The Sweetest Dream

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The Sweetest Dream
ISBN
0-00-655230-7

The Sweetest Dream is a 2001 novel by British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing.[1] The novel begins in the 1960s leading up to the 1980s and is set in London and the fictional African nation, Zimlia, a thinly veiled reference to Zimbabwe.

Plot summary

In 1960s'

Hampstead, London, the large home of Julia Lennox is a gathering place for an assortment of young and old characters. Frances Lennox finds herself living with her mother-in-law, Julia after her husband Johnny, a communist leader has abandoned her and his two sons, Andrew and Colin to continue an affair with a glamorous "comrade". The arrangement is difficult owing to the natures of both women, Frances is independent-minded and Julia betrays her German background and is more rigid. However both women are united in their disapproval of Johnny. Rather than working, Johnny's priorities are travelling and staying at hotels in communist countries
and all the while continuing with his affairs.

Frances later gives up her

political refugees as well as a newly arrived young black boy
Franklin, from Zimlia, Africa.

Meanwhile, Colin and Andrew make their transition into adulthood. Colin becomes a novelist and Andrew, a graduate of the

expropriated from the nation's white farmers
.

Sylvia returns to England with two black boys when her hospital in Zimlia is shut down. The boys move into the Lennox home where Frances is now in her early seventies, and shares the home with Colin and his family. Eventually a now impoverished Johnny returns to the home, as communism is replaced by capitalism in the countries he once visited.[2]

Reception

Balzac." The review continued to appreciate the "haunting brilliance of her characters, whom one feels one knows rather better than one's friends, the passion of her ideas and vision, remain undiminished."[3] The Spectator described the work as "a startling, burningly committed book which, like all Lessing, contains a marvellous sense of possibilities opening as the fiction progresses, an enriching and absorbing conviction of change and growth."[4] The Times described it as a "remarkable novel" that is notable for its "vigour and attack, and for its passionate interest in justice and goodness."[5] Lessing wrote The Sweetest Dream in place of volume three of her autobiography that would have covered the same time period. She decided against the autobiography lest she offend "vulnerable" people.[3]

References

  1. ^ "Doris Lessing: Biobibliographical Notes". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  2. ^ The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing: Flamingo, U.K. 2001. The Barcelona Review. Issue 27 - November/December 2001.
  3. ^ a b "The Sweetest Dream, by Doris Lessing". The Independent. 8 September 2001.[dead link]
  4. ^ THE SWEETEST DREAM. The Spectator. 1 September 2001
  5. ^ Shilling, Jane. Human engagement. The Times, 6 October 2001
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