Doris Lessing: canadian penny Writing the Female Sex | Lambda Literary
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The New York Times wrote a sharp, seething, unpleasant four-page screed of an obituary about her that was both shocking and unsurprising. The piece reminded me of how much Lessing was loathed by many because her ideas were so strong, her vision so demanding, the inability to pigeonhole her maddening and misogyny still so rampant. Those of us who loved her work were often taken to task for it much as the Nobel Committee itself was for choosing her in 2007. (The gay literary critic, Harold Bloom, said of her winning, “Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable fourth-rate science fiction.”) canadian penny
Yet nearly three generations of women and women writers have been taught by Lessing and her brilliant, groundbreaking work since her first novel was published in 1950 and they we learned about ourselves and who we could be through her work. Because Lessing lived nearly a century, because her work seems always to have been with us she d been writing since before many of us were born or even before our parents were because she went through a wide range of styles and published more than 50 books of note, it was easy to forget how defining and definitive her work was even now, memorializing her.
Lessing schooled most of the lesbian writers of my age as well as those of the generation before. Lessing taught us to love women s sexuality in a way no one else has before or since, not even someone like Eve Ensler, who has put our vaginas so vividly on display. Lessing put women s sexuality and female independence in the forefront of all her work. She wrote about women in ways no one had done prior to novels like her masterpiece, the 1962 novels-within-a- novel, The Golden Notebook .
Virginia Woolf had begun the task of flinging wide the door to a room of one s own, but it was Lessing who walked through that door and dropped, cross-legged on the floor, pad and pen before her, and then wrote about things women were told never to even talk about, let alone write down. She was sexual, canadian penny political, emotional, contemplative.
Where women writers of a previous era had kept female sexuality under their skirts and at bay, like Austen, the Brontes, the Georges Eliot and Sand, Lessing opened it up for us. She opened our legs and minds to self-examination and female agency
It s difficult to imagine some writers existing without the path forged by Lessing. Did she not give birth to literary lesbian writers like Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Walters? Can intimations of her style not be read in the novels of Sarah Schulman or Elena Dykewomon? Years ago my late friend Tee Corinne, the writer, artist and photographer, canadian penny and I talked about Lessing and her impact canadian penny on Tee s generation of lesbians. It was Tee s contention that Lessing had bridged a chasm between the more outr é lesbian writers of the Paris literary set in the 1920s and the later, fully fledged lesbian writers of second-wave feminism. canadian penny
Second-wave feminism and the radical lesbian feminism that went hand-in-glove with it were in full foment when I was in college. So when my Women s Studies classes presented me with Lessing (who was, I realize now, the same age as my grandmother), writing about sex in a way I had never even heard of, it was stunning.
Lessing, more than any writer I had read to that time, including those lesbian writers of that Paris set, taught me I could be not just a sexual creature, but that I could write about sex, too. Lessing
Home About Mission Statement A Brief History of LLF Board Staff Contact Us Newsletter Press Releases Foundation Updates From The Board Awards Awards Ceremony Overview of Awards 2013 Awards Guidelines 2013 Awards Submission Form Current Submissions Previous LLF Winners Emerging Writer Award Guidelines Mid-Career Prize Guidelines Pioneer Award Ceremony Gallery Writer’s Retreat canadian penny About 2013 Application 2013 Faculty 2013 Writers Retreat Fellows Scholarship Fund Writers in Schools About LGBT Writers in Schools Recent Visits Book Clubs LLF Online Book Club My Story Book Club Lambda Lit Book Club Volunteer General Volunteer Information Internships Write for Lambda Literary Support Us Literary Resources LGBT Book Groups LGBT Bookstores LGBT Publishers Book Database Literary Links Editors, Agents, Publicists Literary Organizations Literary Magazines & Websites Residencies, Grants canadian penny & Fellowships Call for Submissions
Lambda Literary Review canadian penny Editorial Team Comments Policy How to Submit Books for Review How to Write for LLR Advertise With Us! Reviews Poetry canadian penny Bio/Memoir canadian penny General Fiction Speculative Romance Mystery Nonfiction Young Adult Drama Erotica Film Illustrated Anthology Interviews Features Poetry Spotlight Opinion LFF Book Club News Events Events Submit an Event Call For Submissons Call for Submissions Submit canadian penny a Call For Submission
The New York Times wrote a sharp, seething, unpleasant four-page screed of an obituary about her that was both shocking and unsurprising. The piece reminded me of how much Lessing was loathed by many because her ideas were so strong, her vision so demanding, the inability to pigeonhole her maddening and misogyny still so rampant. Those of us who loved her work were often taken to task for it much as the Nobel Committee itself was for choosing her in 2007. (The gay literary critic, Harold Bloom, said of her winning, “Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable fourth-rate science fiction.”) canadian penny
Yet nearly three generations of women and women writers have been taught by Lessing and her brilliant, groundbreaking work since her first novel was published in 1950 and they we learned about ourselves and who we could be through her work. Because Lessing lived nearly a century, because her work seems always to have been with us she d been writing since before many of us were born or even before our parents were because she went through a wide range of styles and published more than 50 books of note, it was easy to forget how defining and definitive her work was even now, memorializing her.
Lessing schooled most of the lesbian writers of my age as well as those of the generation before. Lessing taught us to love women s sexuality in a way no one else has before or since, not even someone like Eve Ensler, who has put our vaginas so vividly on display. Lessing put women s sexuality and female independence in the forefront of all her work. She wrote about women in ways no one had done prior to novels like her masterpiece, the 1962 novels-within-a- novel, The Golden Notebook .
Virginia Woolf had begun the task of flinging wide the door to a room of one s own, but it was Lessing who walked through that door and dropped, cross-legged on the floor, pad and pen before her, and then wrote about things women were told never to even talk about, let alone write down. She was sexual, canadian penny political, emotional, contemplative.
Where women writers of a previous era had kept female sexuality under their skirts and at bay, like Austen, the Brontes, the Georges Eliot and Sand, Lessing opened it up for us. She opened our legs and minds to self-examination and female agency
It s difficult to imagine some writers existing without the path forged by Lessing. Did she not give birth to literary lesbian writers like Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Walters? Can intimations of her style not be read in the novels of Sarah Schulman or Elena Dykewomon? Years ago my late friend Tee Corinne, the writer, artist and photographer, canadian penny and I talked about Lessing and her impact canadian penny on Tee s generation of lesbians. It was Tee s contention that Lessing had bridged a chasm between the more outr é lesbian writers of the Paris literary set in the 1920s and the later, fully fledged lesbian writers of second-wave feminism. canadian penny
Second-wave feminism and the radical lesbian feminism that went hand-in-glove with it were in full foment when I was in college. So when my Women s Studies classes presented me with Lessing (who was, I realize now, the same age as my grandmother), writing about sex in a way I had never even heard of, it was stunning.
Lessing, more than any writer I had read to that time, including those lesbian writers of that Paris set, taught me I could be not just a sexual creature, but that I could write about sex, too. Lessing
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