I have referred here before to the book that creeps me out the most,The Fifth Child , indeed I took down my copy again last night to read up for today’s post; but I ended up deweeding the garden where my tree was being invaded by a parasitic alien Clematis, and my rose’s roots being pushed up out of the ground by rogue bamboo shoots. I Am sore and embattled after taking up the roots. I digress, read Doris Lessing for intricate mature writing.
I am not so fond of the sci-fi stuff but do adore also The Golden Notebook, which I have not read in a small while.
Very few readers get to enjoy that peculiar attention to detail of the real writer, indeed in Plath, Lessing and Lavin it is most evident. Plath referred to it as The thinginess of things , it is a fine lacemakers attention to detail, which we mostly miss in an era of mass-media noise . I have read many books but this unique quality ismost evident in women writers, I think I’ll throw in Julian of Norwich there whose unique use of description has lasted centuries. I suppose I do get amazed whilst reading media and other modernist pap tha the woman’s voice and attentiveness is so wholly absent, except maybe in some historical writing – most notably in Lady Fraser’s writing.
So, on a busy morning I wanted to recommend the writing of Doris Lessing, the Poetry of Sylvia Plath, the short stories of Mary Lavin and the historical writing of Antonia Fraser. There is an excerpt linked at the base of this short note, along with an image by Ann Madden, whose Megaliths series seemed appropriate to the content.
Excerpt from the Fifth Child
Mary Lavin
Lady Antonia Fraser
Doris Lessing org.
The Fifth Child
Chris Murray 