Happy Birthday, Doris Lessing

1. No other way to say this: I have not read a single word of your writing.
2. I am not proud of this.
3. You wouldn’t think that this needed pointing out – me not being proud of the unfortunate fact that I have not so much as cracked the cover of The Golden Notebook.
4. “What kind of sassy loser would be proud of such a thing?”
5. “For God’s sake.”
6. That’s what you are thinking, and I understand why.
7. Still though, I feel obliged to make this tiresome and aggravating concession, because for a long time, I was quite pleased with myself for never having read you.
8. Why? What was my problem?
9. My mum kept trying to persuade me to do it, and I kept coming up with these aggressive and hurtful reasons for why I shouldn’t.
10. “Weird old dowdy 60s nonsense.”
11. “No one cares.”
12. I said stuff like that, often, to my own mother.
13. Why did I?
14. What actually was my problem?
15. I don’t know.
16. I further don’t know why, years after my torrid phase of being just a complete shithead has passed, I still haven’t read anything you wrote.
17. Maybe it’s just because I am overcome with guilt every single time I think about it.
18. Do not misunderstand me – I feel bad about never having read The Golden Notebook, but no sane person is brought almost to tears when thinking about how they never read this one seminal work.
19. This all has to do with me feeling bad about being so dismissive about something that meant a great deal to my mum when she was my age.
20. So, so bad.
21. Is this just what happens when you get older?
22. You start being just poleaxed with guilt about a wide variety of things? Just eviscerated by it.
23. Can the answers to these questions be found within the pages of your books?
24. Would you like to know what my mum said, today, when I asked her what she thought about The Golden Notebook?
25. Yes obviously you would. She is a legend.
26. She said: “I was totally blown away. I thought it was the best book I had ever read. I have never read it again. A bit like not wanting to go and see your old childhood house in case it’s been turned into a series of maisonettes or a crack den.”
27. There you have it, Doris Lessing.
28. Happy Birthday.

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