I'm rereading Doris Lessing's novel The Golden Notebook for the first time since I was seventeen and read it for a Comparative Lit class my first semester in college.
Lessing is never funny on purpose, but I laughed at this:
She, a young member of the British Communist Party in early 1950s London, is sitting in bed "confused and exhausted," trying to make sense of the news out of the USSR about Stalin's brutality––"My brain kept swimming into blankness..."
Her lover chides her ironically for trying to "make sense of the human soul", and she writes,
Last night in my own bed I was thinking about my sewing notions and how to start assembling them into little vintage sewing kits like ones I've seen online.
Lessing is never funny on purpose, but I laughed at this:
She, a young member of the British Communist Party in early 1950s London, is sitting in bed "confused and exhausted," trying to make sense of the news out of the USSR about Stalin's brutality––"My brain kept swimming into blankness..."
Her lover chides her ironically for trying to "make sense of the human soul", and she writes,
"And so I left it, and I was glad to, but I was nevertheless feeling guilty because I was so happy not to think about it."I so recognize this. (Of course she doesn't leave it for long.)
Last night in my own bed I was thinking about my sewing notions and how to start assembling them into little vintage sewing kits like ones I've seen online.
I'm happy not to be thinking about human suffering for the moment, but I pray I don't start using perky pinteresty words such as upcycle or repurpose.
Assemblage. And a right pretty one, too.
ReplyDeleteI need to not think about all the stuff I can't do anything about sometimes.
Definitely, I need that too.
ReplyDelete