SOURCE: Bick, Suzann. Review of Love, Again, by Doris Lessing. Antioch Review 54, no. 4 (fall 1996): 493-94.

In the following review, Bick assesses the sexual dimension of Love, Again.

Lessing's latest novel [Love, Again] deserves applause for its frank depiction of its older, female protagonist's resurgent sexuality, while individual passages must be questioned for prose as turgid as the title.

Sarah Durham has collaborated with Stephen Ellington-Smith to produce an “entertainment” based on the life of Julie Vairons, a 19th-century mulatto who painted and composed music. Living alone, Vairons was regarded by the French villagers as licentious and perhaps a witch. Even her death was shrouded in mystery: was it accident, suicide, or murder?

The novel's huge array of characters are involved in staging this drama; Sarah imagines having sex with many of them. The identity of these putative lovers blurs, while Julie threatens to take over the novel. Lessing...