Customer Reviews

Briefing for a Descent into Hell

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Sometimes when you read a book or story, the words are dead, you struggle to end it or put it down, your attention is distracted. Another time, with exactly the same book or story, it is full of meaning, every sentence or phrase or even word seems to vibrate with messages and ideas, reading is like being pumped full of adrenalin." (p.155) You don't say, Doris. The title alone should be enough to tell you that Lessing's 1971 novel isn't going to be an easy read, and the first 100 pages are a very hard slog indeed. But it's worth the effort. This self-declared "inner-space fiction" narrates the gradual "recovery" of amnesiac Charles Watkins, a Cambridge Classics Professor who is hospitalized after being found wandering along the London Embankment. The narrative alternates between Watkins' inner world and the efforts of his doctors and friends to revive him. Lessing has been accused of trivializing mental illness here, but the charge carries no weight. She isn't attempting to articulate the experience of amnesia, nor of delusional psychosis. Her aim is philosophical. The further we go into the novel, the more we come to realise that Watkins may not, in fact, be ill at all - rather, the human condition may be his "illness" and his breakdown is actually a kind of waking up. What emerges is a view of the world in which identity is conditional, all matter is a unified system, and "time is the whole point". The "Hell" of the title may not be mental illness - it may be life as it is lived in the supposedly real world. Of course, Lessing can give no definitive answer to such philosophical questions, but her exploration is powerful and increasingly sharp. Once we leave Watkins' inner world and he is asked to write about his experiences, Lessing's narrative elevates to a level of startling lucidity. The stories Watkins writes about his apparent wartime experience in Yugoslavia, and what he can see from the window of his Cambridge study, are both beautiful and profound. They make the philosophical point far better than any academic essay ever could. And what is the point? It's a particular understanding of reality. As Lessing's epigraphs - one from a fourteenth-century Sufi mystic, the other from a twentieth-century marine biologist - neatly show, we tend to think of religion and science as heading in precisely opposite directions, but they are in fact inching ever closer together. No, the conclusion is not that God actually exists as some old man sitting up there in heaven, but rather that the ancients' intuitive understanding of the nature of reality is startlingly similar to what quantum physics is telling us about space-time today. Much of human suffering may stem from an inability to look at our world and ourselves in the right way. Readers engaged by this kind of thinking might also enjoy "Valis" by Philip K. Dick.

This book, along with William Styron's "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" and a keen interest in Jung and his archetypal analysis of reality and myth, cemented my interests and made me feel not quite so alone in my condition when I read them in my emotionally tumultuous mid-twenties.

A creative and open mind may find themselves skirting the edge of depression and psychosis at many junctions in their life, seeing things, PERCEIVING things through the thin veil that is their surface reality--some call that poetic understanding, others, perhaps, madness. Self-aware, this sensitivity can be an enormous strength...rather than a defect. A dangerous statement, but some of you may know what I'm saying (Lessing did when she wrote the text). In short, if you're looking for a precise clinical exposition on the subject of insanity look elsewhere...but if you're looking for a thoroughly unique (and yes, challenging) study of what madness may MEAN in the context of a number of layers of existence, then this is a heck of a read.

"Briefing" does start out quite slowly. I grant it's critics that...but alas, so do many great literary experiments. It took me several times before I got past the first sixty pages, but, then, taking time with it, I found it wholly rewarding. Like the most important reads of my childhood (I mention here works of Madeliene L'Engle especially), concepts of cosmology, religion, science and humanitarianism all become interwoven. Insanity is more a plot device than the main subject of "Briefing." That symbolism observed via a surreal experience, that empathic judgements and emotional responses are not just pertinent but crucial in the very real human quest for inner meaning--this is more the core of the book. Its an analysis of that which drives a hero to break free from the mundane and strive to elevate her/hisself, a portrayal of that internal calling to"something more."

Those that dismiss "Breifing" as boring pseudo-scientific babble, another late-60s 'bad trip', critical of its lack of action-packed pacing, well, they just don't get it...you're meant to take your time with a read like this, re-read passages and FEEL it. Otherwise, the cold tragic ending won't have its punch, and you will find yourself alienated from the purpose of the book, much like the doctors of the story are clueless to the main characters true 'raison d'etre.' Read it...be patient and open and, unlike most other books, you'll not forget it!

This book starts as a mystery of sorts: an amnesiac man is brought into a hospital in a near-coma, and the narrative follows the hospital staff as they do what they can to help him. There are also passages that take the reader deeper and deeper into the consciousness of the "patient," until his startling truth is uncovered. Caution: may remind you of who you really are and what you're really here for. This knowledge can be extremely disruptive.

This is a luminously compassionate and brilliant novel/poem that on some intuitive level rings "true." It's NOT about madness. It's about love, wholeness, and the *collective amnesia* in our times. It's about transitioning from one Age to the next. In this novel, Lessing's images sing. One needs sunglasses and sunscreen just to read her.

I have to say I'm shocked at how poorly-reviewed this book is. Indeed it can be at times a difficult read, but this is one of the best novels I've read - precisely because it has nothing to do (almost) with the regular run of emotional situations and interpersonal upheavals that characterize most fiction.

The book follows a man who, by the standards of our consensual world, has lost his marbles, and is admitted to a psych ward to be 'cured.' On this side of things we read the reports of the psychiatrists who try to cure him with drugs, electroshock, etc. On the other side, we're treated to an incredibly detailed and richly illustrated exposition of the man's inner world - what might be interpreted as dreams or hallucinations.

To interpret the book this way, though, is to completely miss the point. This book has nothing to do with 'mental illness' per se, nor with hallucinations. It's apparent (to me anyway) that 'Hell' is not the man's hallucinatory detachment from the world, but this world itself. It's hard to believe so many people have missed this. I think the most profitable way of reading the book is as an account of the protagnoist's adventures in what Sufi/Islamic literature refers to as the 'Imaginal Realm.' Lessing was deeply influenced by Sufism (e.g., through her relationship with Idries Shah), and Sufism contains many aspects of Plotinus's 'Emanationist' philosophy. This book is a direct and obvious reflection of those themes - a soul cast down into the 'evil' material realms, and trying to return to the higher spheres of existence. I think any attempt to describe such a journey, or such a 'place' (if that's the right word), must be an enormous challenge - and I think Lessing has by and large succeeded.

I sympathize with those who don't 'get it' or find it dull, but I think this is just a matter of a lack of background knowledge or personal experience of some kind with these things. Anyone who explores their own dreams or practices some form of meditation can probably recognize in Lessing a peer, someone who has obviously 'been there' and is reporting back in the form of fiction. While some may view the book's ending as 'happy' it is obvious to me that it is meant rather as a tragedy, the success of our mediocre worldview in crushing the imagination and flights of spirit.

I take off one star not because of the book's difficulty, but merely because some of these scenes are not done very well (e.g., the "Briefing" itself where the various 'Planets' convene I thought was terrible).

All in all though, for the right person at least, this is an incredible book, and I should really go back and reread it. Highly recommended for anyone who has any interest in their own 'inner space.'

I was reading this book when I heard Doris Lessing had been awarded the Nobel prize in literature. As a science fiction fan I think Lessing was an excellent choice: she's both an interesting author and her bibliography includes science fiction - including some elements in this book.

Briefing for a Descent is about a man, who is found wandering around in London. He's taken into a psych ward for treatment and it soon turns out he has lost his memory. He sleeps a lot, dreaming intense and interesting dreams. Eventually he wakes up and the hospital staff find out his identity - then begins the task of making the man and the identity meet.

The book starts slowly and I'm fairly sure many people have started, but not finished. My recommendation is to skim through the early parts about floating in oceans - the book gets a bit more solid about halfway through and is actually quite interesting. Worth reading, definitely, if not the best one I've read from Lessing. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

The previous reviews are revealing -- this is clearly a love-it-or-loathe-it book! I'm definitely in the first category, though I won't disparage those who couldn't stand it. It's simply not for every taste, and unlikely to ever find mass appeal.

But for those who are captivated by visionary literature, you'll find a dazzling, disorienting horn of plenty within these pages. The plot, such as it it, follows the inner-space journey of amnesiac Charles Watkins, adrift on the seas of madness, then set ashore on the terra incognita of the Unconscious. A reading of R. D. Laing's "The Politics of Experience" wouldn't be out of place while reading this novel, as it deals with the same approach to madness & consciousness: the notion that a breakdown may indeed lead to a conceptual breakthrough, that madness may well be the only sane response to a mad world.

Yes, it can be difficult going, especially at first. But if you stick with it, you may find that it pulls you in & enfolds you in its shattering vision. If you're unsure of whether to proceed, dip into a few pages at random & see if it intrigues you; if so, you'll probably find yourself on an unsettling, but possibly quite illuminating, journey of the soul. Something of a niche item, to be sure -- but what a niche!

The amnesiac patient, Charles Watkins, seems at first to be the textbook paranoid schizophrenic; his detailed delusions the products of various therapeutic drug trials. However, if the reader willingly plows through the richly written stream-of-consciousness travelogue, there awaits a startling revelation: Professor Watkins may be "going sane" as he wakes from the sleep of conditioning into his true self. He is an alien emissary.

At some point, readers must align themselves with one theory or the other. Is Lessing simply trying to show that madness is the response to the Self's repressed attempts to emerge (see R.D. Laing), or has she delved into the delicious speculation of science fiction? Either way, this book, which preceded both X-Files and much of what we know of psychosis, falls just short of what could have been a literary wallop. Lessing's prose teeters between lush and poetic and merely self-indulgent. Her characterization of the protagonist, too, is incomplete, since she allows him to be revealed through characters who are never developed. All in all, it's a tough book to wade through.

A better look at the possible future of human culture--again with a sci-fi twist--is offered in Lessing's novel entitled The Memoirs of a Survivor.

Doris Lessing is one of my favorite writers. She crosses genres and is surprising. This book is one of my favorites from my favorite. It reads almost like a mystery; its confusing and enticing! She doesn't answer all the readers questions (leaving something of the mystery) and she asks the reader to do some of the work... to stick with it and see if the pieces begin to come together. There is a spiritual element to this book, and a message to human-kind to save the earth... also, to see the "God" in everyone.

I was assigned this book for a college course almost 40 years ago (Resacralization and the emergence of a planetary culture). This meant I needed to read it in a week. It is not a long book but inside is some profound speculation about the nature and dangers of incarnating into an environment as unstable as planet earth. Maybe a week is too short to digest it all.

This book was written at a time when many now familiar ideas were percolating to the surface for the first time. It was also written at the time when RD Laing and others were speculating about the possibility that schizophrenics were actually cultural heroes.

This book's effect on me was to sharpen my awareness and introduce the concept of pre-incarnative choice. It is not as beautifully written as many other of Lessing's books as she does not develop her characters so deeply. The story is a bit chaotic. Maybe it won't seem like much when you are done. Wait a bit though and you may discover something profound has opened up inside of you.