The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing (2001)

The story of a large extended London household in the Sixties, related as much by chance and need as family, and their encounters many years later.

Book Review: The Sweetest Dream was one of the last novels Doris Lessing wrote, and it seemed that here she was trying to publish as many ideas (including various political issues) as possible. This book seems to be three novels awkwardly stuck together to make an uneasy whole. It's slow starting, taking many pages to develop a rationale for the story. Purportedly about the Sixties (can't have a book about the London Sixties that doesn't mention the Beatles), it seems more about showing that communists are poor husbands and worse fathers, that everyone is either inclined to give selflessly until they kill themselves or corrupt, and there's no hope for developing countries (pick your reason). The sweetest dream is the failed illusions of communism and the pipe-dreams of the Sixties (believing that "everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" -- Voltaire would understand). The "first book" is about Frances, an earth mother who gives (to her own detriment) to an extended "family" who are mostly uncaring or undeserving egoists ("who suck and feed and demand"). She's a giving tree to lost and spoiled children. The most interesting and touching part is her relationship with her mother-in-law, Julia, a stickler for order and by-the-book. Opposites, they gradually, clumsily, come to understand one another. Frances and her ex-husband gather a number of people under the roof who will become movers and shakers on the world stage. The ex-husband, the appalling "Comrade Johnny," is supposedly a significant, international, communist organizer, but as portrayed here is a dud, zero charisma, unappealing and unattractive. How he accumulated followers was beyond me. The second book is the extended "family" grown up, off to shape and mold the world. All of them far from the children they once were, now corrupt, self-serving, and oblivious to the needs and cares of others, even those they claim to love. This was the least interesting and believable part of The Sweetest Dream. The third book is the story of Sylvia, once a child in the household who now a doctor goes off to southern Africa to minister to those hit by the AIDS epidemic. These powerfully evocative scenes show the beginnings of the disaster and the difficulty in getting the victims to understand or the powers-that-be to act. The writing here was the strongest, and saddest, in the book. Once again, everyone is either a savior or a snake. In its mixture of history and the personal, The Sweetest Dream reminds me of Ali Smith or Nadine Gordimer (also a Nobel laureate), but without the clear intent of either. This was my first Doris Lessing and considering she's the author of The Golden Notebook, either I'm missing a whole lot or it was a late-career miss. Even though this was not a necessary read for me, I think she still has a number of books on my must-read list.  [2½★]