The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels

I had been away from Doris Lessing too long;I had fogotten too much, even or especially about myself. You can read the plot summaries in the other reviews. I'll not repeat them and I didn't get past line 2 of SCI-Fi one...never do. Oh but the others...who has the grace of love? a generous heart? needs? mistakes, consequences...all in prose that seems efortless but is not. a lovely, lovely treat

I almost rated this book "5 stars" in spite of the fact that the first novella ("The Grandmothers") is almost unreadable, because "A Love Child" is one of the most moving and beautifully-written things I have ever read. I almost missed it because after I read "The Grandmothers" I nearly put the book away in disappointment.Buy the book, read "Victoria and the Staveleys" and treat yourself to "A Love Child".

Each idea in these 4 novellas and the characters involved is fascinating. Over and over I found myself unsure with which side I agreed . Given the real life choices her characters faced, what would be the best course to follow? I was never sure.If you have read Lessings' work you will see her returning to problem areas she has tackled before. I am grateful she did.These novellas remind us how complicated it is to be sure of why we think as we do.The issue of betrayal, of love outside the boundaries set in society, of race and class divisions, of war, of the chaos in crumbling modern societies and of living a life that is 'not your own' --these are just a sampling of the bounty here.

Doris Lessing's compilation of four novellas (called "short novels" in the title) shows Lessing at both her best and worst. Only the last, "Love Child" comes close to showing her sheer power as a writer, and this novella is so artfully written, even as it meanders through a man's life, that it's well worth enduring the others to get to it.The most annoying of these novellas are "The Grandmothers" and "The Reason For It," the latter because of its allegorical didacticism. In a collection otherwise about impossible love, "The Reason For It" stands out as not belonging, for it concerns the lessons of unearned (and unreasonable) power. "The Grandmothers" fails for a different reason: it is simply too neat, too devoid of true emotion, too hard to accept as something more than an exercise in fiction. Two women, largely indistinguishable except by name, have two sons, also indistinguishable. Each woman, for no believable reason, takes the son of the other as a lover. The two sons grow up, marry indistinguishable women and have between them two indistinguishable daughters. The women are repeatedly described as "pretty" with "brown legs" and their sons are "handsome" and "desirable." At times well-written and other times bland, this novella ends up being only mildly interesting. Especially after recently reading Paul Theroux's THE STRANGER AT THE PALAZZO D'ORO, I wonder why such skilled but aging writers are exploring older women being lovers of younger men when they can't write convincingly about it. At least the novella following "The Grandmothers", "Victoria and the Staveneys," an exploration of love and race, manages to find the emotion in an unusual situation.And then, finally, the reader, if she hasn't given up already, reaches the last novella, "Love Child." Here, Lessing takes her time to develop the circumstances of a lower middle class man who is drafted while still in college to serve during World War II. Slow to unfold but honest at every turn, this novella is a delight in detail and character, with its protagonist James earning the right to the reader's affection. With a few minor exceptions, what happens is both convincing and natural. By the end of it, I felt Lessing had redeemed herself both as a writer and an observer of the human condition."Love Child" alone makes this collection worth reading. Thank goodness Lessing chose to include it, for otherwise I would have been greatly disappointed.