This was an insightful and- frankly i am at a loss of words of what to say of this book that hasn't already been said of itself so i am afraid i'll only be repeating what this painstakingly self-aware and irrevocably contemporary novel has taught me.
The desconstruction of the genre, the purposeful dismantle of the narritive feels like is challenging me to rethink of anciant boxes we, as in this society, still use such as "good" or "bad''. Doris Lessing's boldness doesn't come from saying things people had been thinking for years and vomit her clever insights but from using this colective recognition (or should i say counsciousness?) to throw away multiple molds at once - be it literary, social or political. I loved her preface of the book; her critic of the academic system and 'academicists' alike.
Anna's madness and dissassociation was a slow and painful process to read in the last third of the book, it felt at the same time incredibly relatable and alien to me because of the specificity of this work, her self-hatred is as raw as dead bodys on a Socialist Moscow prison yet i do not understand it as precisely as Anna. Amazing that. This was the hardest book i've read this year because of the author's determination to form a whole of a human charcter who is intelligent and self-aware who has fragmented herself for her fear of conformity and longing for conformity. My question is: Did she ever achieve what she was looking for and if so, what was that? Perhaps i ought to read this book again; another time.
