First off I'll say that this was a nice tribute to someone like Doris Lessing. 

However, I saw a couple of flaws as I read through this.

anthr

This is misspelled. It's another.

Dickens,Scott, Stevenson, Kipling, and Tolstoy

You forgot the first name of these authors. That's the second flaw I spotted in this piece. And about Ms. Lessing, what's her status after her achievement and her last book "Alfred and Emily"? You left out that information. Overall, you did a good job. I like it. Hope to hear more from you.

  Hi! I'd like to compliment you on this piece. I must admit that I never before heard of Doris Lessing (please don't stone me!), but after reading your piece, I am definitely going to check her out. So I definitely give you points on drawing the reader in and making him/her interested.

I'd just like to point out a couple things. Mostly I found that some things only need slight editing, or could use a slightly different phrasing in order to make your meaning a little clearer. For instance:

At the age of thirteen, Doris completed her stint with formal education, anther reason to admire this amazing, brilliant genius of a writer whose novels are worth studying, the craft so intricate and detailed that it is unbelievable that the creator is not even a graduate!

 

Run-on sentences are a problem of mine, so I can understand where you were coming from (if that makes any sense). I would recommend just breaking this down a little bit so you keep from confusing the reader. Consider something like, "Another reason to admire this amazing, brilliant genius of a writer is the fact that Doris completed her stint with formal education at the age of thirteen.  In considering her novels, whose craft is so intricate and detailed, it is unbelievable that the creator is not even a graduate!"

Another point, continuing on with that same paragraph:

Well, to be honest, this reinforces my belief that geniuses (unlike business barons) are born naturally. Circumstances and surroundings cannot dampen their capability no matter how miserable an existence they may live. Another example that comes to mind is Nadine Gardiner and Pearl S.Buck among writers.

 

First issue is, the first sentence jarred me a little. The rest of the piece flowed very well until this point where it just seemed to jam on the brakes for a second. You could perhaps save this sentiment for another piece of work, perhaps to provide evidence for this belief. If this piece is about Doris Lesing, however, stick to Doris Lessing.  I do like how you make the comparison to Nadine Gardiner and Pearl S. Buck, but again, this might be better left for another piece.

 Coming back to Lessing, she was addicted to authors like Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Tolstoy, and so on. But she educated herself constantly by reading.

Again with the "if this piece is about Lessing, discuss Lessing" point. Also, I'm not sure about the use of the word "But" in the second sentence. The first sentence would seem to support this sentiment rather than contradict it.

Finally, you mention near the end "she ended her stint with Communism."  You already used the phrase "ended her stint" before. I would search for another way to phrase this, although I apologize, I have no suggestions for this.

Again, great work on this. It really drew me and made me interested in reading her work and learning more about her life. Great job! I look forward to reading more from you.

'The Egnigma of Doris Lessing'

I found 'The Egnigma of Doris Lessing' to to be a well-written and informative biographical synopsis about an author I knew very little about, until now that is.

However, there is mention of four notebooks, but there is only the mention of a red and a gold notebook. I felt left out, not knowing what the other two notebooks are, their color and what kind of writing they might contain.

I can find no other fault in the writing, other than it left me wanting to find out more about Doris.

I think I will just list my comments instead of trying to make an "essay" out of them. I think the comments will be clearer and I will save a lot of time!

 1. First of all, you entitle this "The Enigma...." "Enigma" means a kind of mystery and it is not clear to me what you find enigmatic or mysterious about Lessing.

2. Titles of books should be underlined or in italics: e.g.The Golden Notebook.

3. I'm going to do some line-editing of the first paragraph. Mainly this includes making sure that the title of the novel--as all novels should be--is underlined, and adding some punctuation. I've bolded the parts that include the changes.

"It was by chance that I began reading The Golden Notebook, though the name of the author--Doris Lessing-- is almost a household name simply because she is known to have written some of the most insightful English novels of our times, the kind of genre that is fast disappearing due to obsession with corny romance or gory terror."

4. I think this next paragraph (below) would really be clearer to the reader if you added examples. For instance, name two or three characters and one outstanding characteristic about them. In addition, since you say Anna's conflicts are explored in detail, I definitely think you lead the reader to expect that you will give some of those details; i.e., what are some of her conflicts? You also need the verb "are" instead of "is" to agree with the plural "conflicts."

"This particular novel is so detailed that you can visualize how each and every character looks talks and behaves. The protagonist is a Communist-turned-writer Anna whose individuality and inner conflicts as a woman writer are explored to the finest detail."

5. I think another critique already mentioned one issue with the paragraph below: four colored notebooks (plus the golden notebook) are mentioned but only the contents of the red one is described. Since you mention other notebooks and the fact that the "coverage" in each is brilliant, I think it is probably important  to say a bit about what  each of the other notebooks covers as well. Given the title of Lessing's book and the connotations of the word "golden," maybe you should even say something about why the combination of them becomes "golden."

"Anna lives and glorifies the freedom in her life using four colored notebooks. In the red colored notebook, she chronicles her experiences and ultimate disappointment with Communism. In each notebook, the coverage is brilliant and finally, the threads of all four notebooks come together in a golden notebook."

6. Again, you do a good job of expressing how much you admire Lessing's writing, but you do so with generalizations that leave me, as a reader, wondering what you really mean or what evidence you can give me that your generalizations are valid? For instance, the sentence below makes me want to read some examples of her "documentary precision" and to sample some of her conclusions to see if I agree or disagree with her conclusions.

"The brilliance of Lessing’s documentary precision is simply astounding even if you may disagree with her conclusions."

I am going to stop commenting on passages in detail now (I can hear you saying "phew" right about now!) A general comment I have, however, is that I think your essay actually attempts to do too much. There's a fairly large amount of space given to The Golden Notebook, a larger amount of space to some biographical information, and then a conclusion with some briefer comments about some of her other work. I think you would end up with a better piece of writing if you narrowed your focus.

Your enthusiasm for Lessing and her work come through clearly. Ask yourself what you are most enthusiastic about and/or what can you write the best about? The discussion of The Golden Notebook? Discussion of another book? Discussion of two or three books? Her biography? Her philosophy? Once you've decided, then focus on that in more detail. After all, you are attempting an essay, not an entire book, right? I much prefer a writer to cover a narrower topic in some depth than make a lot of generalizations across a wide area of content. 

So, those are the thoughts of this individual reader!  

Hello Mauve, this is my first critique ever (and my first one on ‘scribophile’), and you may well ask, “why me”? Let’s just say that your essay was a good, short, and interesting enough read to make me want to comment. Ok, here goes:

“The Enigma of Doris Lessing”

·        I suspect that, with the word “enigma”, you refer to what you feel is Doris Lessing’s extraordinary quality as a writer, even though she stopped any formal education at 13. 

“It was by chance that I began reading The Golden Notebook  though the name of the author ‘Doris Lessing’ is almost a household name simply because she is known to have written some of the most insightful English novels of our times, the kind of genre that is fast disappearing due to obsession with corny romance or gory terror.”

·        There are many ways to write the title of a work. I suggest a couple of quote marks or italics would be quite sufficient for a short essay if you are not proposing to submit your piece to an academic publication.

·        You may then want to solve the problem of mentioning the name ‘Doris Lessing’ again (and with quotes) by simply leaving out the repeated reference. After all, you start the whole thing with her name and a short comment about her. So, I think it would suffice to just write: “[...]It was by chance that I began reading The Golden Notebook, though the name of the author is almost a household name simply because she is known to have written some of the most insightful English novels of our times [...]”

·        Then, with or without ‘Doris Lessing’, you have the word ‘name’ twice in the same sentence. Perhaps you could change it to: “[...] though the name of the author is so very well known [...]” or something like that.

“This particular novel is so detailed that you can visualize how each and every character looks talks and behaves. The protagonist is a Communist-turned-writer Anna whose individuality and inner conflicts as a woman writer is explored to the finest detail.”

·        Here I would use an example. One or more paragraph(s) that impressed you, a few lines that express how Doris Lessing manages to explore Anna’s conflicts.

·        I have a little nit-pick here – I miss several commas: “[...] every character looks, talks, and behaves. The protagonist is a Communist-turned-writer, Anna, whose individuality [...]

“Anna lives and glorifies the freedom in her life using four colored notebooks. In the red colored notebook, she chronicles her experiences and ultimate disappointment with Communism. In each notebook, the coverage is brilliant and finally, the threads of all four notebooks come together in a golden notebook.

·        I miss the thoughts she entrusts to the other three notebooks.

“The brilliance of Lessing’s documentary precision is simply astounding even if you may disagree with her conclusions.”

·        Here I miss a ‘for example’.

 “In this context, a word about the author seems mandatory. To me, as a reader in contemporary times, it is not every day that one gets to read of such a great writer who covers contemporary conflicts with compelling and powerful insights.

Born in Persia, Doris Lessing grew up in Zimbabwe where British colonies flourished in the 1925 era. It may have been a cultural shock to move to Africa after living a ‘civilized, Edwardian life’ for Lessing’s mother who tried very hard to terrify her with rigid rules of hygiene and cleanliness. (Does this sound very familiar??)”

·        Nit-picking again: “Born in Persia (now Iran), Doris Lessing grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), once a flourishing British colony, in the 1925 era [...]”.

·        A lot of people don’t know that Iran was once called Persia; it would also be correct to state that Zimbabwe is the post-colonial name for what was called ‘Rhodesia’ when it was a British colony, one only, not ‘colonies’.

“At the age of thirteen, Doris completed her stint with formal education, another reason to admire this amazing, brilliant genius of a writer whose novels are worth studying, the craft so intricate and detailed that it is unbelievable that the creator is not even a graduate! Well, to be honest, this reinforces my belief that geniuses (unlike business barons) are born naturally. Circumstances and surroundings cannot dampen their capability no matter how miserable an existence they may live. Another example that comes to mind is Nadine Gardiner and Pearl S.Buck among writers."

·        “Another example that comes to mind [...]” Here it’s not quite clear to me (from the way you write the sentence, what you mean. I think you’re trying to say that Nadine Gardiner and Pearl S. Buck also lacked a formal education. So, perhaps it would be clearer like this: “Other examples of that brand of writers are Nadine Gardiner and Pearl S. Buck.”

“Coming back to Lessing, she was addicted to authors like Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Tolstoy, and so on. But she educated herself constantly by reading. That education manifested itself in amazing, enviable depth in her writings because she refused to be neurotic like a generation of women-turned-cranky mothers of her time. She was determined to enjoy being free and writing freely even though she embraced Communism for a long time.”

·        “But she educated herself constantly by reading”. Her reading and her educating herself are not mutually exclusive. So maybe it would be better to go into the direction of  “[...] Tolstoy, and so on, educating herself constantly by reading”.

“In 1954, her stint with Communism came to an end. She tuned in to write her experiences in Africa and brought to life the gross injustices because of racial issues, the conflicts of cultures and interwove it with the characters in her novels."

·        I believe I saw this in another critique: repetition of such a memorable expression in such a short piece of writing – ‘stint’. This could be solved perhaps by writing, “In 1954, she turned away from Communism and began to write her experiences [...]”

“A commentary of her books may take up an encyclopedia so I wouldn’t dream of attempting to do that. To sum up, Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Price for Literature in 2007. Her most recent novel, Alfred and Emily, is believed to be a powerful, brilliantly written novel based on the life of her parents. Sadly, Doris Lessing chose this book to signal it as her final book.”

·        Nit-picking again: “A commentary regarding all her books [...] of attemtping to do that."

·        And here comes what I suggest you do instead: “the sheer quantity of her output is a daunting list...” and now I’d mention her work. Then I’d go on to talk about the Nobel Price which certainly seems deserved after reading that long list.

·        I would finish the way you started. You started by saying that you’d read ‘The Golden Notebook’ by chance. So it seems fitting to finish the essay on the same personal note, telling your readers that her most recent novel is already in your hands, about to be devoured.

I found reading your essay refreshing, happy to meet such honest admiration from someone who reads an established author for the first time, bringing to it an enthusiasm that is contagious. Well done indeed. I think a revisit Doris Lessing, especially her latest. Thank you. Rose Mai