SOURCE: O'Faolain, Julia. “Objects of Eros.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4853 (5 April 1996): 27-9.

In the following review, O'Faolain assesses the themes, motifs, and characterization in Love, Again.

Doris Lessing's fictional range defies comparison—unless with a literary team which might include, say, Bunyan, Balzac and several more. Her new novel [Love, Again], the first for eight years, recalls Racine. Like his, its characters seethe with pent desire; but, unlike his, their decorum scarcely cracks; there is some boiling over, but little scandal or mingling of hot liquids. Their climax is solitary.

The novel opens: “Easy to think this was a junkroom, silent and airless in a warm dusk, but then a shadow moved, someone emerged from it to pull back the curtains and throw open windows. It was a woman, who now stepped quickly to a door and went out, leaving it open.” Allegory? Perhaps. Both “shadow” and “junkroom...