DNF. ( )

Tough to categorize this one. It begins as a novel, which Lessing says she wrote to give her parents an alternate life to the damaged one they lived. She sets us up with a Foreword, in which she explains that WWI and its aftereffects hung over her own life well into adulthood, as a result of what it did, physically and emotionally, to her father and mother. What follows is a fine short novel, in which Alfred and Emily do not marry, and the Great War never happens. By inference, of course, Lessing does not exist in this version of their lives. Somewhat abruptly, this story comes to a close, and for the second half of the book Lessing reflects on what did happen after Alfred lost a leg to shrapnel (thereby escaping certain death with his unit days later at Passchendaelle), married Emily, and eventually took her and their children off to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to establish a farm which he hoped would make his fortune. Lessing examines her difficult relationship with her mother, ponders the advances in medicine and mental health care that could have improved life for both Alfred and Emily, and embraces her childhood in Africa despite its hardships. She also comments on the effects of colonialism, racism, the second World War and global politics. This seems to have been her last published work, and the memoir section has an end-of-life feel about it, as if the author had finally come to terms with some heavy matters that had troubled her most of her life. A worthwhile, if sometimes confusing read. ( )

This is an unusual book in that Lessing is writing a biography of her parents but the first half is her fictional view of how her parents met and had a happy life together. The second portion is the reality of her father losing his leg in the trenches of WW I and of her mother never allowing her children to be free until they fled from her influence.

Her father wished to be an English farmer even though he had no agricultural experience and he and his wife decide to move to Rhodesia after learning of a great opportunity to become rich farming maize there. Of course it was a scam and they never did make enough money to move back to England to purchase the English farm he dreamed of owning.

We do learn a great deal about life in Rhodesia between the wars and after leading up to the black rebellion against Ian Smith and the white minority. That portion of volume was gripping. ( )

The premise and hybrid structure of Alfred and Emily is potentially quite intriguing. In one half of the book, celebrated author Doris Lessing produces a memoir of growing up on a small farm in Rhodesia during the years between the two world wars. The ostensible purpose of this narrative to tell the true stories of her parents, both of whom had been beaten down—physically, mentally, emotionally—by myriad circumstances at that point in their lives. In the other half of the book, Lessing creates a fictional alternative story for Emily and Alfred in which the Great War does not rob them of their vitality and purpose. However, in this imagined tale, her parents are nothing more than life-long friends who are married to other people and who follow very different paths. So, the alternate vision the author produces is one in which she herself would not have existed!

The problem I had with this literary exercise is that absolutely none of it was either interesting or engaging. The author made the curious decision to tell the fictional version of her parents’ story first, rather than letting the reader become familiar with the sad and frustrating reality of their true journey. There is a growing movement in modern literature to redeem an otherwise lamentable situation through fiction (e.g., Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin), but you really have to understand the original circumstances before an attempt at redemption makes sense. Thus, the author’s sequencing choice was a real misstep. More importantly, though, both versions of the saga are almost wholly devoid of warmth and the events described are unlikely to resonate with a reader not already acquainted with the family. By the end of the book, the overwhelming impression is that this was something the author needed to write for therapeutic reasons (particularly with respect to her considerable mother issues), but that did not make for a rewarding reading experience. ( )

"The Great War, the war that would end all war, squatted over my childhood."
By sally tarbox on 31 Jan. 2015
Format: Paperback
Doris Lessing, brought up on an African farm, in what seems quite a tough lifestyle, reminisces on her parents.
Both were British: her mother went against her father's plans for her to go to university, becoming a nurse instead. And her sporty, outdoors father was wrecked in the Great War. Their thoughts of a money-making farm in Rhodesia were doomed to failure....
In the first half of the novel, the author imagines a whole different story for them, if they had taken different paths. Her mother, devoting herself to social work (though interestingly, still not happy); her father healthy, married to someone else...
Then in the second half she takes us into what their real lives were like - the disappointment, the memories. She recalls dressing the dog in her mother's gorgeous but moth-eaten dinner gowns - emblems of a world she would never know again. And with the wisdom of old age she analyses the difficult relationship she had with her mother.
Wonderful novel/ autobiography: I hope to read 'Martha Quest', Ms Lessing's autobiography of her youth soon. ( )