Briefing for a Descent Into Hell

The previous reviews are revealing -- this is clearly a love-it-or-loathe-it book! I'm definitely in the first category, though I won't disparage those who couldn't stand it. It's simply not for every taste, and unlikely to ever find mass appeal. But for those who are captivated by visionary literature, you'll find a dazzling, disorienting horn of plenty within these pages. The plot, such as it it, follows the inner-space journey of amnesiac Charles Watkins, adrift on the seas of madness, then set ashore on the terra incognita of the Unconscious. A reading of R. D. Laing's "The Politics of Experience" wouldn't be out of place while reading this novel, as it deals with the same approach to madness & consciousness: the notion that a breakdown may indeed lead to a conceptual breakthrough, that madness may well be the only sane response to a mad world. Yes, it can be difficult going, especially at first. But if you stick with it, you may find that it pulls you in & enfolds you in its shattering vision. If you're unsure of whether to proceed, dip into a few pages at random & see if it intrigues you; if so, you'll probably find yourself on an unsettling, but possibly quite illuminating, journey of the soul. Something of a niche item, to be sure -- but what a niche!

"Sometimes when you read a book or story, the words are dead, you struggle to end it or put it down, your attention is distracted. Another time, with exactly the same book or story, it is full of meaning, every sentence or phrase or even word seems to vibrate with messages and ideas, reading is like being pumped full of adrenalin." (p.155) You don't say, Doris. The title alone should be enough to tell you that Lessing's 1971 novel isn't going to be an easy read, and the first 100 pages are a very hard slog indeed. But it's worth the effort. This self-declared "inner-space fiction" narrates the gradual "recovery" of amnesiac Charles Watkins, a Cambridge Classics Professor who is hospitalized after being found wandering along the London Embankment. The narrative alternates between Watkins' inner world and the efforts of his doctors and friends to revive him. Lessing has been accused of trivializing mental illness here, but the charge carries no weight. She isn't attempting to articulate the experience of amnesia, nor of delusional psychosis. Her aim is philosophical. The further we go into the novel, the more we come to realise that Watkins may not, in fact, be ill at all - rather, the human condition may be his "illness" and his breakdown is actually a kind of waking up. What emerges is a view of the world in which identity is conditional, all matter is a unified system, and "time is the whole point". The "Hell" of the title may not be mental illness - it may be life as it is lived in the supposedly real world. Of course, Lessing can give no definitive answer to such philosophical questions, but her exploration is powerful and increasingly sharp. Once we leave Watkins' inner world and he is asked to write about his experiences, Lessing's narrative elevates to a level of startling lucidity. The stories Watkins writes about his apparent wartime experience in Yugoslavia, and what he can see from the window of his Cambridge study, are both beautiful and profound. They make the philosophical point far better than any academic essay ever could. And what is the point? It's a particular understanding of reality. As Lessing's epigraphs - one from a fourteenth-century Sufi mystic, the other from a twentieth-century marine biologist - neatly show, we tend to think of religion and science as heading in precisely opposite directions, but they are in fact inching ever closer together. No, the conclusion is not that God actually exists as some old man sitting up there in heaven, but rather that the ancients' intuitive understanding of the nature of reality is startlingly similar to what quantum physics is telling us about space-time today. Much of human suffering may stem from an inability to look at our world and ourselves in the right way. Readers engaged by this kind of thinking might also enjoy "Valis" by Philip K. Dick.

This book, along with William Styron's "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" and a keen interest in Jung and his archetypal analysis of reality and myth, cemented my interests and made me feel not quite so alone in my condition when I read them in my emotionally tumultuous mid-twenties. A creative and open mind may find themselves skirting the edge of depression and psychosis at many junctions in their life, seeing things, PERCEIVING things through the thin veil that is their surface reality--some call that poetic understanding, others, perhaps, madness. Self-aware, this sensitivity can be an enormous strength...rather than a defect. A dangerous statement, but some of you may know what I'm saying (Lessing did when she wrote the text). In short, if you're looking for a precise clinical exposition on the subject of insanity look elsewhere...but if you're looking for a thoroughly unique (and yes, challenging) study of what madness may MEAN in the context of a number of layers of existence, then this is a heck of a read."Briefing" does start out quite slowly. I grant it's critics that...but alas, so do many great literary experiments. It took me several times before I got past the first sixty pages, but, then, taking time with it, I found it wholly rewarding. Like the most important reads of my childhood (I mention here works of Madeliene L'Engle especially), concepts of cosmology, religion, science and humanitarianism all become interwoven. Insanity is more a plot device than the main subject of "Briefing." That symbolism observed via a surreal experience, that empathic judgements and emotional responses are not just pertinent but crucial in the very real human quest for inner meaning--this is more the core of the book. Its an analysis of that which drives a hero to break free from the mundane and strive to elevate her/hisself, a portrayal of that internal calling to"something more." Those that dismiss "Breifing" as boring pseudo-scientific babble, another late-60s 'bad trip', critical of its lack of action-packed pacing, well, they just don't get it...you're meant to take your time with a read like this, re-read passages and FEEL it. Otherwise, the cold tragic ending won't have its punch, and you will find yourself alienated from the purpose of the book, much like the doctors of the story are clueless to the main characters true 'raison d'etre.' Read it...be patient and open and, unlike most other books, you'll not forget it!

This is a luminously compassionate and brilliant novel/poem that on some intuitive level rings "true." It's NOT about madness. It's about love, wholeness, and the *collective amnesia* in our times. It's about transitioning from one Age to the next. In this novel, Lessing's images sing. One needs sunglasses and sunscreen just to read her.

This book starts as a mystery of sorts: an amnesiac man is brought into a hospital in a near-coma, and the narrative follows the hospital staff as they do what they can to help him. There are also passages that take the reader deeper and deeper into the consciousness of the "patient," until his startling truth is uncovered. Caution: may remind you of who you really are and what you're really here for. This knowledge can be extremely disruptive.