My piece—entitled "Generation Gap: On Reading Doris Lessing’s The Diaries of Jane Somers While Watching My Father Die"—was published in Berfrois in June 2014: http://www.berfrois.com/2014/06/k-thomas-kahn-on-reading-doris-lessing-while-wat... ( )

Mi è piaciuto tanto, tanto, tanto. Un libro che non lascia indifferenti. Ho adorato sia Janna che Maudie ma anche tutti gli altri personaggi, perfettamene caratterizzati e tutti con un messaggio da dare al lettore, almeno a me. Grande Doris Lessing! Perché ti ho scoperto solo ora? http://www.lacasadialchemilla.com/2013/01/il-diario-di-jane-somerd-di-doris.html

The Diary of a Good Neighbor by Doris Lessing

This is the first of two books collected into one volume, The Diaries of Jane Somers. Though they are now usually published together, the second being If the Old Could, they were originally published separately. After finishing the first, I'm very much viewing it as a complete work. So I'll review it now, and add a review of the next later, still counting it as one book.

In this book, Janna Somers, a successful magazine editor in her 50s, meets an elderly woman, Maudie, and begins to care for her. This is out of the norm for Janna, who takes beautiful care of her appearance and has always held herself at a bit of a remove from others, even from her family and recently passed husband. But something about Maudie keeps drawing her back. Maudie lives in squalor and can barely care for herself and we, through Janna, experience all the indignities of old age, and especially old age lived in poverty. It's interesting to read this through a diary - you can see Janna's writing first centered all around herself and gradually shifting to being all about Maudie.

I really liked this and thought it was very well-written. It isn't easy to read, though, because of the topic, and is a bit depressing at times. But important themes about aging and death. Also brings up thoughts of what our responsibilities to the elderly are and how best to support them.

I'm interested to read the next book in this pair.

And now I've finished the second of this set, If the Old Could. I also really liked this, though not as much as the first. This one takes place after Maudie has died and Jane meets a man who she falls in love with on first sight and he with her. Unfortunately, they both have so much baggage that they have trouble getting past their initial attraction. I got a little tired of this relationship. In the first book, Janna's relationship with Maudie ends up revealing a lot about herself, but I didn't feel like this relationship did that as successfully. I sort of wish I'd only read the first of the pair of books and left it at that. Excellent writing, though, as I have come to expect from Lessing. ( )

This is a combination of two separately published novels: [The Diary of a Good Neighbour] and [If the Old Could….].in 1983 and 1984. They were originally published under the authorship of one Jane Somers, but by the time the second of the novels was published the cat was well out of the bag and Doris Lessing was identified as the author of both. In the preface to this 1984 edition; Lessing explains her reason for attempting to hide her identity:

She wanted to be reviewed on merit, as a new writer, without the benefit of a “name”: to get free of that cage of associations and labels that every writer has to learn to live with.

Two: She wanted to cheer up young writers who often have such a hard time of it.

Another reason was that some reviewers had hated her Canopus series (science fiction) saying why did she not get back to writing realistically as she had done before.

Lessing states that her ruse was successful as none of the reviewers recognised the true identity of the author. Whatever reasons Lessing had for trying to trick the critics and the publishing industry I am amazed that no one (as she claimed) recognised the hand of Lessing when they were originally published. These two novels with hindsight are obviously the work of Doris Lessing and not only that but in my opinion they rank as some of her finest achievements.

They are written in the first person by Jane Somers who we learn is a successful assistant editor of a major British women’s journal. She has spent most of her working life at the magazine and by sheer hard work and competence has become the guiding hand of Lilith (the magazine). She has sacrificed family life and family duties in her rise to the top and now in her early fifties recognises the gaps that may occur in the life of a successful business women. Familiar Lessing themes are explored again throughout the novels: the difficulties of being a successful women in a man’s world, especially as she is perceived by others, the sacrifices that have to be made along the way, mother and daughter relationships, all tied up in typical Lessing reality mode, choosing this time the care of the elderly as a focus in the first novel and an affair with a married man in the second. However the major impact this book had on me was Lessing’s attitude to children: seen in some respects as blood sucking dependences.

Lessing has never been frightened to voice her concerns over social issues that may go full square against public opinion. She is on relatively safe ground with care of the elderly especially when many of us today may feel some guilt as to how we ‘looked after’ aged and ill relatives, but some people will not agree with her central characters views of children. Jane Somers is steeped in the culture of the very upmarket Lilith which concentrates on the fashion industry. She is particularly careful about her appearance especially her clothes, choosing the very best materials and having many of them made to her own specifications. This extremely smartly dressed woman helps out an elderly woman in a local grocery store finding herself walking back with her to a hovel of a flat. She is shocked by the living conditions that old Maudie has to bear and is intrigued by the hostility that Maudie shows to all attempts to help her. Jane gets drawn into Maudie’s shrunken world and finds herself running errands for her and taking time to sit with her. Jane’s guilt at how little care she showed to her husband who died of cancer and how little time she had for her own mother when she was dying plays some part in her quest to help Maudie. She struggles, but finally becomes Maudie’s only friend and ends up being her main carer. Lessing does not spare her readers any of the details of caring for an elderly women dying of stomach cancer, who refuses to call on professional help. The reader feels that it is certainly good for the soul of Jane Somers.

The second of the two novels finds Jane still working at Lilith but saddened by Maudie’s death. She has found another of the local old women to minister to, but the emotional gap in her life is filled by providing space in her very fine apartment for two of her sisters teenage children. Jill is ambitious and sees Jane as a route into working at the magazine. Jane sees her potential and gets her a job, but as soon as Jill moves out her sister Kate arrives on her doorstep expecting the same help. Kate however is one of those people who seem to be adrift in her own private world and refuses to do anything for herself. Meanwhile due to a chance encounter outside an underground station Jane has fallen in love with Richard. They have a platonic relationship meeting at lunchtimes and the odd evening. Richard does not want to talk about his situation and it soon becomes obvious that he is married, especially when the couple see one of his children spying on them. Richard is trailed by his daughter Kathleen and Jane finds that Kate is doing something similar. When Richard’s son successfully fools his father so that he can replaces him at one of his assignations with Jane, then the love affair is in its death throes. The children (late teens and early twenties) have made it impossible.

It would seem that Lessing is out to smash the myth that having children spells happiness, putting a light to the fire under the baby illusion. Adults are so obsessed with their children, so exhausted by the task of looking after them that they have no energy and no freedom for themselves. People and especially women without children are seen as selfish, even as bad citizens. Jane childless herself has to suffer for her need to nurture, taking on two of her sisters children, some might say that this is also good for the soul, but I would not agree.

Lessing herself had three children, two of which she left behind in South Africa with her first husband. and was quoted as saying:

“There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with young children”

Lessing took a troubled teenager into her house for four years, who grew into becoming the writer Jenny Diski. As is usual for Lessing when writing her realist novels, much of the subject matter is drawn from her own life experiences. She was a brave and fearless author who did not seek to assuage public opinion and this is one of her best novels. 5 stars. ( )

I'm a Lessing fan but this really is something special. ( )