SPL Reads!

I read a news report from London this morning that details how Doris Lessing views her Nobel prize for literature as “a bloody disaster.”  Lessing goes on to say that the amount of media attention she has received in the wake of winning the prize has siphoned away much of her writing time, and that it is now unlikely that she will ever write another novel length work of fiction.  Lessing cautioned young writers to appreciate their literary gifts, saying, “Use it while you’ve got it because it’ll go.  It’s sliding away like water down a plughole.”

It’s the kind of story that normally would have struck me as a bit sad.  Anyone who’s everwritten knows that the muse is often fickle and that hitting a solid wall of writer’s block is one of the most frustrating experiences one can have outside of a DMV or a calculus class.  This story didn’t bother me so much.  Why?  Lessing is 88 years old, has published 50+ novels, numerous volumes of short stories, memoirs, and even plays.  All writers should be so lucky, to maintain literary relevance for a period of time during which most authors would have found themselves well past their sell-by date.  And to have enjoyed acclaim in multiple formats and mutliple genres…well, perhaps what Lessing suffers from is simply an embarassment of riches.

I admit that I have only a passing familiarity with Lessing’s works.  I do know that she began began writing science fiction some years into her career, only to be chided by some critics.  I also know that she is often called a feminist writer, a label about which she was apprehensive.  I also know that she has enjoyed much more critical acclaim and longevity than many of my favorite writers.  Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Allan Poe, and Raymond Chandler all died well shy of their 88th year.  But then again, they never had to feel the pain of the muse slipping down the drain, and maybe that’s a pain most writers would rather be spared…at any age.