The Diary of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing
not with rhetoric that to address problems. And 'looking at the reality without hypocrisy, without hiding anything. Looking into ourselves, without fear to read what we do not like.
"My life until the time when Freddie started to die was one thing, then became another. Until that time I had seen a good person like everyone else, I mean, I know (...). Now I know that I never asked the question of how it really was, I had only considered the opinions of others " So says Jane, the protagonist of the book Doris Lessing: The Diary of Jane Somers.
Why is it that all too often we worry, pleasure, to be like others want us to be. Is scanned so the problems of life, perhaps naively believe that we will never happen or that we will be different. Or simply do not want to think. And then comes
Maudie. The book recounts the meeting between Jane, a rich bourgeois, fifty, dynamic and youthful female editor of a newspaper that engages all day and Maudie old lady on the nineties, very poor, isolated from family, but with a sullen great dignity. Jane will begin almost casualmente ad occuparsi di Maudie ma non c'è pietismo nell'azione di Jane, non c'è spazio in lei per i "buoni sentimenti", c'è una forte tensione che la porta spesso allo scontro con Madie e con se stessa, con pensieri contrastanti e inquietanti. Un libro che è anche il racconto di un profondo cambiamento esistenziale e morale, di come l'incontro con l'altro può cambiarci dentro, può renderci persone migliori.
Jane incontra Maudie in farmacia:
“Occhi azzurri e bellicosi, sotto ripide sopracciglia grigi, ma c’era qualcos di meravigliosamente dolce nel suo sguardo. Mi piacque subito, chissà perché…” E dalla pharmacy went out together:
"The walked beside him. It was hard to walk so slowly. I usually go fast, but I did not know, I realized at that moment. She took a step, then stopped, looked at the sidewalk, and made another step. " The actual meeting begins just from these words, the immediate perception that Jane had "fit up" a Maudie if he wanted to get in touch with her.
Haste is the enemy of any relationship with the weakest since a child, the handicapped, the elderly. But haste is the enemy also of ourselves, we do not know walk more slowly next to me time to weave an inner dialogue that helps us understand who we are, what we really want. Haste prevents us to listen and relate to each other. Haste makes impossible any dialogue or human relations. The rush, the most used word in our meetings ("I'm sorry I have to go, I'm in a hurry ...")
Maudie lives in solitude; pride refuses to government assistance and will not be helped as a need, before you even feel Maudie feels old and poor person who does not want to lose their dignity, a person who has a lot more to give to others, to tell, to teach. With Maudie Jane discovers that life is not just sparkle, colors, beautiful people treated in appearance, the life that is only space on the pages of glossy, shiny, colorful, full of beautiful photographs of his newspaper. Encounter with Maudie and the friendship that emerges, Jane embarks on a journey of discovery of life and suffering, a path that was not able to do with her husband sick and dying mother: "On the other hand some weeks ago I did not even realize the existence of the elderly. My eyes were drawn to the young, beautiful, elegant and pleasant, and "saw" only those. Now it is as if a veil had been drawn up those images, and over the veil, all of a sudden, there are the old, the sick ...."
"What is the old people" This is the question that called an electrician to fix the 'plant in the home of Jane and Audie do that causes it to reflect:
"What Jim said was what everyone said: Why are not all in a shelter? We must remove them, put them where people young and healthy can not see them, because being forced to think about them "(...)" It was then that I thought how we evaluate ourselves? On what criteria? "" What is Madie Fowler? Stando ai criteri che mi sono stati inculcati, a niente”. Ma Jane ormai sa che non è così.
Sa che dentro quel corpo fragile c’è ancora tanta vita: “Può darsi che Maudie sia solo pelle e ossa, ma il suo corpo non ha quell’aspetto distrutto, sconfitto della carne che affonda nelle ossa. Maudie era gelata, era malata, era debole – ma sentivo qualcosa pulsare dentro di lei: la vita. Com’è tenace, la vita. Non ci avevo mai pensato prima; non l’avevo mai recepita in quel modo, non come in quel momento, mentre lavavo Maudie Fowler, una vecchietta arrabbiata e indomita. All’improvviso ho capito che tutta la sua vitalità risiede in that anger. I do not have, I must not suffer, I should not react violently. .... I've washed his private parts, and for the first time I really thought about the meaning of that expression. Maudie suffered horribly because a stranger was invading her privacy. "
and Maude says explicitly want to be treated as "my name is Mrs. Medway. I do not want me call Flora. And I'm not going to treat me like a child. When a nurse comes and turns calling new darling, my darling, darling, or Flora, she immediately says "do not treat me like a baby, are old enough to be her great-grandmother" . ... correcting with firmness and decision.
not go ahead in the story, because you need to read the book to take a trip with Lessing, one must read it because you find so much humanity, that you may not seek more or at least enough. We must read it, because it gives us the strength to look into our fears, invites us to leave us and tackle the limit that is in us, the fragility, the emotion. We can make it more sensitive ... The weakness is not something to hunt, but something to live with and learn from. We should not be afraid, because you reside in the deepest values.
"Sono nata per scrivere, geneticamente . – ha detto la Lessing - Voglio raccontar storie. Tutti, quando sogniamo, ci diciamo storie. E non c’è alcun messaggio: è il lettore che cerca un messaggio, e quindi lo trova” . Basta volerlo trovare.
Spesso si ammirano e difendono quelle donne che, arrivate ad una certa età, conservano la loro intelligenza e sono ancora efficienti. Dobbiamo, invece, rivolgere lo sguardo a tutte quelle persone deboli, indifese e dimenticate dallo stato e dalla società civile, tutte quelle persone che vivono sole con pensioni da fame o sono lasciate alla cura delle famiglie che spesso si trovano in forti difficoltà nell’affrontare the only problem. This is why many use the hospice.
's commitment Lessing, both political and civil has always been lively, as well as his dedication to everything that would allow the release of those most at risk: elderly, children, women, people of color. We also remember more of these people ... Let's talk, tell ... let us pause to think.
I know that culture deal more with life and the stories of the weakest and he is very far to look.