The Sweetest Dream

by Doris Lessing

Book Overview

Frances Lennox ladles out dinner every night to the motley, exuberant, youthful crew assembled around her hospitable tableher two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends, and ftesh-off-the-street friends. It's the early 1960s and certainly everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Except financial circumstances demand that Frances and her sons Eve with her proper ex-mother-in-law. And her ex-husband, Comrade Johnny,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000HWYR1Y
• ISBN13: 9780060937553
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 479 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Goodness shines out in a tawdry world

Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream. In the first half of this splendid book we are back more or less in the territory of the author's The Good Terrorist. Frances Lennox, a middle -aged woman living in a large Hampstead house, presides unassertively over a large dinner table frequented by a group of 1960s youngsters brought home by her sons and who mostly belong to the radical left. Her Stalinist (later Maoist) ex-husband (irresponsibly abandoning wives and children seriatim) also drops in from time to time when he is not being a delegate in plushy hotels abroad, and plays the guru to the youngsters. Some rooms in the house become almost permanent squats for the young people who have often fallen out with their middle class families. Frances herself is a middle class left-wing Liberal; but she is unwilling to assert herself even when some of those who avail herself of her hospitality abuse her for being bourgeois and for belonging to an exploiting class. The politics of these youngsters are depicted as crude, their rhetoric based on clich s and slogans, their behaviour as selfish and self-indulgent. For instance, they defend their shop-lifting as an anti-capitalist activity. Clearly this novel is in part a scathing political tract against the radical left. But it is much more than that, as the psychology of Frances, of her sons, her mother-in-law, and each of the other young people is displayed with an insight which makes this a great novel and a captivating read. In the second half of the book, in the 1980s, we move to "Zimlia", a newly liberated African country. Sylvia, Frances' step-daughter, has trained as a doctor and has then gone to work in a desperately poverty- and AIDS-stricken village in that country. In Zimlia we meet again some of the other youngsters who had sat around Frances' hospitable table: two of them, Africans who had been exiles from the country before its independence, are now in with the corrupt and incompetent government; three others have become leading figures in wealthy NGOs, moving importantly from one international gathering to another, and distributing largesse to the corrupt government without troubling to make sure that the money reaches the people who most need it. Again any possible resentment a reader might feel about being exposed to another political tract is likely to be overcome by the sheer brilliance with which the setting, the circumstances and the characters are described. Here, too, one knows that Doris Lessing is burning with rage about intellectual and political corruption, but, though there is nothing subtle about the political level of the book, her craft is such that one becomes deeply involved with and interested in the many people she so vividly portrays. The Sweetest Dream of a better world that black and white radicals had hoped for is cruelly dispelled in the shadow of Stalin, Mao, and tin-pot dictators in Africa, and Doris Lessing seems to say that it is an illusion to th

Should Our Dreams Ever End?

It's the sixties and Frances Lennox and her two sons try to make the best of their situation, which requires that they live with her conservative mother-in-law, who is the German matriarch of this English family. Francis's ex-husband, who is a Communist rabble rouser, dumps his second wife's problem child Sylvia with Frances and she takes charge of the girl as if she were her own in this excellent and dramatic novel that takes you back to the tumultuous sixties. The book moves forward through two decades, reliving the politics of the times through the voices and views of Ms. Lessing's well drawn characters. A super story laced with satire.

A great book , one of her best.

This is one of her best books. It's like The Golden Notebook meets The Good Terorrist. Her right-on observations of how people behave has never been more true. Some of the characters are really evil, just like real life. Some of her characters are good, no matter what; like real life. She is one of the best writers ever and this is her best book in years.People who think this is not a good Lessing book simply haven't been paying attention. She is still an astonishing writer.

The Persistent Clutch of Family

Doris Lessings's 24th novel, "The Sweetest Dream" concerns itself with people from whom we never seem to find escape, even if we want to...family members.This is a book that many people may not like. It's fairly long, not divided into chapters and, for the most part, lacks a plot. Rather than plot, Lessing chooses to concentrate of the needs of family members instead...immediate family members and extended family members. This is a book filled with "issues" and each character seems to have his or her opinion on each and every one of them. If the book seems too long, consider this: the pages are filled with so much dialogue during the discussion of these "issues" that they (the pages) simply fly by. It really doesn't take long to read "The Sweetest Dream."I wouldn't say that this book is "about" anyone in particular, although its heart and soul is Frances Lennox a British actress and writer, who, at a very young age, made the mistake of marrying Johnny, a devout communist. Although she attempted to correct that mistake, she seems to only become mired even more deeply in Johnny's troubled life and times.Frances and her two teenaged boys are at home much of the time while Johnny cavorts in various parts of the world. He only seems to light long enough to deposit yet another person on Frances' doorstep for her to take care of. (The latest being Johnny's current wife.) Frances finally finds a little peace and solace in the home of Johnny's widowed mother, Julia. This is a house filled with misfits: Frances' and Johnny's sons' friends and Sylvia, the troubled, anorxic daughter of Johnny's current wife. Although Frances dreams of the theatre, the need for cash seems to trap her in the world of journalism instead. Meantime, she's become the "family" caretaker and caregiver, much to Julia's distress.Why doesn't Frances tell the selfish and self-centered Johnny when to quit? After all, his own mother thinks he's a cad, a brute, a loser. Frances, though, just keeps on lavishing love while her dreams of the theatre and a real man by her side seem to be slipping away. To find out whether they really do or not, you'll have to read the book.While "The Sweetest Dream" is a very well-written novel with a premise that seems to have all the requirements, as I read, I realized that something was missing from the narrative. It is passion, fire. The characters seem almost defeated from the start. While believable, they are somewhat flat. I think Lessing needed to delve more deeply into their hearts and souls. It is only in the book's final development that Lessing really lets us care. And no, it isn't too late.In the final analysis, however, "The Sweetest Dream," though a little flat, is still a wonderful book and one any fan of Doris Lessing absolutely should not miss.

three exceptional women

This story centers around three women, Julia, Frances and Sylvia, each one a very strong central character interweaving with each other throughout the book..I enjoyed the book and found it exceptional..in some instances the plot did fall a bit, but the tempo picked up again quickly..I feel it brought home the real situation of the poor in a third world country that very few of us in the affluent west realize ..the tragedy of a complete family being stricken by AIDS which at that time period was not recognized as a disease, but a evil spell..cast by shamans of local tribes..Lessing the fine writer that she is proves with age one gets better!!