No Speed Bumps

Doris Lessing - A Good Listen

I just came across a 2001 interview with Doris Lessing - Zimbabwean-British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer, activist, short story writer and 2007 Nobel Prize winner for Literature.

The interview was conducted by the ABC (Oz version of the BBC) journalist Jennifer Byrne in a half popular journalistic half serious documentary style.

Lessing speaks to a range of issues and her take on them is often individual, creative or politically incorrect. A lovely respite from discourse that is mindlessly and relentlessly driven of ideology.

Initially from the far left and with a commitment to feminism, she talks of the current culture of the putting down of men, saying ‘it’s time this came to an end - the most stupid ill-educated nasty woman can rubbish the nicest kindest most intelligent man and no-one protests’.

She also tackles issues such as the potential glamour of war, and the dangers of ‘-isms’ and of mass movements where people stop thinking and chant slogans. She observes that we love strong leaders, ‘people love bullies unfortunately’. More positively, she admires today’s generation in that they are not idealists.

She speaks a little about her writing and her reasons to continuing to do it.

And of her rejection of being created a Dame of the British Empire, arguing she’d fought against colonialism and ‘there are very few more less unimpressive sights than some old person licking the hand it used to bite’!

A nice listen. What do you think?