About this title: Nobel Laureate Lessing offers a moving meditation on parents and children, war and memory, and she explores the lives of her parents, two individuals irrevocably damaged by the Great War, in this work that combines fiction and memoir. Photos throughout.
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. 0060834889 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Description: Like New. 2009-Paperback-May contain minor shelf-wear. Otherwise, volume un-read and in "As-New" condition. -Used-Like New-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Fine. 0060834889 Like New-almost perfect. Hardcover. 1st Edition, First Printing. Number line reads: "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1". Binding is tight, book appears to be in unread condition. Pages sharp and clean. No marks or highlighting in text. Light wrinkling to dust jacket edge at top and bottom of spine. This book has NOT been marked as a remainder by the publisher. Price on dust jacket is intact and has NOT been clipped. Accurate Detailed Descriptions with Fast Shipping and Robust Packaging. ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780007240173ISBN:0007240171
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780060834890ISBN:0060834897
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780007240173ISBN:0007240171
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 288 pages. The first book after doris lessing's nobel prize takes her back to her childhood in southern africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. illustrations, ports. (Paperback) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harpercollins
Date Published: 2008-08-01
ISBN-13:9780060834883ISBN:0060834889
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780060834883. read more
"I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Doris Lessing. The first half of this book is a fictional story of the lives her parents might have led if they hadn't married each other, and if her father hadn't been injured - physically and psychologically - in the war. The second half of the book is the true story of her parents' sad and difficult lives."
"Liked it better than the rest of my bookgroup! The tragic plight of her mom -- and her truck full of finery eaten by moths -- has really stuck with me."
"Is it a novel, that is, fiction? Is it non-fiction, a twin biography of her parents? In fact Alfred & Emily is both. It is kept in the fiction shelves, among other true works of that genre, in the National Library (KL); the librarians presume it to be this. The first half of the book reads just like fiction. It tells the story of one Alfred and another of Emily. Unlike in real life, when they were Lessing's parents, these two met at a cricket match, but later married other people instead. At first, if you haven't known this portion is fiction, you'd have blithely read through the whole thing, thinking it non-fiction done up like fiction. It has a good narrative, three-dimensional characters and a rather viable plot, I must say. The only strange thing about this is that the main characters do not fall in love, like in the movies or in any type of novel. Actually Lessing called this part of her book a novella, because of its length, for one.
The remaining part of the book is the actual story of those two characters. They met and got married, which is how Doris got begotten, a per the way things go in life. Lessing explains to us how she takes bits and moments of her parents lives and put them into the novella, as fiction. However, I find the non-fiction bits, in the latter portion of book, more riveting. There, Lessing gives the reader more details, and she lingers longer to offer them, so that we get a better picture than we would have if he did this as fiction. Her story about her and her parents' and one bother's lives in Africa is riveting and fascinating for the pictures it draws. We now know how some kinds of foods made from mealy maize or corn is made and how delicious they were, and that they are no more today, nobody makes them now or knows how to, in Africa or England.
Interesting as Lessing's book is, it is rather too short for my taste though. I would have preferred a longer work, so that I cannot finish the book in just a few days, so that I can take my time, with pleasure, reading about Lessing's life with her parents."
"Both of Doris Lessing's parents were seriously damaged by the Great War and Lessing wrote this "novel" to imagine what their lives might have been like if the war had never happened. What I liked about this book was that these invented lives were not ideal or perfect, but full of all the regular ups and down of which any life is composed. Alfred and Emily are still constrained by the social forces of their time, but do not suffer the wrenching dislocations and, in her father's case, actual disfigurements that were so common to the generation that was young during the war. I enjoyed reading it and would have given it a higher rating except that the story is a little thin as a piece of literature and the second half, in which she talks about the "real" lives of her parents, is repetitive for anyone familiar with The Golden Notebook."
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