#doris-lessing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #doris-lessing, aggregated by home.social.
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“Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they’re telling the truth.” - #DorisLessing
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Sci Fi – Bericht über die bedrohte Stadt – Von Doris Lessing
NDR Kultur – Samstag, 25. April 2026 um 18:05 Uhr
Außerirdische Wesen kommen in eine Stadt, die von einer Erdbebenkatastrophe bedroht ist. Sie wollen die Bevölkerung warnen und ihr bei der Umsiedlung in ein weniger gefährdetes Gebiet behilflich sein. Geschickt bedienen sie sich geltender Normen und Umgangsformen, um ihre Nachricht zu übermitteln. So unterschiedlich die Adressaten auch sind, die Reaktion ist immer dieselbe: Alle kennen die Gefahr, aber keiner will sie wahrhaben. Die Mission der Außerirdischen scheitert an der menschlichen Unfähigkeit, Angst zuzulassen und ihre Ursachen zu bekämpfen.
Die bedrohte Stadt, gemeint ist San Francisco, dient der Autorin als Metapher für unsere von Rüstungs- und Zivilisationsgefahren bedrohte Zeit insgesamt. “Es ist”, heißt es im Abschlußbericht der Außerirdischen, “als seien die Menschen von einer gewaltigen Mattigkeit befallen, einem Mangel an Lebensenergie, als sträubten sie sich deshalb gegen das Umdenken und gegen den Wandel. Eine Nullstelle in ihrem Gehirn scheint dafür zu sorgen, daß diese Lebewesen schon beruhigt sind, wenn sie ein Problem erkannt haben. Ist das einmal geschehen, haben sie nicht mehr die Energie, entsprechend ihren Erkenntnissen zu handeln. Sie glauben, wenn sie ein Problem benennen können, komme es schon irgendwie der Lösung näher.”
Doris Lessing gelingt es, die Sicht der fremden Eindringlinge zu der unsrigen zu machen. Am Ende wären wir froh, wenn wir – wie sie – diese selbstzerstörerische, passive Welt verlassen könnten.
https://archive.org/details/berichtueberdiebedrohtestadtdorislessing1981
#archiveOrg #Autorin #BerichtüberDieBedrohteStadt #DorisLessing #Hörspiel #Literatur #NDRKultur #SciFi -
Sci Fi – Bericht über die bedrohte Stadt – Von Doris Lessing
NDR Kultur – Samstag, 25. April 2026 um 18:05 Uhr
Außerirdische Wesen kommen in eine Stadt, die von einer Erdbebenkatastrophe bedroht ist. Sie wollen die Bevölkerung warnen und ihr bei der Umsiedlung in ein weniger gefährdetes Gebiet behilflich sein. Geschickt bedienen sie sich geltender Normen und Umgangsformen, um ihre Nachricht zu übermitteln. Sie schlüpfen in die Haut junger Leute und machen sie zu ihrem Sprachrohr, reden als bürgerlich Etablierte mit ihresgleichen, als Wissenschaftler mit Kollegen oder als ausländische Sachverständige mit einem breiten Fernsehpublikum. So unterschiedlich die Adressaten auch sind, die Reaktion ist immer dieselbe: Alle kennen die Gefahr, aber keiner will sie wahrhaben. Die Mission der Außerirdischen scheitert an der menschlichen Unfähigkeit, Angst zuzulassen und ihre Ursachen zu bekämpfen.
Die bedrohte Stadt, gemeint ist San Francisco, dient der Autorin als Metapher für unsere von Rüstungs- und Zivilisationsgefahren bedrohte Zeit insgesamt. „Es ist“, heißt es im Abschlußbericht der Außerirdischen, „als seien die Menschen von einer gewaltigen Mattigkeit befallen, einem Mangel an Lebensenergie, als sträubten sie sich deshalb gegen das Umdenken und gegen den Wandel. Eine Nullstelle in ihrem Gehirn scheint dafür zu sorgen, daß diese Lebewesen schon beruhigt sind, wenn sie ein Problem erkannt haben. Ist das einmal geschehen, haben sie nicht mehr die Energie, entsprechend ihren Erkenntnissen zu handeln. Sie glauben, wenn sie ein Problem benennen können, komme es schon irgendwie der Lösung näher.“
Doris Lessing gelingt es, die Sicht der fremden Eindringlinge zu der unsrigen zu machen. Am Ende wären wir froh, wenn wir – wie sie – diese selbstzerstörerische, passive Welt verlassen könnten.
https://archive.org/details/berichtueberdiebedrohtestadtdorislessing1981
#archiveOrg #Autorin #BerichtüberDieBedrohteStadt #DorisLessing #Hörspiel #Literatur #NDRKultur #SciFi -
Doris Lessing on How to Read a Book and How to Read the World
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Doris Lessing on How to Read a Book and How to Read the World
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Sipping a word like brandy. New post on Sentence First:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/sipping-a-word-like-brandy/#books #metaphor #DorisLessing #words #language #ShortStories #literature #reading #writing
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Sipping a word like brandy. New post on Sentence First:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2026/02/02/sipping-a-word-like-brandy/#books #metaphor #DorisLessing #words #language #ShortStories #literature #reading #writing
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Sipping a word like brandy
In Doris Lessing’s story ‘A Road to the Big City’, published in her 1957 collection The Habit of Loving (my Penguin paperback edition, pictured, is from 1960), two young women, sisters, are travelling by train in Johannesburg.
Marie, the younger, and Lilla sit at a table with a middle-aged man and allow him to buy them drinks. Lilla, who considers her sister unworldly, chooses brandy for them both. It’s Marie’s first time drinking it.
The three get to talking about their plans and backgrounds:
‘Mom is old-fashioned,’ said Marie. She said the word old-fashioned carefully; it was not hers, but Lilla’s; she was tasting it, in the way she sipped at the brandy, trying it out, determined to like it.
It’s common knowledge that we can eat our words (they’re tasty!). It’s less well known that we can drink them too, sampling their flavour on our tongue, testing their effect on our sense of self.
Do you remember trying out a word like this for the first time, wanting to make it your own? What word will you be sipping like brandy today?
#books #brandy #DorisLessing #drink #food #language #literature #metaphor #reading #shortStories #words #writing
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Sipping a word like brandy
In Doris Lessing’s story ‘A Road to the Big City’, published in her 1957 collection The Habit of Loving (my Penguin paperback edition, pictured, is from 1960), two young women, sisters, are travelling by train in Johannesburg.
Marie, the younger, and Lilla sit at a table with a middle-aged man and allow him to buy them drinks. Lilla, who considers her sister unworldly, chooses brandy for them both. It’s Marie’s first time drinking it.
The three get to talking about their plans and backgrounds:
‘Mom is old-fashioned,’ said Marie. She said the word old-fashioned carefully; it was not hers, but Lilla’s; she was tasting it, in the way she sipped at the brandy, trying it out, determined to like it.
It’s common knowledge that we can eat our words (they’re tasty!). It’s less well known that we can drink them too, sampling their flavour on our tongue, testing their effect on our sense of self.
Do you remember trying out a word like this for the first time, wanting to make it your own? What word will you be sipping like brandy today?
#books #brandy #DorisLessing #drink #food #language #literature #metaphor #reading #shortStories #words #writing
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Today's reading: short stories by Doris Lessing
#books #reading #DorisLessing #ShortStories #BookCovers #BookDesign
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Today's reading: short stories by Doris Lessing
#books #reading #DorisLessing #ShortStories #BookCovers #BookDesign
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"Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
~ Doris Lessing
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"Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
~ Doris Lessing
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#FinishedReading this surrealist psychological novel, in which a delusional amnesiac is hospitalized, with a narrative flicking back and forth between his elaborate fantasies and the attempts of doctors to treat / pacify him. This strange novel swings widely in tone and sometimes has very strong 'person describing their dream to you' energy. At its best, as in the 'briefing' of the title, it is a weirdly compelling blend of environmental panic, mysticism, extreme scepticism about science, and many more things that #DorisLessing throws into the mix. I didn't love it and it is not exactly a book that tries to be loved - at times deliberately repetitive, alienating, or deflating - but it was definitely interesting. #Bookstodon @bookstodon
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#FinishedReading this surrealist psychological novel, in which a delusional amnesiac is hospitalized, with a narrative flicking back and forth between his elaborate fantasies and the attempts of doctors to treat / pacify him. This strange novel swings widely in tone and sometimes has very strong 'person describing their dream to you' energy. At its best, as in the 'briefing' of the title, it is a weirdly compelling blend of environmental panic, mysticism, extreme scepticism about science, and many more things that #DorisLessing throws into the mix. I didn't love it and it is not exactly a book that tries to be loved - at times deliberately repetitive, alienating, or deflating - but it was definitely interesting. #Bookstodon @bookstodon
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Não podiam ser mais ignorantes.
Qualquer uma delas se mostrava pronta a afirmar que não fazia ideia de que os russos haviam combatido ao lado dos Aliados no decorrer da II Grande Guerra.#literature, #DorisLessing, #books
https://octaviolima.substack.com/p/nao-podiam-ser-mais-ignorantes -
“Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.”
― Doris Lessing, "The Golden Notebook" 📖
#Quote #Quotation #DorisLessing #Society #Democracy #Election #election2024 #2024Election #Electionday #electionday2024 #Vote #vote2024 🗳️
Be careful what you vote for – you just might get it ...
✊ ☮️🌻 🌈
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Just finished reading Doris Lessing’s “On Cats” 😺 It was gifted to me by a colleague who knows that I like cats and reading. The book is a memoir of some of the cats with whom Lessing has shared her life. The beginning is Nature red in tooth and claw but most of the book is about observations of domestic cats.
As a cat owner, I recognize the cat behaviour and as a reader I sense that Lessing is writing about more than cats.
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Just finished reading Doris Lessing’s “On Cats” 😺 It was gifted to me by a colleague who knows that I like cats and reading. The book is a memoir of some of the cats with whom Lessing has shared her life. The beginning is Nature red in tooth and claw but most of the book is about observations of domestic cats.
As a cat owner, I recognize the cat behaviour and as a reader I sense that Lessing is writing about more than cats.
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CW: Mental health discussion
#DorisLessing, and much of the left in the mid-twentieth century, was deeply sceptical of medicalised responses to mental health. And, in context, you can absolutely understand why:
The woman, “hysterical” wanting to leave her husband, the homosexual, overwhelmed with self-hatred, only too glad to be “put right”, and of course the Right, the governments, only too keen to explain away movements away from the norm as mental ill health, rather than problems with society. -
CW: Mental health discussion
#DorisLessing, and much of the left in the mid-twentieth century, was deeply sceptical of medicalised responses to mental health. And, in context, you can absolutely understand why:
The woman, “hysterical” wanting to leave her husband, the homosexual, overwhelmed with self-hatred, only too glad to be “put right”, and of course the Right, the governments, only too keen to explain away movements away from the norm as mental ill health, rather than problems with society. -
#DorisLessing as astute as ever:
“If a dictator wishes to control a Party, or a country; if a hierarchy of priests wish to control their flock; if any power-seeker anywhere wants to create a manipulated group - he, she, has to embody the self-hater. It is as easy as that. And it is very easy to do.”
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#DorisLessing as astute as ever:
“If a dictator wishes to control a Party, or a country; if a hierarchy of priests wish to control their flock; if any power-seeker anywhere wants to create a manipulated group - he, she, has to embody the self-hater. It is as easy as that. And it is very easy to do.”
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Das erste Buch, das ich von Doris Lessing las, war "Das fünfte Kind".
Hat es jemand von Euch gelesen? Es ist Jahre her und ich bin immer noch erschüttert, wenn ich daran denke und weiß nicht, ob ich es noch einmal lesen möchte...
#dorislessing #dasfünftekind #literatur -
#DorisLessing, 50 years ago, after 13 years of Tory rule.
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#DorisLessing, 50 years ago, after 13 years of Tory rule.
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#DorisLessing once more describing something as true now as it was 60 years ago. #Society #Fear
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#DorisLessing once more describing something as true now as it was 60 years ago. #Society #Fear
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“But, Phoebe, I’m bearing witness,”…. “Who’s interested in your conscience?”
Lessing describes the state of protest in the early 1960s, the extent of the feeling, but also the apathy, the relentlessness, the sense of community spirit and fervour, but also the nagging feeling of pointlessness, the idea that the protest was not significant for the sake of the course, but for the fact of the right of protest itself.
#DorisLessing -
“But, Phoebe, I’m bearing witness,”…. “Who’s interested in your conscience?”
Lessing describes the state of protest in the early 1960s, the extent of the feeling, but also the apathy, the relentlessness, the sense of community spirit and fervour, but also the nagging feeling of pointlessness, the idea that the protest was not significant for the sake of the course, but for the fact of the right of protest itself.
#DorisLessing -
Latest read, The Fifth Child (1988) by Doris Lessing.
Harriet & David, against middle class convention, want a big family. But then the 5th child arrives--and he may not be human.
Great. A classic of literary horror akin to Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden
151 of #400FantasyStories #Books #Horror #DarkFantasy #DorisLessing -
Latest read, The Fifth Child (1988) by Doris Lessing.
Harriet & David, against middle class convention, want a big family. But then the 5th child arrives--and he may not be human.
Great. A classic of literary horror akin to Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden
151 of #400FantasyStories #Books #Horror #DarkFantasy #DorisLessing -
Vintage International has reprinted Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, her modern gothic horror novel.
I grabbed it because that prestigious a level of writing + horror = a rare experience. -
Vintage International has reprinted Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, her modern gothic horror novel.
I grabbed it because that prestigious a level of writing + horror = a rare experience. -
I’m always struck by how much #DorisLessing seems to reflect my own way of thinking and perceiving her characters. That disconnect. That moment of Sartrean distancing, turning back upon one, an inauthenticity of roles of beliefs.
Martha and her struggles with reality and self-understanding feel so much about me.
I suspect this is one of the reasons I return to Lessing again and again.
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I’m always struck by how much #DorisLessing seems to reflect my own way of thinking and perceiving her characters. That disconnect. That moment of Sartrean distancing, turning back upon one, an inauthenticity of roles of beliefs.
Martha and her struggles with reality and self-understanding feel so much about me.
I suspect this is one of the reasons I return to Lessing again and again.
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Show me what you are reading today/this week/month!
It has been some years since I read this book. Time for a re-read. The dipping in and out of 'madness' is something that has always stuck with me about this storyline.
#Bookstodon #Reading #AmReading #RereadingFavourites #DorisLessing #books #GraphicDesign -
Show me what you are reading today/this week/month!
It has been some years since I read this book. Time for a re-read. The dipping in and out of 'madness' is something that has always stuck with me about this storyline.
#Bookstodon #Reading #AmReading #RereadingFavourites #DorisLessing #books #GraphicDesign
