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'The Sweetest Dream' by Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing returns to favorite themes in top form

Sunday, February 10, 2002

By Betsy Kline, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	The Sweetest Dream By Doris Lessing HarperCollins $26.95

Frances Lennox is no Martha Quest. Unlike the rebellious protagonist of Doris Lessing’s searing “Children of Violence” pentology (1952-69), who is swept up in the roaring maelstrom of political upheaval, Frances is a stay-at-home nurturer, an earth mother of the ’60s. Her kitchen table and unconditional empathy are ports in a stormy world for a generation of troubled youth.

Lessing’s world has never been without crisis, as her life (two volumes of autobiography) and prodigious literary output of more than 30 works of fiction, short stories, plays, poems and reportage attest. The venerable 82-year-old British writer has strayed into fabulist fiction (“Ben in the World,” 2000) and science fiction (“Mara and Dann,” 1999) of late, but she returns to true Lessing form in her newest novel.

Anyone who has read Lessing’s autobiography (“Under My Skin,” 1994, and “Walking in the Shade,” 1997) will recognize elements of the author’s life in Frances and other characters -- her early flirtation and disenchantment with communism, her heart’s roots in the Africa of her youth, the push-pull of familial duty and the stirrings of feminism and social activism.

But the themes are much broader and all-encompassing. Lessing has sought, she says in her author’s note, “to recapture the spirit of, particularly, the Sixties, that contradictory time which, looking back and comparing it with what came later, seems surprisingly innocent.”

Lessing sets that turbulent decade in the microsystem of a rambling London house where Frances, a talented actress and writer, her two sons and an never-ending parade of classmates, friends, girlfriends and occasional strangers co-exist gingerly with the owner of the house.

It’s her elderly mother-in-law, Julia Lennox, who keeps to her rooms at the top of the house. Frances sets a generous table, never knowing how many mouths she will be feeding or what rhetoric those mouths will be spouting as they consume her stew or ask permission to plop their sleeping bags on the floor.

Andrew and Colin are Frances’ children by Johnny Lennox, a colorful mouthpiece of the local Communist Party, who dumped her without support, although he has no qualms about sitting at her table when it suits him.

Lessing’s character sketches of the inmates of Lennox house and their maturation through the decades -- or lack thereof -- are scathingly dead-on.

The place is a magnet for runaway teens who think the world owes them their heart’s desire. The kitchen table is the scene of many an argument over the evils of the world -- nuclear proliferation, the Vietnam War, apartheid. Shoplifting is a favorite pastime.

Into this sometimes explosive cauldron of angst and confusion comes Sylvia, the psychologically fragile daughter of Comrade Johnny’s second wife. She is dumped in Frances’ lap by Johnny when her mother can no longer handle her.

First Andrew and then Julia take the pathetic creature under their protective wings. The salvaging of Sylvia is the resilient thread of hope that runs through this tale of tattered dreams.

She proves to be made of tougher stuff than her more vocal peers, slaving her way through medical school while they man the barricades of social protest for the cause du jour.

As Frances’ life tips into parody, Sylvia -- a latter-day Frances -- embarks on a life-changing journey to the new African nation of Zimlia to run a Catholic mission hospital in a village ravaged by drought and AIDS. Zimlia is a thinly disguised stand-in for Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia of Lessing’s formative years).

Through Sylvia’s eyes, Lessing gives witness to the uneasy transition of power from whites to blacks, the seduction of honest men by easy wealth and awesome power, the hypocrisy of do-gooders and government officials who are all talk and no action.

It is the author’s most searing treatment of post-apartheid Africa, and it is not a flattering one for either race.

The ’60s do seem an innocent era, full of the promise of change as Lessing unravels the “nastiness” of the ’70s and the cold greed of the ’80s. Unlike Comrade Johnny’s bluster about a Soviet-inspired communist utopia, the dreams of Frances and then Sylvia lay the foundation for true change, the kind of quiet but hard-fought transformation that promises lasting results.

This is Lessing at her best, a fine introduction for readers who have yet to discover her and a return to the battleground of ideas for her diehard fans.

A note: For the latter who are awaiting the third volume in Lessing’s autobiography, the writer says in her author’s note that it is not to be -- “because of possible hurt to vulnerable people.” Our loss.