How does someone of Doris Lessing's uncompromising intelligence turn into a little old lady? Not easily, especially if body conspires with mind in refusing to retire gracefully. 'Most men and more women - young women afraid for themselves - punish older women with derision, punish them with cruelty, when they show inappropriate signs of sexuality.' Having scorned maiden timidities sixty years ago. Lessing finds the discretions of age just as constraining. Love, Again is a novel about feelings - irrepressible love and paralysing grief - but it is still more about the analysis of feeling.

LRB 18 April 1996 | PDF Download