She combines a fictional tale of what the lives of her parents, Alfred and Emily, might have been if World War One had never happened--if her father had not come home wounded both physically and emotionally and if her mother had not be damaged as well through caring for a wounded man who suffered from shell shock and who took her from England to a farm in Zimbabwe. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Both of Doris Lessing's parents were irreparably damaged by WWI; trying to settle a farm in Africa didn't ameliorate their pain. The second half returns to reality: Alfred loses a leg in the trenches, meets Emily in the Royal Free Hospital and then leaves for Persia and Rhodesia. She visits a neighbor, rather than her father, who disowned her when she became a nurse ("wiping the bottoms of the poor") against his wishes that she go to college instead. Would it be that Emily and Alfred were not, after all, victims of circumstances but had in fact brought thei. I gave this book a strong four, because of the entire concept. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 27, 2015. It doesn't seem that Lessing could write anything that trite. At times, it got me lost. In reality, Alfred and Emily met and married amidst the trauma of war, after he had been badly injured in the trenches and her former love had been killed; they spent a brief, energetic few years in Kermanshah, Persia, and finally moved to Africa, hopeful, naïve and profoundly unprepared for … I had read the context for this book some time ago...essentially the author won her Nobel Prize in part on the eloquent vitriol which is essentially the most durable legacy from her mother. Alfred & Emily by Doris Lessing is two stories in one. Alfred and Emily takes the rhetorical question in this response and uses it as a springboard, separating her married parents from each other — the obverse of the fantasy of many children of divorce. She writes about her rage against women who don’t work...like her mother. Would it be that Emily and Alfred were not, after all, victims of circumstances but had in fact brought their misery on themselves? To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Well, that's not really right either, because then it would be in the company of Cassandra Clare's, During this 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, a summer project has been to read war related books/novels. has been added to your Cart. I was intrigued by the premise, that Lessing would offer a fictional account of her parents' lives had the Great War not occurred, followed by an account of their unhappy real life. I gave this book a strong four, because of the entire concept. What is the use. "Here I still am," says Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Imagine you go visit your grandmother who happens to have lived an extraordinarily rich life and is possessed of a brilliant mind and she starts free associating, talking to you about some of her earliest memories, making observations about history, war, literature and a variety of topics, that's what you get in the second half of this book. The first book after Doris' Nobel Prize takes her back to her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. I enjoyed this book as it was so readable. Please try your request again later. Born in 1919, Lessing writes a book, published in 2008, that recounts poignantly the pain of growing up with parents who were traumatized by “The War to End all Wars.” Through her father’s wooden leg and the life-long impact of trench warfare, to her mother’s tales of trying to nurse hundreds of young men after battle, to their lives in Rhodesia where they went, ostensibly for a few years to farm and recover financially, the war and its effects plays some role in each succeeding tragedy and spiral downward. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. The prose is laboured and the two parts - the real and the fictional - work against each other to cause confusion. 1. Something went wrong. My parents had a very bad time in the First World War. Yet her parents' actual biography that follows is totally different – a sensitive and insightful account of two people who were completely unprepared and unsuited for Rhodesian farm life. This book has such an interesting premise - the first half is a fictional novella where Lessing imagines the lives her parents would have lived had WWI not set them on a very different path. I found the idea of re-inventing the lives of one's parents interesting and relatively well executed. The first part tells the story of how Doris Lessing's lives could have been if WWI hadn't happened. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says the … The second part is the real story of her relationship with her parents and part of her growing up in Rhodesia. Those of us, in middle age and older, whose relationships with our parents were far from what we might have desired, would do well to ponder, as this book makes us, what our parents lives would have been like without, for example, the Depression, World War 2, or the Holocaust. In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, she imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war. What? 3 stars for the first half, the fictitious story of Doris' parents if WWI hadn't happened. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. I read on with expectation. It is a fictionalized story of what the author's parents might have lived like had there never been a 1st world war (and if they never married or parented the author). The first book after Doris' Nobel Prize takes her back to her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. It was okay, but only okay. In the memoir she recounts personal details of Rhodesian life of long ago, and her ongoing challenges with her parents and later, unhappy times in her own life. This is followed by a piercing examination of their lives as they actually came to be in the shadow of that war, their move to Rhodesia, a damaged couple squatting over Doris's childhood in a strange land. That was 5 stars for me, especially as I read and loved almost all the books Doris did when she was young. This was troubling and I was not convinced that her mother was the meddler who had too much time on her hands as she wants the reader to believe. 1-2* for the first part, 4* for the second makes 3? Learn more about the program. . It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. . Can one really write a review on someone else’s life story? In this profoundly moving book, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. (Prices may vary for AK and HI.). Alfred & Emily by Doris Lessing is two stories in one. In one half of the book, celebrated author Doris Lessing produces a memoir of growing up on a small farm in Rhodesia during the years between the two world wars. She does good work, but love isn't the result. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. The two parts of the book were rather disconnected. A very enjoyable read. Her mother, Emily, spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital after her great love, a doctor, drowned in the Channel. I know she's an important author for both literature and fiction writing, and many of my fiction writer friends talk about how much they love her. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. 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