Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Lessing, Doris (Vol. 170) - Elizabeth Powers (review date September 1998)

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Elizabeth Powers (review date September 1998)

SOURCE: Powers, Elizabeth. “The Unexamined Life.” Commentary 106, no. 3 (September 1998): 56-9.

[In the following review, Powers refutes several widespread critical opinions of Walking in the Shade.]

It would be interesting to know how many of those who purchase Doris Lessing's turgid novels actually get all the way through them, but there is no doubting that she herself is a cultural icon. Practically with the appearance in 1962 of The Golden Notebook, whose protagonist, Anna Wulf, was presented as a “completely new type of woman” living “the kind of life [women] never lived before,” a certain confluence was felt to exist between the ideals of the women's movement and the works of this Rhodesian-born writer.

The trouble with icons is that they require reverence. Though The Golden Notebook actually got a mixed reception from reviewers, its author's subsequent...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Adele S. Newson (review date winter 1994)
   2. Julia O'Faolain (review date 5 April 1996)
   3. Ruth Brandon (review date 12 April 1996)
   4. Suzann Bick (review date fall 1996)
   5. Adele S. Newson (review date autumn 1996)
   6. Judith Grossman (review date October 1996)
   7. John Hobbs (review date 7 December 1996)
   8. Millicent Bell (review date summer 1997)
   9. Anthony Sampson (review date 31 October 1997)
   10. Jane Miller and Elaine Showalter (review date summer 1998)
   11. Elizabeth Powers (review date September 1998)
   12. Mara Kalnins (review date March 1999)
   13. Alex Clark (review date 2 April 1999)
   14. Judith E. Chettle (review date May 1999)
   15. Doris Lessing and Jonah Raskin (interview date June 1999)
   16. Mona Knapp (review date spring 2000)
   17. Miranda France (review date 24 June 2000)
   18. Trudy Bush (review date 13 December 2000)
   19. Susan Rowland (essay date 2000)
   20. Sarah Sceats (essay date 2000)
   21. Linda Simon (review date February 2001)
   22. Alan Davis (review date spring 2001)
   23. Philip Hensher (review date 1 September 2001)
   24. Stephanie Merritt (review date 1 October 2001)
   25. Jeff Zaleski (review date 21 January 2002)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright