Well, I never would have thought I would be so excited that Doris Lessing finally won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but I guess that having written part of my dissertation on her work left more of a trace on my emotions than I thought it did. (Ph. D. in Comp. Lit., 1995: "Observing Women: Doris Lessing, Christa Wolf, and Marguerite Duras.")

I've been pondering re-reading a bunch of Lessing for a year or so now, and I know that when I do, I will start with the first book of hers I ever read — not The Golden Notebook, sprawling and "important," but the deceptively small and utterly overpowering The Fifth Child, which is what I recommend (as highly as I possibly can) for anyone who has not read her work before (in fact, for anyone who has never read it; it's a mindboggling book). [But do NOT go on to read the abysmally bad sequel, Ben in the World!)

At almost 88, she might respond as Jaroslav Seifert supposedly did in 1984: "What good does it do me now?" :-)