In lots of ways, this is probably a 3 star book. It's not very exciting. Most things that are suggested may happen never happen. But as with the other Lessing book I've read, the quality of the insight is so good that it can't be discounted. Usually I copy my favorite passages from dog-eared pages into my Goodreads review, but this time there were 20 of those pages and they required their own Google Doc. And, like with the other book, they're a little scary.I liked this book right away, because a lot of what I like is right in the bones of the thing. It's kind of a miraculous recipe. I heartily approved of Sarah and all of the threads in her life. Her work at the theater is tantalizingly realistic (there is such a thing). Her quick friendship with Stephen is wonderful and touching right away. Her unusual obligation to raising her niece Joyce, though Joyce's parents are perfectly viable but unwilling, felt immediately serious to me. And the exposition of Julie Vairon, the thread stitching everything here together, was extremely appealing.The characters spend the book at work on a play (with music) about Julie Vairon, an obscure 19th century (fictional) figure who became famous after death as a composer, artist and diarist, of a background "like Napoleon's Josephine". She lived alone in a forest outside a small French town, had a few serious love affairs, and drowned herself while in her thirties. I am pretty sure that if this all were true, I would really like Julie Vairon the figure. She seems extremely real and I can really imagine the way she would be appreciated now. A Women's History Month kind of person. I don't think however I would like Julie Vairon the play very much, but I suspended disbelief enough to let the characters think so. The play's evolution is one of the book's major signals -- the characters all have very distinct ways of relating to Julie, and their "take" on the play is the way we place them in Sarah's moral spectrum. France and England are characterized by their different responses to the productions, and at the end, we are bitterly disappointed when someone wants to make a musical.The atmosphere of the book is a really strong element, first the portion during the production in Julie's semi-hometown in France, and then the portion where Sarah becomes a welcome guest of Stephen's English country estate where the next production happens. That place and their relationships to it reminded me a little of Brideshead. I wished she'd spent even more time there, as all the time spent absorbing Stephen's life was excellent, his quiet psychosis and strange marital situation. Really good.What's funny about this book is that in a lot of ways the plot -- older woman falls in love with younger men, twice -- makes it sound really Oprah-friendly. But Lessing is such a brutal writer. It seems there's always some dark insanity involved. A bit of danger, as these people will never recover from this ordinary pain. Sarah goes through so much pain with these feelings it's almost enough to disconnect you from the story. All this for Bill, really? Bill sucks! Henry doesn't suck. Henry is great. But much, much time is spent in the detail of her unconsummated passions, which really go nowhere. For all the self-referential comparisons to bedroom farce, not one single bed gets hopped this whole time. (Well, one off-screen, and not Sarah's.) I suppose that's part of the point, but France was mildly oppressive to read through with all of this. (Though maybe because I really didn't care about Bill, at all.)Once those are over, though, what she's left with is moving, as is her effort at caring for Stephen on his parallel paths. Between Stephen and her brother and Julie, so much of the thematic purpose of the novel comes together in the last 50 pages, it's so strong. A little odd because it seems it wasn't present earlier, but really it was, just quietly. In the scene when Elizabeth is so angry, and says it's so irresponsible, I really thought she was directing the reproach at Sarah, because it sounded exactly like the senseless blame her brother always levied about his daughter. Her reflections on being alone at the end go really deep.So I'm really glad I read this, even though "nothing happened".
What I've just realized about Doris Lessing's writings is this. They grab me by the neck the way you pick up a cat and won't let go. It didn't matter if I didn't really enjoy reading it, I couldn't break away. The simple act of betraying a book being read now for another, thing that I've done times and times again without any hesitation became impossible. So I read through boring part, annoying part, ruminating part until she has finished telling her story; then I stopped reading. This is not a reading experience I want to have all the time. If I have to guess on the reason of my inability to enjoy reading it completely, it'll be the accursed Julie Vairon. With the entire population of the book falling in love with her, her music, her beauty, her journal, I only can roll my eyes. This is a stiff obstacle in reading a book revolving on her. If Lessing hadn't grabbed me by the neck, I'd have gone long way before the first 50 pages.The rest is a thoughtful read. I have to admit my rather constant preoccupation with love. The question of definition, symptoms, impact, worthiness; all those things that people in love won't bother to spend time on and only those standing at the edge think endlessly. This time it's about contracting the disease when as a woman you've reached the enviable seemingly peaceful time of old age. Is 60ish old enough to be called old? Old enough for stable life, not old enough to die with some asinine comment of having enough time to live fully (how much time would a person need to live fully? a minute or eternity). In a way, old enough to re-written and soften their own life story into a smooth comfortable globe. Then come love, again. Unbidden. And all hell broke loose. The illusion of peacefulness, the memory of love as a tame pet is destroyed. This is feeling all the physical pain induced by the heartache. Having it when you're not protected by youthful thoughtlessness and burdened by years of experience. Is there anything worse?I suppose I kept on reading out of the respect for this story. Of going through it with Sarah Durham until the end and not ditching her midway. This, if loyalty to fictional character ever make any sense.3 stars.
Do You like book Love, Again (1997)?
Pessimo questo mio primo incontro con la Lessing, una gran fatica finire questo libro.Si tratta in realtà di una storia nella storia: la protagonista, Sarah, mette in scena con la sua squadra di autori teatrali i diari di Julie Vairon, una giovane donna i cui amori non vedono mai il lieto fine. Sarah è un’affascinante donna di circa 65 anni che si riscopre innamorata ad un’età in cui pensava di essere al sicuro da simili “fenomeni”. Si ritrova a fare i conti col mal d’amore e a patire quel male fisico che si scatena dal cuore sofferente. La trama sembra interessante ma la prosa è pesante, poco scorrevole, lo stile spesso pomposo. Sembra quasi che l’autrice si sia concentrata in un esercizio di stile più che sull’andare della storia. Durante la lettura, lo ammetto, mi sono annoiata, quasi distratta, e spesso dovevo tornare indietro a rileggere un periodo per capirne il senso. Difficilissimo entrare in sintonia col personaggio. Tra l’altro la storia ad un certo punto perde quasi di realismo: non è difficile immaginare una donna, anche di una certa età, che si innamora, quanto mandar giù che riesca a far girare la testa a 4 uomini più o meno nello stesso periodo e tra l’altro tutti più giovani di lei. Per quanto fascinosa…mi sembra un po’eccessivo. Inoltre, si snodano nel racconto filoni secondari che non hanno una loro vera collocazione e che non danno poi chissà valore al resto della storia. Sicuramente non consiglierei questo libro, ma mi riprometto di leggere un altro testo della Lessing per capire se si sia trattato di un “libro sbagliato” o se proprio tra noi due non ci sia alcun feeling :D
—Luisa
I found it intriguing until midway through the book. Lessing pulls off a difficult trick: she creates a character, Julie Vairon, that all her characters are supposed to find so fascinating they can't get her out of their minds. That's not the trick - the trick is that Julie actually IS fascinating to the reader, which is hard to do. So frequently characters who are meant to be charming to all the other characters in the book are not charming to me. That said, having pulled off that difficult trick alongside the difficult trick of accurately portraying the stupidity of falling in love with someone you know is absurd to fall in love with, Lessing seems to drop the ball midway through. I felt no rising climax, no resolution, no understanding. Everyone seems to simply fade away into whatever emotion drove them through the first half of the story, and Julie also fades. I understand that this is half Lessing's point - that emotions that drive us so vividly at first frequently disappear with no fanfare, leaving us with the puzzlement of why we should have felt so strongly in the first place - but in execution, it makes for a dull latter half of the book. I found myself wondering when someone was going to DO something, and even when one of the characters decidedly does something quite immense, it has no shock and no feeling. It just happens, and then it's done, and no one seems to much care. Which is about how I ultimately felt about the story overall.
—Tei
I had a lot of hope for this book. Doris Lessing is, after all, a Nobel Prize winner in literature. Briefly, it's about a 65 year old woman who wants to love once again and feel passion for someone.The story is about a theater group who come across the true story of a woman, Julie, and her varied adventures. They decide to mount a musical, a play, based on this woman. I really enjoyed the first third of the book as Julie's story was told and her background explored, how Julie's music was incorporated into the play, how Stephen, one of the participants falls in love with the idea of this woman, (now dead for more than 75 years). Where it fell apart was in the endless nuances of the play - the amount of characters' names linked to actors playing them (double the amount of names to keep track of). And then, the fact that this 65 year old woman who is said to look 45 years old (I've never seen a caucasian woman who pulled that off without surgery), doesn't fall in love with a younger man - she is attracted to the under 30 guys, and supposedly they're attracted to her? Real attraction? My son and all his friends are in their late 20's. All professionals. All serious. I'm 53. There is no way they would be romantically attractive to me. They're just too young. This is not a woman who lives in the world of high fashion or film, where facials and botox, mini-tucks and lipo are routine; where money can make a dud look like a diamond and a 65 year old look enormously attractive. This is not a 50 year old woman in incredible shape. And there's a HUGE difference. It just creeped me out instead of inspiring me.BTW - this book has been on my shelf for years, I just forgot to register it.
—Noel
