaping in disbelief at Dawn Wiener. She was me. I was she. Shall I list the ways?

• The t-shirt tucked into the elastic-waist pants. This was how I dressed.
• The hairtie with the two plastic balls twisted up together on top.
• The tiny perfect dancing sister. The way the tiny sister makes everything about Dawn twice as blobby and big.
• The jerky sibling move that results in the sister's endangerment (in my case, her getting locked into a Holiday Inn hotel room when she was 3. She bolted the door on accident, and the hotel had lost the master key. The fire department couldn't get in, and I stood there, watching my father pull the fire alarm, my mother tearfully talk my sister away from the fatal toilet drowning mechanism, thinking to myself that I had lied, that I hadn't had to go outside the room, that I hadn't heard them coming at all and just wanted to feel important for a second and get away.)
• The piano-playing.
• The total submission to abusive people, except that I was more of a tattle-tale.
• The weird spurts of agency in which she makes Steve Jello and macaroni and plots his seduction.
• The clubhouse. Mine was a fig tree that gave me rashes on my legs. Whatever.
• That shot of her lying in bed, expressionless, all night, after she's met Steve.
• The voice!!! That was my voice!!!
• The terrible moment of appearing at the party in her "Love" heart-shaped earrings, her grown-up hairdo, lime-green pants and electric blue midriff-baring top. Mine was white roller-skates with with hot pink wheels, long silver dangly heart earrings, a turquoise spandex top with silver lightning bolts and bike shorts to match.

I've never recognized myself so completely in a movie before. I don't know what to think---I experienced it almost as an unfamiliar invasion of privacy.

The line "There's voices in my head / Coming from the phone" reminded me of your observations on schizophrenia, specifically of a friend of mine who hears the air condition constantly telling him that he's a horrible person, good-for-nothing, ugly, etc. When this happens he very stiffly gets up and takes the dog for a walk.

The happy puppet is pretty terrifying, I guess. You're right, it suggests that we're yanked around by our genes, or by a genetically encoded desire to please and get attention, which might be the same thing. So what other phenotypes are there? Are the rest of us disaffected dummies? Moody marionettes?

In my trolling for belly-dancing material I watched a history of burlesque last night and came across an act in which a woman lies down on a couch and is fondled and partly undressed by a life-sized puppet of the devil. This was in response to censorship laws decreed that a dancer couldn't bump and grind directly facing the audience or touch herself anywhere at all while onstage.

What terrifies me even more than the genetics, dear CF, is the puppetry that happens in reverse. As long as the dancer's controlling the devil, it's okay, but Welcome To The Dollhouse is so much about being controlled by the people you hate. It's about that moment when you hear their voices in your own head. Good old Dawn. Every time she gets called something---"Lesbian," "Retard," "Faggot," she turns around and does it to somebody else. The only person she really treats nicely is Brandon.

I wish I could condescend, pat her on the head, and tell her this too shall pass. Fact is, I don't think it stops. I feel the Firecracker in my head every time I try to write. How do we not become puppets? And should I get a dog?

Fondly,
Millicent

I just woke up feeling rattled from having a dream where I was at a party and suffered the same minute embarrassments I do at real parties.  In the dream I talked too much about my work, flirted poorly with an esteemed professor of my youth, and then my mom got mad at me for not making her guests comfortable.  There was not even an incisive meaning of the dream.  It was mundane, obvious, and pretty much already lived, why did my mind go through the motions of making it up?

I once heard a This American Life where a psychiatrist who was schizophrenic had made a training tape for New York City cops so they could understand a bit more about schizophrenics when they approached them. They had to wear headphones and listen to the tape for an entire day, if I remember correctly.  She said that "hearing voices" was not like have strange thoughts float around in your mind. It was like somebody behind you startling you by yelling or whispering things to you.  The cassette was of these possible assaults/conversations and it illustrated to the cops how hard it is to focus one's attention beyond the external voice that has most of your ear.

I was surprised by this definition.  Schizophrenia has that fuzzy meaning when said casually--usually suggesting something out of nowhere, contradictory, or strangely juxtaposed.  Schizophrenic critics must be an unsynchronized chorus, and a schizophrenic work must be a patchwork (with seams either clumsily or masterfully exposed).  Schizophrenic love must be hot and cold, out of balance, or a case of a PMS.  But, like you mention with your sister, none of this cutesy summing up actually holds sway with the real effect of the condition.

The one thing that irks me when the word is used as an adjective, even with the "being cut in half in the shower" phrase (I think I have to mention, what does the shower have to do with it? The drain, for cleanliness?) is that it relies heavily on a sense of absolute freedom from responsibility.  This is where it makes me think of the training cassette.  We are attracted to the odd contrast, the juxtaposition, that just arrives.  Perhaps this is why we embrace the word and the idea of the word, and don't really want to know about the real stuff of the schizophrenic experience.

The Happy Puppet terrifies me, as do all genetic prophecies that suggest procreation is a lottery or grab-bag, or worse, the highest stakes and most depressing version ever of the game show "Let's Make a Deal."  Is it Doris Lessing that wrote about the family that has hit the genetic jackpot until their last child, which ultimately destroys, well, everything?

Yours,

CF

But as I scavenged the entire library for stimulating reads, I kept looking down at the book. At various moments, I picked it up and skimmed paragraphs here and there. I kept thinking, "It looks so boring, so dense yet empty. Maybe I should put it back?" Then, I rebuked myself and said, "Just give it a chance...maybe it'll be interesting." Finally, I returned it to the "New Books" shelf.

I've been stuck in a literary funk for quite some time now. It seems like every book that I've read in the past month has left me dissatisfied. And these are not unknown books; they've been lauded by critics for being all sorts of world-smashing things, like thought-provoking, witty, intelligent, and so on.

Take for instance Don DeLillo's White Noise. While I appreciated the book's criticism of academia, society, and drugs (something about this book reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut, another writer who is heralded as an icon by critics, but whose black humor I don't find so appealing) some of its themes were flat-out boring, like Jack and his wife Babette's unrelenting fear of death. I remember stopping at page 130, flipping through the remainder of the book, and incredulously asking myself, "There are still about 200 more pages to go?!"

Or Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. In the most recent introduction, Lessing says she received letters from female readers who said that the book "changed" either their or someone else's life. I then embarked on the 672 page book set in England and Africa. I desisted around page 300-something.

Then I read Ian McEwan's Amsterdam. I thought it was a good read, but not a Miracle of Madonna that merited a prize. I recently finished Paradise Travel, and while I thought it was extremely interesting and refreshing, I suspect that I would have liked the book more if I had read it in Spanish. Currently, I am in the middle of the Man Booker Prize-winning The Sea. I am forcing myself to forge ahead, hoping that somewhere along the line, I'll be snagged by an unexpected hook.

What am I looking for?

In The Golden Notebook, Anna, the narrator, says that the

function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don't know- Nigeria, South Africa, the American Army, a coal mining village, coteries in Chelsea, etc. We read to find out what is going on.

This opinion rings true to a certain extent for me: I'm attracted to books which accurately capture another time and place. But I'm not exactly looking for reportage on, say, Egypt (though greatly appreciated); I'm looking for a book that makes me turn the next page, has vivacious and robust language, and makes me want to not put the book down. And it's not literary snobbery that makes me cry out for good books. I'm not receiving all literature with the attitude that every piece fails to satisfy my unreachable standards. Great fiction and non-fiction does exist. I know This Much Is True touches on schizophrenia, immigration, social ostracism, love, sex, and racial politics in the US. Lolita is one of the most arresting reads I've had. The Poisonwood Bible shows how the lives of four sisters living in Africa took four different directions. Barney's Version is marked with satire, political takes, and wit. Notes on a Scandal is one of those books which successfully creep you out, which exemplifies good writing (NOTE: I read this book when it first came out, not after the movie was made, which I haven't seen yet). The Guide's quiet humor and social criticism is some of the best writing I've come across. The Moor's Last Sigh takes you on a magnificent voyage through India and Spain, while interweaving history and religion. Vernon God Little brilliantly crafts a story around the death penalty, homophobia, paedophila, and American society. Gomorrah is the author's nitty gritty tour within the shadowy worlds of the mafia in Italy. And A Fine Balance needs no summary. It's those books that I'm reminded of when I rhetorically ask, "Where has good writing gone these days?"

In fact, I never asked that question when I was in Italy and I read to my heart's content. I usually bought my books at Feltrinelli, and there was never any dearth of great titles ranging from science to literature, both in English and Italian. There was Salam Maman in Italian, which is a touching story about Ali, who grows up during Pahlavi's rule and lives through the revolutionary period of Iran. I read everything from humor (British and American) to sexual evolution. I immersed myself in heavier reading, like Pity the Nation, a book on the Lebanese civil war, End of the Peace Process, and A History of the Arab Peoples. Maybe because this Feltrinelli branch wasn't a giant five-story, nightmarish maze to navigate through (like to Barnes and Noble and Borders), I didn't have a hard time unearthing books that I enjoyed (I have to point out that Feltrinelli's English language books were obviously mined from British reviews; perhaps the British are better evaluators of literature than we Americans are?)

Instead, the local library here-- the closest access to books that I have-- holds bestsellers, Western classics, award-winning books, and other beneficiaries of rave reviews dispensed by heavyweight critics like the New York Times,  which speaks more to the politics of publishing (read: formulaic books that make huge profits) than great writing. It reminds me of how important it is to have public libraries and good bookstores which house a variety of books that might even be better than the more popular ones. Libraries in particular can often be one of the few democratic public spaces we have, which provide an opportunity to both low and high-income people to engage in literature, knowledge, and education (though you have to think about the location of the library- some libraries in affluent suburbs are like amusement parks, while those in poorer neighborhoods are underfunded).

But maybe there's a book that's sitting on the shelf at the public library whose existence I am unaware of. There are also well-known books that I've never read and are easily available, such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Howl, and The Catcher in the Rye. I want to revisit some books I've read in the past, like The Grapes of Wrath and On the Road, with a fresh eye. Pride and Prejudice is also on my list.

Are there any books you recommend? Any suggestions for sources that I can refer to for smart reviews?

UPDATE: Via Sepoy, I just learned that David Foster Wallace, author of the sharply and insanely funny collection of essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, was found dead Friday evening.

Like Marie, I follow the Booker Prize. I read a lot of fiction by Commonwealth writers anyway and the long- and shortlists are a good starting point. Last summer I read The Welsh Girl, not a winner but a very good book, and also Moon Tiger which did win in 1987 and was amazing. I generally try to be aware of who's won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award also. And every year I'm very interested to hear who will win the Nobel, but I've read surprisingly and sadly few Nobel-Prize-winning authors.

Wróciłam do strefy granicznej, za którą mieściło się moje "realne" życie, i stwierdziłam, że tu nadal jeszcze pokoje są solidne, o grubych ścianach, i nietkniętych podłogach i stropach, ale gdy tak patrzyłam, zauważyłam, że deski podłogi zaczynają się poddawać, że w paru miejscach się zapadły, potem, że widać w nich wystrzępione dziury, potem, że w gruncie rzeczy to nie są deski podłogi, tylko parę gnijących desek leżących wprost na ziemi, która wypuszcza w górę kępki zieleni. Odsunęłam deski, odsłaniając czysty grunt i owady żywo zajęte zabawą. Rozsunęłam ciężkie, podszyte zasłony, by wpuścić trochę słońca. Duszny stary pokój wydawał silną woń wzrostu, a ja wybiegłam stamtąd i zaczęłam przedzierać się przez cienkie liściaste ekrany, opuszczając to miejsce, tę strefę, by dotrzeć do czystego wzrostu i pracujących owadów, ponieważ... musiałam. Nigdy zresztą nie było tak, iżbym ja polecała sobie, że teraz ja muszę przerwać swe codzienne życie, bo czas wyjść z jednego życia i wkroczyć w inne; nie ja czyniłam przezroczystą tą oświetloną słońcem ścianę, nie ja ustawiałam scenę za nią. Nie ja miałam możliwości wyboru. Bardzo silne było uczucie, że robię to, co mam robić, że zostałam zabrana, poprowadzona, zostało mi pokazane, że zawsze znajduję się we wnętrzu wielkiej dłoni, zamykającej w sobie moje życie i wykorzystującej mnie do spraw, wobec których nazbyt jestem chrząszczem czy dżdżownicą, aby je zrozumieć.

Te czucia, zrodzone z doświadczeń za ścianą, sprawiły, że zaczęłam się zmieniać. Niepokój i głód, towarzyszące mi całe życie, a obok nich gniew protestu (ale przeciw czemu?) zaczęły słabnąc. Stwierdziłam, że najczęściej po prostu czekam. Obserwuję, co się dalej wydarzy. Obserwowałam więc. Na każde nowe zdarzenie patrzyłam w milczeniu, by stwierdzić, czy potrafię je zrozumieć.

Wszyscy pamiętamy tamten czas. Dla mnie to był taki sam jak dla innych. A jednak ciągle sobie opowiadamy szczegóły wspólnie przecież przeżytych wydarzeń, powtarzamy to wszystko, słuchamy, jakbyśmy chcieli powiedzieć: "Z tobą też tak było, prawda? A więc to by się potwierdzało, tak to tak właśnie było, musiało tak być, nie przywidziało mi się". Porównujemy i dyskutujemy jak ludzie, którzy w czasie podróży zobaczyli jakieś niezwykłe stwory: "Pamiętasz tą rybę? Tą wielką, niebieską? A nie, ty widziałeś żółtą". Ale morze, przez które płynęliśmy, było to samo, długi okres niepokoju i napięcia przed końcem taki sam dla wszystkich, wszędzie, w mniejszych jednostkach naszych miast - na ulicach, w kompleksie wysokich bloków mieszkalnych, w hotelu - taki sam jak w miastach, w narodach, na kontynencie... owszem, przyznaję, że w dość ekstrawaganckich obrazach rozważamy tu charakter tych wydarzeń: osobliwa ryba, oceany i tak dalej. Ale może nie byłoby od rzeczy stwierdzić, że my wszyscy będziemy spoglądać wstecz na pewien okres życia, pewien ciąg wydarzeń i znajdować tam więcej niż oni w tamtym czasie. Dotyczy to nawet tak pospolitych spraw, jak na przykład śmieci na placu po weekendzie. Ludzie będą porównywać zapiski, jakby pragnęli lub spodziewali się potwierdzenia czegoś, na co same wydarzenia nie zezwalały - a nawet czegoś co w ogóle wykluczały. (...) W każdym razie przeszłość oglądana z tym nastawieniem umysłu zostaje jakby zanurzona w substancję, która wydawała się jej obca, zewnętrzna wobec doświadczania jej. Być może taka jest materia rzeczywistej pamięci? Nostalgia, nie; nie o tym mówię - o pragnieniu, żalu, o tej trującej tęsknocie. Nie chodzi też o wagę, którą staramy się przypisać swej niezbyt znaczącej przeszłości: "Wiesz, ja tam byłem. Ja to widziałem".

Jak teraz wiemy, tym, co dotyczyło wszystkich, ale co każdy z nas uważał za przejaw własnej, upracie pielęgnowanej oryginalności, było, że wydarzeń nie obserwowaliśmy poprzez środki oficjalnego przekazu. Przyzwoite. Do wiadomości radiowych, gazet i oświadczeń przywkliśmy i nikt ich nie potępiał: bez nich stalibyśmy się przygnębieni i lękliwi, po przecież trzeba było mieć oficjalny stempel, zwłaszcza, gdy nic nie dzieje się zgodnie z oczekiwaniami. W istocie jednak każdy z nas uświadamiał sobie w pewnym momencie, że to nie z oficjalnych źródeł czerpiemy owe fakty, które układają się w obraz całkowicie odmienny od tego, jaki jest ofcjalnie rozpowszechniany. Ciągi słów utrwalały zdarzenia w pewien obraz, niemal opowieść: "I wtedy zdarzyło się to a to, i ten a ten powiedział..." ale coraz częściej słowa te wypadały podczas rozmowy, a może nawet same z siebie. "Tak, oczywiście - myślało się. - Właśnie. Wiem to od pewnego czasu. Nie uświadomiłem sobie tego, bo nie słyszałem o tym w taki sposób jak teraz..."

Se dice “África” con demasiada ligereza. Para Occidente significa el espacio mítico de la aventura y la desgracia. El lugar de sus esclavos, los hambrientos, los desterrados, los masacrados, los “salvajes” e incomprensibles pueblos negros.

Su norte arábico es menos “africano” en la imaginación europea. Y la América “negra”, de “tercera raíz”, aparece como una suerte de África salvada de serlo, aún en Detroit o las favelas de Río de Janeiro. Desconocido como la misma Luna, es de los cinco continentes el máximo lugar común: obviedades infundadas y mentiras profundas.

Su guía de forasteros literaria sigue siendo El corazón de las tinieblas (1899), de Joseph Conrad, no sólo porque es una gran obra, sino porque transmite los miedos, las crueldades y la culpa de las miradas de Occidente sobre ese espacio saqueado y condenado una y otra vez, sin que el saqueo ni la condena concluyan de una buena vez.

El erial sigue creciendo. Sus pobladores huyen hacia la Europa que los colonizó, y ésta les declara una nueva guerra (antimigratoria) y levanta muros legales y campos de confinamiento.

Dos libros de signo muy distinto profundizan en el África de las pesadillas occidentales modernas, pero desde dentro, y le dan sentido. Medio siglo después de las independencias nacionales, el mal del África subsahariana es que no pertenece a sus pobladores, cuyas vidas no pertenecen a ellos ni a nadie. Se nace fácil y se muere fácil. Guerra, enfermedad, hambre, sed.

Ébano, de Ryzard Kapuscinski (1998. Anagrama, 2000), y Mara y Dann, de Doris Lesssing (1999. Ediciones B, 2005), son dos obras monumentales.

La primera, una decantada crónica del pasado medio siglo de revoluciones y guerras civiles, el testimonio “duro” de un reportero improbablemente polaco (¿como Conrad?), que viajó el continente durante varias décadas prefigurando lo que hoy sería Robert Fisk para el mundo árabe.

Fue menos erudito, pero tuvo mayor densidad literaria. En tanto, la novela de Lessing es ficción en el sentido más extremo. Sucede en un confuso futuro sin contacto con nuestro presente, fracturado y distante, nunca sabemos por cuántos años o siglos.

Anterior al sida, al ébola, a los transgénicos y al calentamiento global, Ébano ya retrata el páramo poseuropeo, la lucha cotidiana y bestial por un mendrugo, un vaso de agua, un poco de sombra, un día más con vida.

Mara y Dann sucede después de todos esos desastres, cuando Europa, cubierta de hielo, ya no existe ni en la memoria. Queda el sur, un inmenso desierto donde la gente de todas las razas (otras razas, las de después del fin del mundo) siguen intentando vivir un día más y alcanzar el norte en un peregrinaje sin fin.

Los hermanos Mara y Dann huyen del ocaso de su pueblo y de su casta en el sur de “Ífrik”. Ponen la voluntad por encima del sufrimiento a través de penurias terribles y frágiles momentos de bonanza. Una bildungsroman sometida a la peor intemperie on the road.

Kapuscinski reporteó el continente más de 30 años. Lessing, nacida en Irán, vivió en Zimbawe los primeros 30 años de su vida, y trae al África clavada en la conciencia, como todo británico de bien.

Aquél describe un mundo olvidado por el mundo. Ésta imagina uno que olvidó lo que hoy sabe la civilización: sin tecnología ni historia, sin ninguna clave científica. No se trata de autores africanos negros (tipo Ben Okri o Amos Toutola), ni siquiera blancos (Nadine Gordimer, André Brink). Kapuscinski y Lessing tan sólo dejaron su corazón allá.

Contemplan esa “humanidad sobrante” que hoy sobrepuebla el planeta de slums descrito por Mike Davis. Por ejemplo, Kinshasa, capital congolesa. Nueve millones de habitantes, 95 por ciento sin salario, con ingresos promedio de 100 dólares al año. No hay carros, ni dinero. Dos terceras partes de la gente es desnutrida; una de cada cinco, VIH positiva. No hay servicios de salud. Y los niños se han convertido en brujos para sobrevivir. Todo, en medio de permanentes guerras civiles y con los vecinos, bajo un gobierno de ladrones y asesinos. “Un país naturalmente rico, artificialmente empobrecido.” (Planet of Slums, Verso, 2006).

Así, Ébano y Mara y Dann, tan distintos en todo, dejan la inquietante sensación de ser el mismo libro por otros medios. Advertencias contra un cierto futuro, más allá de África.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/09/01/index.php?section=opinion&article=a13a1cul