Critical Essay | Critical Review by Judith E. Chettle

Critical Review by Judith E. Chettle

SOURCE: Chettle, Judith E. “Lessons in Survival.” World & I 14, no. 5 (May 1999): 246-55.

In the following review, Chettle details the plot of Mara and Dann, with particular attention to Lessing's characterization of the protagonist within the context of feminist realism.

At 79, Doris Lessing Is Still Writing Provocative and Timely Novels in Vividly Rendered Settings.

In many ways the twentieth century has been exceptionally good to women writers. They dominate the best-seller lists; teach their craft at countless colleges; and unlike their Victorian predecessors no longer need write under men's names to appease public prejudice. But for all their achievement, as the century ends, the quality of what they write is less heartening. It sometimes seems that their intellectual eminence has shrunk as their numbers have expanded; they have become prolix but not profound. Miniaturists, they work on smaller and smaller canvases with equally downsized themes.

The women they write about, and they write almost exclusively about women, live narrowly focused lives...
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