Alfred and Emily

prime;I think my fatherprime;s rage at the trenches took me oversbquo; when I was very youngsbquo; and has never left me. Do children feel their parentsprime; emotions? Yessbquo; we dosbquo; and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memorysbquo; my own consciousness.prime; In this extraordinary booksbquo; the new Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parentssbquo; both of them irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmersbquo; but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenchessbquo; and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother Emilyprime;s great love was a doctorsbquo; who drowned in the Channelsbquo; and she spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital. In the first half of this booksbquo; Doris Lessing imagines the lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war at allsbquo; a story that has them meeting at a village cricket match outside Colchester as children but leading separate lives. This is followed by a piercing examination of their lives as they actually came to be in the shadow of that warsbquo; their move to Rhodesiasbquo; a damaged couple squatting over Dorisprime;s childhood in a strange land. prime;Here I still amsbquo;prime; says Doris Lessingsbquo; prime;trying to get out from under that monstrous legacysbquo; trying to get free.prime; With the publication of Alfred and Emily she has done just that.