Volume 25, Number 14 · September 28, 1978
Before Her Time
By Rosemary Dinnage
Stories
by Doris Lessing
Knopf, 626 pp., $15.00
Like Chinese grandmothers, novelists eventually earn respect for their sheer staying power; by the time they have an honorable career behind them and are having their work reprinted they deserve, and get, a certain homage. Earlier in their careers the critics nag and carp; later, the cold eye of reassessment is cast over their life's work; at the peak of a writing career, which is where Doris Lessing now stands, the years of solid achievement command maximum respect. She has been writing now for twenty-eight years and the front of this book lists twenty-two titles (with at least two of them, The Golden Notebook and The Four-Gated City, several times as long as an average novel).
Review, 2222 words
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