The Sweetest Dream
by Doris Lessing
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- See description
- ISBN 10
- 0066213347
- ISBN 13
- 9780066213347
- Seller
-
Eureka, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
This story of a family, spanning most of the twentieth century, has its fulcrum in the Sixties, that contradictory and embattled decade about which argument becomes louder each day. The youth of that time, bursting old bonds and demanding freedoms, were seen by some of their elders in a manner not at all as they saw themselves, as romantic idealists, but as deeply damaged people. Old Julia, the clan's matriarch, knows why. "You can't have two dreadful wars and then say 'That's it, and now everything will go back to normal.' They're screwed up, our children, they are the children of war." Remarkable women, Julia and Frances, grandmother and mother, fight for "the kids" against obstacles, the worst being Comrade Johnny. Here is a memorable picture of a character only recently departed from our scene. "The revolution comes before personal matters" is his dictum, as he deposits discarded wives and hurt children in the accommodating house whose emotional center is always the extendable kitchen table, that essential prop of the Sixties, around which the family sits through the evenings, eating, joking, boasting about their shoplifting, debating the violent ideologies of the time that take some of them out to the Third World, another to a South African village dying of AIDS. This novel reflects our recent history like a many-faceted mirror, and is full of people not easily forgotten, each -- for worse or for better, directly or indirectly -- made by war.
Synopsis
PerfectBound e-book extra: "What Has Been, Can Be Again" a speech by the authorIt's the morning of the Sixties and it's suppertime at Freedom Hall, the most welcoming household in North London. Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the motley, youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table-her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. Everything is up for grabs, everything is being changed and challenged. And here in this kitchen, the nutritious tolerance can be sniffed even above the simmering stew.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Eureka Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 191292
- Title
- The Sweetest Dream
- Author
- Doris Lessing
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0066213347
- ISBN 13
- 9780066213347
- Publisher
- Harper Collins
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2002
Terms of Sale
Eureka Books
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About the Seller
Eureka Books
About Eureka Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...