Great title, isn’t it? Doris
Lessing’s 1971 novel relates the inner rumblings of the disturbed mind of
Charles Watkins, a classics professor from Cambridge, found wandering near the
Embankment with no identification and no memory of who he is. The story is
related through a slightly clunky mixture of Watkins’ internal narrative,
snatches of semi-lucid conversation between him and his doctors, and letters
from concerned friends and family delving into the strange events of his past.
This is a book that splits very
obligingly into three sections. The first is dominated by the Professor’s
delusions. He is shipwrecked after his friends are taken from their vessel by a
mysterious, crystalline UFO. He survives on a beautiful island, discovering an
ancient city. He sleeps amongst the deserted ruins, developing an unhealthy
obsession with the moon, and awaits the return of the crystal which, he feels
sure, must have simply overlooked him the first time. But before it returns the
city is tarnished, invaded by dog-men and monkeys who desecrate the buildings,
fight savage battles and choke the ancient streets with corpses. The crystal
does not come.
Part two of the novel could be
said to be the denouement (spoiler alert) as we are elevated to the heavens for
a conversation amongst the gods. This is where the title comes in. They see a poor
planet, wracked by meteor damage, inhabited by a race of primitive apes whose
brains are choked by a poisonous atmosphere and who can barely cling to
existence, despite their delusions of technological advancement. A party of
gods are briefed to descend and drag this planet back from the brink, before
instability spreads throughout the solar system. They are warned before they
set out that, although they will be brain-printed with the knowledge of their
mission and what they are, the descent and transformation into human beings will
be so traumatic that there is a good chance they will have no awareness of themselves
as they were before.
Charles Watkins is a god. He doesn’t
know it, but the vague imprint is on his brain, like something glimpsed out of
the corner of one’s eye. The final third of the novel is driven by the hope
that he will unearth this ancient knowledge before his doctors cure him.
My main problem with this novel (and
you might not think it from that synopsis) is that not very much happens in it.
For much of the time it is duty rather than interest that pulls you through.
The plot is implicit, and only begins to surface when you understand what is
going on above the Earth. When something does happen – the conflict in the
ancient city, or a beautiful, Hemingway-esque vignette of Watkins’ wartime experience
fighting with guerrillas in the mountains of Yugoslavia – it is perfectly
executed, reminding you that you are in the hands of a Nobel Prize-winning
novelist.
The ideas that Lessing plays with
and brings to life with incredible colour and realism are the kind of ideas
more often found in short stories than in novels. She takes an idea – what if
some of us were once gods, descended into a corrupt world, but have no idea
that this is the case? – and twists it to its logical extreme, like Calvino or
Borges. Do you ever feel anxious for no discernible reason? Ever feel like your brain is straining to uncover something that you can't even guess at? These little things connect us all, but we have no idea why.
This is a fantastic way of writing short stories, but it is a tactic
that easily reaches its limit, which is probably why it doesn’t drive many
novels. You can only stretch an idea so far before you run out of material, and
this method seems fundamentally hostile to those tricky little things like plot
and character development that make a novel tick.
That sounds like a harsh review
for a novel that I really did enjoy, but I think there were many aspects of it that
could have been improved. I felt all along that Lessing’s imagination and
purpose were constrained by the form of this novel. The letters, the doctors’
notes, the stilted conversations – all these felt like unwise literary devices
that got in the way of the beautiful idea behind the book. Clearly this was a
highly experimental effort, but I think it could have been just as beautiful
and far more readable if it had been a little more conventional.
