the acknowledgments section of her Innovel Love, Again, Doris Lessing thanks a diverse and unlikely group of writers, among them D. H. Lawrence, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Dickens, and Bob Dylan.

Though at first glance it is difficult to perceive what all these names have in common, it becomes apparent upon reading Love, Again why Lessing feels she owes them a debt of gratitude. All these writers, in different centuries and in wildly differing styles, have struggled to express certain truths about that most time-worn of subjects: love, its pleasures and perils, and its indispensable place in human destiny.

In her more than thirty books, Lessing has become known for her keen insight into the human condition, her ability to pierce the surface of her characters' lives and uncover their deepest motivations. Though this novel is about love—specifically, the romantic...