Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Lessing, Doris (Vol. 170) - Philip Hensher (review date 1 September 2001)

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Philip Hensher (review date 1 September 2001)

SOURCE: Hensher, Philip. “A Brave Journey in Thought.” Spectator 287, no. 9030 (1 September 2001): 33-4.

[In the following review, Hensher compares The Sweetest Dream to the style and narration of Lessing's previous works.]

Every great novelist makes a characteristic noise: every great novelist is, in the end, a stylist: and there is always something telling about a novelist's most characteristic means of expression. What Doris Lessing's novels have had to say, over the last 50 years, has been so consistently interesting that it is tempting to regard them as contributions to a debate, and neglect what is deepest in her, her ways of saying it. But these novels are not treatises. They are works of art, and the thing which tempts me, writing about this original and alarming mind, is to try to isolate a characteristic Lessing sentence. Themes may be willed, but style, if it is good, is...

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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