Return to Realism

Abstract

The Diaries of Jane Somers — consisting of two novels by Doris Lessing called The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could … — were published in 1984 and immediately caused a furore. This was because Mrs Lessing revealed that they had previously been published under a pseudonym, and almost totally ignored. The novels had been submitted to her publisher, Cape, and were turned down, and this elaborate joke at the expense of publishers’ readers and literary critics was responsible for some ill-feeling against Mrs Lessing. She, however, is unrepentant. In the preface to The Diaries of Jane Somers she explains that she wanted to be reviewed on merit, ‘without the benefit of a “name”’ (p. 5). She also wanted to show that the process of rejection new, unknown authors go through is often mechanical, and not always related to the quality of the books they write. Finally, with what she admits was slight malice, she wanted to see if those reviewers who had hated the non-realism of Canopus in Argos: Archives would recognise her in her return to realistic fiction. No one did, and there is an undertone of glee in Mrs Lessing’s account of her exploits as an unknown author.