{"product_id":"9781635570953","title":"Free Woman : Life, Liberation, and Doris Lessing","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Lara Feigel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn intense exploration of the life and works of Doris Lessing and how their themes are reflected in the writer's own life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e begins at a wedding and ends in the African bush. This is a memoir of Feigel's own journey as a writer, which becomes enmeshed with that of Doris Lessing. Co-opting a dead novelist into an obsessive, ambivalent relationship, Feigel sets about learning from her about how to live.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRereading \u003ci\u003eThe Golden Notebook \u003c\/i\u003ein her midthirties, shortly after Doris Lessing's death, Lara Feigel discovered that Lessing was a writer who spoke directly to her about her experiences as a woman, writer, and mother in a way that no other novelist had done. At a time when she was dissatisfied with the constraints that she felt she and her generation seemed to accept blindly, Feigel was enticed particularly by Lessing's vision of freedom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart memoir, part biography, and part literary criticism, \u003ci\u003eFree Woman \u003c\/i\u003eis an examination of Lessing's life and work, structured as a series of nine investigations of sexual, psychological, intellectual, and political freedom. Feigel combines incisive writing, elegant exploration, and intimate revelations with a delicate sensitivity to relationships (both real and in literature) in times of great stress to mesmerizing effect.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The most intriguing and certainly the bravest work of literary scholarship I have ever read.\" - \u003ci\u003eDeborah Levy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A fascinating mix of literary criticism, cultural history and memoir so exposing that it can almost make you blush. Feigel writes with singing clarity in prose that sometimes verges on the hypnotic. Her reimagining of Lessing's home and childhood in what was then Rhodesia is vivid and enthralling . . . Absorbing and highly enjoyable . . . Breathtakingly frank.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The prolific scholar and reviewer on the life and works of Doris Lessing.\" - \u003ci\u003eGuardian, \"Picks of 2018\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Lara Feigel's \u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e has taken on the formidable Doris for a new generation . . . Feigel has the gift of converting complex thoughts into coherent sentences that delight.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Free Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is worth reading as a piece of complicated thought, and one that's funny and sexy and frank, to boot.\" - \u003ci\u003eNPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Combining memoir, biography, and sensitive close readings of Lessing's fiction and autobiography, Feigel creates an unusually intimate exploration of the intertwining of Lessing's life with her own . . . A graceful, absorbing meditation on two lives.\" - \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Feigel is a fine writer and renders Lessing's quest in riveting fashion.\" - \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Much of \u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is beautiful--in particular, Feigel’s descriptions of the pleasures of swimming in the ocean, and a focus on sensuality that comes as much from glorying in the body as from sexual opportunity.\" - \u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Ironic, beautiful and rather moving.\" - \u003ci\u003eJoanna Kavenna, Literary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Feigel examines Lessing primarily through her own experiences, an approach that introduces Lessing to a new audience and dulls her edge. The genre of the ‘bibliomemoir’ has grown in recent years, in part because its combination of close readings and contemporary inquiry often leads to new and lively interpretations of classic works . . . Feigel reads thoroughly and carefully . . . More than Lessing’s adventures, what comes across most strongly in the book is Feigel’s sensitivity and thoughtfulness.\" - \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Feigel treats the close readings of Lessing's novel [\u003ci\u003eThe Golden\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNotebook\u003c\/i\u003e] and life with tenderness and compassion. While the biography she puts forward is factually interesting, the emotional nuance and ambivalence she imbues it with elevates her portrait of Lessing to one of intimate importance, for the reader as well as the writer. Stylistically, \u003ci\u003eFree\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWoman\u003c\/i\u003e is elegantly written, gracefully balancing Feigel's depth and breadth of research with her incisive, personal perceptions and awareness . . . Exploring the life and work of Doris Lessing, Lara Feigel combines biography, literary criticism and memoir to create a mesmerizing meditation on womanhood.\" - \u003ci\u003eStarred review, Shelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Free Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is a rare and unusual book. It is part literary criticism, part memoir. Wholly engaging . . . \u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is a brave book, written by and about a brave woman, Feigel's willingness to lay bare her own life allows the world of Doris Lessing, in all her complicated, contradictory, self-centered, generous genius, to come to life.\" - \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e, Lara Feigel charts her decision, prompted by rereading Doris Lessing, to experiment with sexual, intellectual and political freedom.\" - \u003ci\u003eNew Statesman, \"What to Read in 2018\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Wonderfully evocative . . . [Feigel] is an accomplished writer . . . \u003ci\u003eFree Woman \u003c\/i\u003eis not a biography, but the same artistic process is at work: as a biographer, you think you are going to possess your subject, but they always end up possessing you. It's fertile ground, and Feigel a fine explorer. I really enjoyed this book.\" - \u003ci\u003eSara Wheeler, Spectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[Feigel] is an exceptional storyteller, braiding the chronicles of exiled writers with life back in Germany. And the move is an intelligent way of showing that postwar cultural history has to be considered in a transcontinental light. . . . Feigel’s book is one of the most original recreations of postwar Germany we have.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe Los Angeles Review of Books on THE BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Essential for those interested in postwar Germany; the impact World War II had on the arts; and the role that individuals such as filmmaker Billy Wilder, writer Martha Gellhorn, and actress Marlene Dietrich had in rebuilding Germany.\" - \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal starred review on THE BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Feigel powerfully describes the destruction and suffering that these Americans and Brits confronted . . . She also skillfully represents the predicament faced by these figures--and indeed by the civilized world.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal on THE BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Many individuals had to come to terms with the evil they saw and with themselves, and Feigel does a masterful job in sorting it out. This is uniquely nuanced history.\" - \u003ci\u003eBooklist on THE BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781635570953\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":40656518971598,"sku":"9781635570953","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_88f11aa0-adb1-4a1c-89e6-9b313a6286b6.jpg?v=1639449438","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781635570953","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}