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The Monday Book: MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR by Doris Lessing

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I like most of Lessing’s work, but she can be a real downer. This book picks up on some scenes that appear in others, and since this was published in 1974, I’m assuming these were the first appearances, and their refinement came in later works.

Somewhere in her life, Lessing saw or felt that girl children were valued less than boys. She’s got this running as a sub-theme through a lot of her novels, and it’s here in a few of the scenes involving Emily, the teenage protagonist of this novel.

The novel has two protagonists, the second one also being the narrator, a woman in late mid-life who watches from her London flat window as society breaks down around her. Think “The Road” because there’s no specification of what’s happened, just reactions to it. The societal disorder is actually pretty ill-defined, because it’s mostly there to explain why there are bands of roaming young people terrorizing the city. Think “Children of Men.” Something’s gone wrong centrally.

The narrator gets Emily in a very strange way; one day a man knocks on her door and tells her this child is her responsibility from here on out. And the narrator says “Fine.” Think Stephen King, eschewing explanation and yet not sounding implausible because it’s all so human-nature driven.

Then Emily gets into all sorts of scrapes and her pet Hugo is getting eyed up by the gangs for dinner, and it’s not going well, and…. well, the ending is a bit of a shocker. It’s actually happy. That’s all I’m gonna say.

This book requires a lot of the reader. Nothing is what it seems, except is is. Everything is falling apart, and yet some things are getting better for no reason. If you like literary fantasy – and I’m not even sure that’s a genre – you’re going to love Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor. If you like things explained, best pick up something else.

When she published it in 1974, Lessing called it a dystopian fable. Apparently, it was made into a movie in 1981. I don’t even want to think what violence the subtle writing and edgy themes would have suffered in that process. I’d say this book is like steel lace. The beauty is unusual in where it’s found, yet the writing is so delicate in describing bluntness. Steel lace.

Je Suis un Mancunion

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Jack’s weekly guest post –

I’m writing this the day after the terrible terrorist bombing at the end of the concert in Manchester and there are many thoughts swirling through my head. Of course the first thoughts are for the families of the kids who died – and many of them were young teenagers without any sense that they could be in danger at all. There were even two young friends from Barra in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. It’s an island with less than 1000 inhabitants. One is in hospital with serious injuries and the other is still missing and unaccounted for as I write this.

But while my first thoughts were for the families, there was something else bothering me.

I’m reminded of how the Falklands war broke out so conveniently for Margaret Thatcher just as an election was approaching–one she might easily have lost. Of course, with much flag waving and ‘British spirit’ she was re-elected comfortably. I’m reminded of a movie Wendy made me watch called WAG THE DOG, about an American president creating a fake war to boost his popularity. I didn’t want to watch it because it seemed so unsavory to write a comedy about something Britain had probably done. It was a funny movie, but in it the war was faked entirely rather than actually carried out under false pretenses.

And here we have a bombing just before an election when Theresa May’s polling results show her popularity plummeting. I’m not suggesting that this was a ‘false flag’ event (the name under which the British secret service carried out events they blamed on other groups during the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland). Sometimes false flags involve true terror organizations being guided by shadowy figures who operate at arm’s length.

Perhaps it’s not a false flag, rather that a terrorist group consider having someone like Theresa May as British Prime Minister will give them a much better opportunity to create more havoc, so they decided to give her help.

I’m not much given to conspiracy theories, but the timing of this is just highly suspicious to me. Mrs May’s catch phrase for the last month or so has been ‘strong and stable’ – repeated to the exclusion of any real policies. Then just two weeks before the election she is presented with the perfect scenario to be  ‘strong and stable’ and immediately raises the danger level to its highest  in over ten years. This also allows her to put troops and armed police on the streets.

Of course no-one on the opposing political side can possibly do anything else except support her under these circumstances, meanwhile all electioneering has been put on hold.

How terribly convenient!

Update –

Since writing the above post, I’ve checked a few of my favorite sources (favorite because of their lack of histrionics and hyperbole) and it seems I’m not alone in my suspicions. At the very least Mrs May seems to be milking this for all it’s worth and neither the police or the army are happy with her approach which they describe as counterproductive even if they had the numbers to do it effectively.