Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Doris Lessing began writing in Southern Rhodesia which today is known as Zimbabwe. She was always a rebel, being strongly opposed to racial segregation in Salisbury. She married, quickly, unhappily, and then left her marriage and Southern Rhodesia for England, her suitcase filled with the manuscript of her first novel with a title which suggests hopes for more harmonious times. What is the the title of this first, prize-winning, novel?
2. In her personal life, Lessing moved from being a member of the Communist Party (temporarily) to learning a lot from an Arabic form of Islam that stresses the inner or mystical dimension of learning. What is the name for this significant, yet little talked about, way of learning?
3. Lessing's first series of five novels, "Children of Violence," began with "Martha Quest," a growing-up novel or bildungsroman. It ended with a much less personal novel published in 1969, dealing with the collapse of the known external world. It presents patterns for remaking the world and its cities. What is its name? Think of people living together.
4. Lessing interrupts her "orderly" story of Martha Quest, whom some think is an alter ego for Lessing herself, to write a novel in 1962. Many call this her book about feminism or the "sex war." This book deals with a woman writer, Anna Wulf, a woman who simultaneously writes about and experiences drastic mental experiences. Anna additionally has explicit relationships with famous men and has a close friendship with another woman. This novel is named...?
5. In the late 1960s, Lessing writes two novels which move from being external realism to more subjective examinations of people's internal lives. Lessing blends different forms, such as the memoir, history, and the diary to make a mix of subjective and objective worlds. She calls these "inner space fiction." What is one name of one of these new novels?
6. After writing many books dealing with characters in a real world, Lessing steadily moved to her unique form of science fiction. She invented various planets and world orders. She always kept a focus on knowing, learning, identity and understanding. While her earlier "Children of Violence' series dealt with the World War II generation and their inheritance of violence, what was the name of her subsequent series of space fiction?
7. Lessing is a true experimenter. She writes essays, travel accounts, poetry, plays, memoirs, and literary criticism. In each form, she "pushes" against expected literary shapes to make something new. As she said in a interview with Driver, "I don't polish my fiction; I roughen it." (Interview Driver)
Which of the following titles could be an example of travel fiction?
8. Which of the following titles is NOT part of the "Canopus in Argos" series?
9. In addition to the fame of "The Golden Notebook," Lessing is particularly famous for two novels which deal in different ways with women growing older. The first novel presents Kate on a journey to Spain, and the second introduces a nameless woman unexpectedly presented with the responsibilities of "mothering." In the first novel, a woman in midlife crisis faces herself and lets her hair go grey. This novel about growing older is called____
10. Recently, Lessing again writes of what she calls the "individual conscience" in struggle with "the collective good."
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0060953462
She writes two novels of young people dealing with catastrophe. One she subtitles "An Adventure." This relatively new book deals with two people in their struggle with their world. What is its title?
11. Which of the following is NOT a book from "The Children of Violence"? Remember that she is interested in people in times of violence, struggle and difficulty.
12. What is the title of Lessing's very unusual novel (2007), which deals with an ancient community of women? As usual, Lessing has a narrator remembering an experience. This narrator is a Roman senator. This novel really explains the origin of gender differences in a very Lessing-like way.
13. Later in her life, she wrote two volumes of her autobiography, saying she would never write the whole thing because she did not want to offend any living person. Which one of these is a title of her autobiography?
14. In what year do you think Lessing was born?
15. In what year did Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Source: Author
windswept
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