This is another book from the not-so-good pile.
As a devoted fan of Doris Lessing for many, many years, I found Alfred
and Emily extremely disappointing; in fact, I wonder if it had not been
better for her literary image if she had never written it. It was a
book that I kept putting to one side, wondering whether or not I would
eventually have the energy to see it through to the end. The prose is
laboured and the two parts - the real and the fictional - work against
each other to cause confusion. The idea of writing two stories about her
parents, both as they were and as Lessing would have liked to them to
have been, did not work for me; it is possible that the book may have
gained by being completely factual or completely fictional but not as a
mixture of both. I also felt that Lessing used the book as a platform to
expound on her own talents, which, for me, seemed very out of sync with
what one would expect from Lessing. There is a point where the dancer
hangs up his/her dancing shoes, and, perhaps, there should also be a
point where the writer lays down his/her pen.
Photo from mccchurch.org
