Re: Top 100 Novels... the Final Accounting

In article <q2ce24tuj7hk2nitu5h074lknc4slkpv3j@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 M C Hamster <davolson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> I was surprised about "The Golden Notebook".  We have an ancient copy
> sitting on our bookshelves, and my wife claims it was a kind of
> feminist rite of passage in the 60s to read it and love it and talk
> about it.  But I think there were three readers of it here, and all
> were men... yes, they were Pierre, Paul M, and bill van.

Lessing was -- is, actually -- a feminist, but also a one-time 
Moscow-oriented communist who broke with the party, and a science 
fiction writer, and an experimenter with the form of the novel. All of 
those made her interesting to my circle at the time. Feminism was a big 
part of it; that was roughly when the so-called New Left began to learn 
in bits and pieces that all was not well when the boys exchanged 
brilliant political thoughts in the living room while the girls served 
refreshments. But it's not the only thing going on with her and her 
books.

> I'm tempted to read it, since it's right here, and it's another one I
> can check off the list.  But now I'm seriously concerned.

She's hard to read. She may have a section of very clear narrative 
followed by a section where you can't tell who's talking about what from 
which point of view and the setting seems to be a thick bank of fog. 
Stuff falls into place if you stay with it, but it's sometimes a chore.

-- 
bill
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