FOUR STORIES BY DORIS LESSING

Recently, my mother has learned quite a few things --to live alone, to depend on herself, to read, to write, and even to swim. Ok, she knows how to read, that is to decode graphics into words, but it was until a couple of years ago that she took Literature as a subject in her Senior classes at the Culture House. She still reads in Spanish, translations and all. She surprised me when she started reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. It's one of my all times favourites, not an easy one. Since then she became a fan. She started recommending me books, which is something I feel really proud of. One of those was The Grandmothers, a collection of four not so-short stories by Lessing.
The book opens with "The Grandmothers", maybe the story I identified the most with. Usually, people consider love affairs, or mere love relationships between people, more or less the same age, or the man being older; but thinking about older women being in love, and loved by really younger men, is many times a not so comfortable subject. For those people, this is an uncomfortable stroy. Not for me. I find it endearing, reminiscent, and a little bit cruel.

"Victoria and the Staveneys" is another uncomfortable love story. Victoria falls in love with an image, a house, and a dream of a better life. Victoria has the luck --neither good nor bad, just luck-- to spend a night at the Staveneys, looked after Edward, the older brother who is then 12. Later on, she establishes a relationship with the younger brother, Thomas. She finds out through time and experience that not all that shines is gold, and that sometimes, a second glance is more revealing that a flashing first impression.

"The Motive" starts one thinking about choices and decisions. In this election time, one wonders how to select a representative that will really care for the wellfare of the nation. And then, after the deception, one wonders why this chosen person, or group, has disappointed us so badly. Set up in a different time and space, "The Motive" offers an intelligent, although maybe obvious reason.

"A Child of Love" sums all the other characteristics: it's uncomfortable, it forces to look twice, and it questions choices. How real can love spring in the middle of such a graceless age as WWII? How real can love be in any unhappy situation? What is love? What moves one to love another? Is love the desire of not being alone, of a wanting, and needing of belonging? Does love answer to the need of coming home and not feeling it void? Is it a way to silence the fear of death among the dead bodies, the dead hours, the dead opportunities? Is endless love an ordinary and sick obssession?

In all of them pervades the illusion each main character makes of another, except, maybe in "The Grandmothers". The only thing I didn't like that much was the translation. Being myself a professional translator, I noticed certain Spanish grammar details that break the atmosphere, otherwise, metaphors and tone were a good achievement.

Lessing, Doris. 2004. Las abuelas. Trad. Dolors Gallart. Barcelona: Editorial Afluentes