"Briefing for a Descent Into Hell" by Doris Lessing (1971)

"Oh, Doctor can you give me a pill to make me sleep.  Oh, I'm working too hard and, oh, I'm worried about my marriage, and, oh, I'm worried about my job, and, oh, I can't stand what I think."

"Briefing for a Descent Into Hell" is the story of Charles Watkins, a Classics Professor who suffers a breakdown and is found wandering around London.  He is placed under the care of two doctors who have very different opinions on how he should be treated, and while in the hospital Charles hallucinates an imagined life as a sailor, a congress of heavenly beings, a sojourn on a mythical island, and a wartime experience that never happened.

And I'll agree that it sounds like a good idea for a book, but it's dreadfully boring.  Even at just over 200 pages, this novel goes nowhere fast.  The "mythical island" section takes up nearly half of the book, and it adds absolutely nothing to the plot.  Other sections are likewise dead-ends, and are almost entirely disassociated from the rest of the book.

Let it be known that I have given Doris Lessing more than a fair chance.  I have read both "The Cleft" and this book, and both books seem to suffer from a similar lack of inertia.  She may have won the Nobel Prize, critics from The Guardian might gush over her book jackets, but I fail to see what's so special about Doris Lessing.  This book waxes intellectual at times - often brilliantly so - but it fails as a novel.  

"The Cleft" by Doris Lessing

"The Cleft" first appeared in 2007, and its author, Doris Lessing, has received the Nobel Prize for her contributions to Literature.  It is a re-imagining of our human origins, told by a Roman Senator during the reign of Nero.

On an island of uncertain location, the first women are born and die outside the presence of Mankind.  Their births are all virgin births, and their lives are spent in idle amusement.  They resemble nothing so much as a race of sea lions, without a single bull to disturb the peace of the herd.

Then, one day, the first male is born.  Thus begins the race referred to by the Clefts as "The Monsters," so named because of their "monstrous deformities."  In the beginning the Clefts attempt to exterminate this new race, though with the protection of eagles the race of Mankind somehow survives.

Of course, some of the Clefts eventually find a use for those deformities, and what follows is a contest between those Clefts who see a use for men and those who don't.  This contest forms the core of the book.

"The Cleft" is a pretty good novel, though it does drag a bit.  I had been wanting to read it for a while, though it wasn't until recently that I actually tracked down a copy.  I would recommend it if you're looking for something truly weird, though more literal-minded people probably won't like it quite as much as I did.