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Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

(Canopus in Argos #1)

Doris Lessing

3.67 · Rating details · 2,307 ratings · 267 reviews

This is the first volume in the series of novels Doris Lessing calls collectively Canopus in Argos: Archives. Presented as a compilation of documents, reports, letters, speeches and journal entries, this purports to be a general study of the planet Shikasta, clearly the planet Earth, to be used by history students of the higher planet Canopus and to be stored in the Canopi ...more

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Hardcover, 365 pages

Published 1979 by Jonathan Cape

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Mar 02, 2019 Fergus rated it it was amazing

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS -
NOT WITH A BANG, BUT WITH A WHIMPER.
The Hollow Men

Eliot’s is indeed such an apt envoi for the Shikastan world, if you know the plot of this novel...

Doris Lessing seems to have been BORN to write sci-fi - though most of her critics were relatively aghast at such presumptuous temerity on her part, back in the 1970’s.

And whenever I consider the brilliance of this marvellous Nobel laureate - in the panoptic Vision of her superb novels like this one - it almost seems a ...more

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Jun 25, 2012 stormin rated it did not like it

Shelves: religion, gave-up-on, politics, sci-fi

This book is so terrible that I added a new shelf: "refused-to-finish". It has managed to supplant Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson as the worst book I've had the misfortune to encounter (and this includes Breaking Dawn!).

The main problem with this book is that the writing is bad. Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in literature for this series, so I had high hopes that at a minimum the prose would be good. It's not. Not even a little bit. There have been precisely two moments in the 156 pages I ...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Manny rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, transcendent-experiences

My favorite quotes from this book both come from the introduction:

"Shikasta has as its starting point, like many others of the genre, the Old Testament. It is our habit to dismiss the Old Testament altogether because Jehovah, or Jahve, does not think or behave like a social worker."

"I do think that there is something very wrong with an attitude that puts a 'serious' novel on one shelf and, let's say, First and Last Men on another."

And, indeed, the overall effect is rather as though Olaf Stapledo ...more

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Apr 07, 2020 L.S. Popovich rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2-star, 2020, science-fiction, british-irish-welsh-scottish, africa, iran-persia, zimbabwe

The full title is Canopus in Argos: Archives Re: Colonized Planet 5: Shikasta: Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by JOHOR (George Sherban): Emissary Grade 9: 87th of the Period of the Last Days.
To begin, we receive a Preface from the Nobel-winning author. It contains a brief defense of S-F as a literary form. Lessing’s contribution to S-F is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Totaling over 1100 pages, her 5 novel series constitutes an exhaustive study of a fictionalized ga ...more

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Aug 05, 2013 Zanna rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anarcho-feminist sci-fi lovers

Shelves: environment, philosophy

First read January 2005

This book does three ambitious things.

1. It takes the Old Testament of the Bible as inspiration for its mythical geo-historical content, but instead of an angry bearded guy in charge, it has a super-advanced utopian-collectivist space-travelling civilization colonising Earth and then struggling to maintain a shadow of hope and stability through thousands of literally star-crossed years when the unfortunate planet is fed on and influenced by another, evil space-travelling c First read January 2005

This book does three ambitious things.

1. It takes the Old Testament of the Bible as inspiration for its mythical geo-historical content, but instead of an angry bearded guy in charge, it has a super-advanced utopian-collectivist space-travelling civilization colonising Earth and then struggling to maintain a shadow of hope and stability through thousands of literally star-crossed years when the unfortunate planet is fed on and influenced by another, evil space-travelling civilization.

2. It attempts to realistically predict the Old-Testament apocalypse playing out some time in the immediate future with the disintegration of most the structures of international organisation, collapse of Europe, rise of China, epidemics, famine, culmination in World War III, and the aftermath. Lessing actually bothers to imagine the details

3. It does these things while breaking and rebuilding the form of the novel. The principle subtext to the plot, coarsely outlined above in points 1 and 2, is a nuanced but severe indictment of the crimes of European and especially English imperialism. Its condemnation of wanton, wasteful, greedy, arrogant, careless behaviour, and the uncomfortable plea (one that cannot be reasonably made by a White person, and is accordingly made very un-reasonably here) to the systematically oppressed peoples of the Earth not to slaughter White people in revenge, could have been the subject of a sanctimonious essay.

There is nothing of the essay about Shikasta. There is no author voice. The book presents itself as 'documents relating to visit by Johor...' and much of it is narrated by this Johor, emissary, envoy, agent of Canopus, the benevolent interstellar coloniser of Earth. That he is an unreliable narrator is reiterated several times. He often speaks of being 'affected' by 'emanations' and circumstances on Shikasta, and 'The Archivists' who narrate the various extracts from Canopean official documents comment on Johor's judgement. The Archivists are not reliable either. For one thing, they are concerned with the broad sweep of events on a global scale, and for another Johor and other agents' reports criticise them for their imperfect understanding of local conditions.

When Johor is incarnated, Christlike, as George, we know we can't rely on him as we know he will not 'remember' being Johor, his life experience will affect him, and we have already seen one of his colleagues wander from the path planned for him by Canopus. In fact, George might have been the best choice of narrator for the time of the 'Last Days', but Lessing abandons direct narration altogether at this point and instead has the last 200 pages worth of events unfold through a variety of documents, principally the diary of George's (yes, of course unreliable) younger sister.

Perhaps most importantly, we are not made to assume that Canopus represents Lessing. Canopus is concerned that the 'White races' escape extermination because they are 'genetically useful' animals for the overall health of the species. This 'eugeneticist' stance, revealed only towards the end of the book, casts a slightly sinister shadow over Canopus' return to power over Earth.

Finally, I will comment on the picture painted here of human beings, through multiple sources and events. It is a dim one. We are weak, foolish and highly suggestible animals, neither wise and kind enough to build our own geometrically pleasing anarchist utopia (Johor calls power hierarchies 'the Degenerative Disease') without the vital flow of substance-of-we-feeling (fellow-feeling) from Canopus, nor wicked and stupid enough to build our own hell (the present state of humanity on Earth) without the influence of an evil parasitic influence feeding on violence and waste.

It was as if I had been given the task of telling someone in perfect health that he would shortly become a moron, but that he must do his best to remember some useful facts, which were a... b.... c...

so says Johor of the time when the ancient, utopian civilisation began to collapse. The best a Shikastan can do is struggle to thrive and support her brothers and sisters against all the odds, and wait for the return of Canopus.

This premise of human dependency is problematic for me, but I think it contains its own negation - since the book is *actually* written by a Shikastan. Lessing asserts the unreliability of all her narrators, allowing a space for the weak-human thesis to be a colonial misunderstanding of the colonised. ...more

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May 31, 2008 Kersplebedeb rated it liked it

Recommends it for: people with a tolerance for preachiness and slow plots.

Shelves: science-fiction

i first read Shikasta fifteen years ago, and found it fantastic but very difficult. Rereading it now i felt differently, it was both a lot easier but also a lot less impressive.

A white woman who grew up in Zimbabwe back when it was Rhodesia become a nobel laureate in literature last year. Amongst her reactions were something like "what took you so long" and "my science fiction was my most important work."

Shikasta is the first book in Lessing's science fiction series, and it is very much a long, i first read Shikasta fifteen years ago, and found it fantastic but very difficult. Rereading it now i felt differently, it was both a lot easier but also a lot less impressive.

A white woman who grew up in Zimbabwe back when it was Rhodesia become a nobel laureate in literature last year. Amongst her reactions were something like "what took you so long" and "my science fiction was my most important work."

Shikasta is the first book in Lessing's science fiction series, and it is very much a long, at times moving at times embarrassing examination of colonialism, oppression, and what Christians (of which Lessing is not one) would term the "fall from grace". This is not a zippy action tale, there is no clever word-play or mind bending concepts, rather this book is Lessing's indictment of all of human history, and of human beings propensity to hurt and mistreat one another and the world we live in. It climaxes with an actual trial in which the "white race" stands accused of all the crimes of euro-imperialism, and ends with most of humanity being killed in some kind of war, the few survivors returning to a state of grace as "Shammat" (Lessing's stand-in for the Devil) retreats from the planet.

There's lots in here, but not a lot which is great. Some descriptions are quite evocative, the build-up in which we are introduced to Shikasta (that's the alien's name for Earth) prior to the fall from grace, all this is very well done, though with a lot of loopy politics.

i feel bad giving this book three stars - it really felt like several books within one volume, and the first third (describing Shikasta's fall from paradise, so to speak) and the last sixty pages (basically from the Trial on) were four-five star material (and i rarely give five stars) - unfortunately what came between, the case studies and Rachel Sherban's journal, were more like one-two star material.

This book is not one i would recommend to most people. You have to have high tolerance for a kind of shameless self-righteousness and earnestness normally associated with teenaged angst. i consider myself to have much less problem with that stuff than most people, but still at times i felt embarrassed for Lessing.

On the other hand, it is an interesting period-piece, both ahead of its time and also mired in how things looked thirty years ago. In many ways the world is following pretty much the path Lessing prochesied, in some ways it seems even worst off. ...more

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Jun 14, 2019 Proustitute (on hiatus) rated it really liked it

Shelves: british-irish-scottish-literature, read-in-2019, science-and-speculative-fiction

They say North America is full of troubles but I said I didn’t want to listen any longer.

I have always admired Doris Lessing’s vision as a novelist and a humanist; The Golden Notebook was (as was The Diaries of Jane Somers, about which I wrote at length, and very personally, here) such an important book to me, and continues to be to this day, and I think its focus on our deep psychological and interpersonal rifts is still highly visionary, ominously prescient.

With that said, and perhaps because sci-fi and “space fiction” (as Lessing has termed the Canopus in Argos series) are not my cup of tea, I haven’t begun to touch these works of hers until now. And in the hands of a lesser novelist, without Lessing’s politics and her vision (here, too, is when her Sufism begins to be apparent in her fiction), this might have been a much, much weaker novel than it was. I’ve upgraded my rating to 4 stars from 3/3.5 on the simple grounds that this is, after all, Doris Lessing.  

But I was riveted, especially by the early and later reportage sections. (It makes sense that these are archival, scattered sources, some reportage and some letters, some trial transcripts and some diaristic memoirs.) Lessing has in essence re-envisioned the entire history of the earth in Shikasta; the earliest, and most difficult, dense, laborious, sections deal with her space galaxy revision of the creationist tales from the Old Testament. These are ingenious and transcend both time and space—pun not intended. However, some of the later sections—with Shikasta, aka Earth, on the brink of World War 3—seem dated to us now in their historical, post-Soviet references, but they were highly visionary and even uncouth when she published this series. Many negative reviews seem to be misreading or not understanding this, and therefore taking this book out of context, which is unfair to a work that was truly groundbreaking for its time and still has relevance to our own.

Conceived as a single book which morphed into five volumes, I look forward to dipping into the other ones soon. Some of Lessing’s visions about our world and the inner workings of humanity—how we function, how we lack qualities that would otherwise see us excel as a human race, and how other planets might have experimented on us, and, ultimately, failed—are revolutionary for her time period (she was one of the first bestselling female authors to turn to sci-fi, and she was criticized for Shikasta upon its publication, for a variety of reasons, not least of which was genre).   

My advice would be to not approach these books unless you are already well-versed in Lessing’s main humanist themes that much of her work broaches: some more successfully than others. And if you’re expecting sci-fi of the intergalactic spaceship and alien sort, well… this is also not for you. (Even though both do sort of exist in this novel.) But if you’re curious about an alternate history about how the world was created, and how we went wrong—especially in this day and age when we have gone so wrong—then this is a fun, uneven, and somewhat pactchworked read to consider.

Just don’t judge Lessing on this book, please: in her defense, I think working in a new genre caused her to take on more than she could chew in one dose, hence the subsequent books she didn’t at first foresee. And perhaps she gets better at writing “space fiction” in those; maybe she even gets closer to the pulse of the sexual political strain—that she touches on briefly here—of our Shikastan crisis as we launch into a geopolitical world that she could not have predicted, and yet, given the founding mythology she creates in Shikasta makes a little more sense, perhaps, to the disillusioned. ...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Nathan Titus rated it really liked it

Shelves: everything-and-nothing, sci-fi, philosophy

This is absolutely the most janky book I have ever read.

from the 1st Dictionary of Nate:
janky--JANE-key (adjective); 1: thrown together at random; patchwork. 2: containing multiple elements, many of which contradict each other, and some that are mutually exclusive 3:top-heavy; lurching randomly in every direction at once 4:aspirations beyond achievement, and/or aspirations that are impossible to achieve 5:distinctive in being completely psychotic 6:something designed over the course of eons by a ...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Kevin J Mackey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this book shortly after it was first published. I've since finished re-reading it in its eBook form.

It was hard. But then, Lessing's "Briefing for a Descent into Hell" was hard, and worth the trouble.

Shikasta was then, and remains, a book of huge scope. It runs across all of human history, adding in pre-history and moving forward beyond today and into the future.

As I read it I fancied I discovered echoes of "The Four-Gated City", the final book in Lessing's Children of Violence series. I ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 Richard Derus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this edition in 1979. Bought the hardcover, even! Went on to buy the rest in hardcover, and devour them, enjoying the bravura performances that they were...but they're not good SF. The genre's conventions are simply disregarded, if (and this is by no means certain) Lessing was even aware of them.

My rating is for my memory of the melancholic mournful musicality of the prose. I'm not going to claim that, forty years on, I retain a grasp the subtleties of the story told, and I don't have the ...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Joe rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: mystics, conspiracy types, grouches

Recommended to Joe by: Nilary B

This is a very depressing book, an alternate take on human history, but I like being miserable so I dug it. It is very well-written and I don't feel it is slow-moving at all. Ms. Lessing does a great job of making such a ( seemingly ) far-fetched story believable.
One thing--Am I the only person who noticed the similarity to "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" by G.I. Gurdjieff? The plot and even some of the writing style are so much alike. Since Ms. Lessing was a student of Sufism and Idries Sha ...more

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Aug 05, 2016 A. Dawes rated it did not like it

I enjoy Doris Lessing and I enjoy speculative fiction. Somehow though, the combination had a tragic outcome. An attempt to be clever that fails in an impenetrable epistolary mess. If you want great epistolary spec-fic, try The Prestige by Christopher Priest instead. If you want great Lessing, read anything by her that's realist. Ignore this novel. Erase it - if you can - from you memory because Lessing was actually a super talented writer. ...more

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May 01, 2012 Simon rated it liked it

Shelves: britain-and-ireland, 1970s, reviewed, science-fiction, polemic, historical-fiction

I have fond memories of reading Doris Lessing's space opera series ”Canopus In Argos” but do not remember that much of the actual content in those books beyond the broad strokes: The series' basic concept of rivalling extraterrestrial empires influencing human history behind the scenes; most of the viewpoint characters being aliens in human disguise; as well as Lessing predicting a near future where the People's Republic of China becomes the Earth's dominant superpower. As a result I decided to I have fond memories of reading Doris Lessing's space opera series ”Canopus In Argos” but do not remember that much of the actual content in those books beyond the broad strokes: The series' basic concept of rivalling extraterrestrial empires influencing human history behind the scenes; most of the viewpoint characters being aliens in human disguise; as well as Lessing predicting a near future where the People's Republic of China becomes the Earth's dominant superpower. As a result I decided to give the 1st book in the series, ”Shikasta”, the only entry I own physically, a re-read.

”Shikasta” is a much weirder book than I remember. Not only does it take the entire Erich von Däniken/Zechariah Sitchin ancient aliens concept and tell it from the sufficiently advanced alien viewpoint for most of the page count, a fairly rare conceit in the genre. Lessing also frequently shifts between multiple different narrators, all of whom are among the novel's many characters. Several chapters are excerpts from in-story nonfiction books, political communiqués or newspaper articles. In the final third of ”Shikasta” most of the viewpoint characters are humans; the most notable being a British family whom the alien spy Johor lives among disguised as a human named George Sherban, as well as a Chinese diplomat whose communiqués to the government in Beijing are full of sarcastic remarks about the incompetence and cultural provincialism of the European politicians he encounters.

Another thing that makes ”Shikasta” an odd reading experience is its lack of a conventional plot. Instead, the novel is presented as a ”secret history of humanity” I am not sure how much of Lessing believed in herself. However, it should be made clear that quite a few popular conspiracy theories can be found in embryonic form as subplots in ”Shikasta”. Examples include Lessing connecting cryptids such as Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti to ufology by explaining those hairy humanoids as products of alien genetic experiments (along with modern humans themselves) as well as gnomes, giants etc being relict populations of different alien races that still maintain secluded communities in isolated areas of the planet. Later on, when ”Shikasta” gets around to covering the 20th century, the reader is treated to detailed descriptions of secret space programs with military bases and armed spacecraft operated by the Earth's rivalling superpowers well out of view from the general public, with only conspiracy theorists even considering their existence. These secret space program theories have in the last handful of years received quite a bit of attention from ufologists like Richard Dolan and Michael Salla as well as the late Timothy Green Beckley, though they in the meantime also functioned as the main concept for the 1998 computer game ”Battlezone” which depicts the Space Race as a cover story for the US and the USSR fighting across the solar system for control of supertechnology left behind by ancient aliens.

Speaking of the predictions about the history of the 20th and 21st centuries made by Lessing in ”Shikasta”, they are hit-and-miss. Along with the PRC becoming a world superpower, Lessing also predicts most of Africa falling within its sphere of economic and political influence as well the formation of a unified European superstate who later gets into a 2nd Cold War with the PRC. All of this is very astute for a novel written in the 1970's. I hope this does not later turn into a full-blown World War 3 fought between the EU and the PRC as Lessing predicts! On the other hand, a good chunk of the chapters about Europe's future fixate on the activities of left-wing militias consisting of bored rich kids whom the reader is probably meant to read as a commentary on the Red Army Faction, Symbionese Liberation Army and whatnot. Something that feels rather risible in today's world, when Latin America and SOME Asian countries are the only places where left-wing militancy remains at the same level as during the Cold War. Terrorism in Europe has instead largely become the province of Islamists and Neo-Nazis. (mind you Greece is seeing a resurgence of anarchist militancy but from the type of anarchists who consider themselves ”beyond left and right” instead of "on the far left"... make of that as you will!) In-story, Johor interprets these aspiring urban guerrillas along with the horrors of British imperialism as more examples of how barbaric humans become without guidance from sufficiently advanced extraterrestrials. If Johor's opinions correspond to Lessing's own, which is far from certain, it is an extremely cynical view of humanity presented in here.

To be honest, I think the above example is a good synecdoche for how I felt while re-reading ”Shikasta”. On one hand I am impressed by the ambition shown by the author, and how many new twists she offers on science-fiction clichés that were already old hat in the 1970's. On the other hand, I felt that she bit off more than she could chew in terms of nuts-and-bolts storytelling at every step of the writing process. The frequent shifts between so many different viewpoint characters is a good example, since it's just not all of Lessing's protagonists who are very interesting. The chapters told from the perspectives of a British family whom Johor lives with struck me as downright boring, at least if you compare to the diaries of the sarcastic Chinese diplomat mentioned above who is many things but never dull. (it's almost as if Lessing predicted China Daily's famously snarky EU correspondent Chen Weihua) I quite enjoyed the audacious conspiracy theories about ancient astronauts from duelling astral empires, Bigfeet and Yetis being the results of alien biological experiments et cetera are in focus or secret space battles during the Cold War. I also found out that Lessing was quite talented at describing beautifully desolate landscapes and elaborately planned ancient cities, making me wonder what a more traditional swords-and-sandals fantasy novel by her would read like.

I myself did not mind re-reading ”Shikasta” despite having to take it off my list of all-time favourite novels afterwards. Then again I have a soft spot for overambitious weirdo 1960's/1970's science-fiction and am something of a nerd about ufology, conspiracy theories and obscure political conflicts. At the very least I would recommend it to people interested in the origins of conspiracy theories, as well as people who gravitate towards extremely ambitious novels that don't always work.

For the record I remember the ”Canopus In Argos” series improving with each novel, despite not remembering much of their actual plot either, perhaps I should give them a re-read as well? ...more

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Feb 14, 2014 Simon rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-mistressworks, sf

I really wanted to like this but it was just too dull. I really wanted to finish this but life is too short. I got nearly two hundred pages in and just found myself dreading reading time because I knew I would have to pick this up.

There's no plot for the reader to follow. There are no characters for the reader to engage with. There is no point to this narrative other than to show how stupid and corrupt humanity is. Yeah, well, I already know that and this is not what I call entertainment.

This is ...more

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Nov 17, 2013 Aubrey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to Aubrey by: Zanna

Shelves: reality-check, antidote-think-twice-all, reviewed, pure-power-of-gr, r-2017, 2-star, nobel-prize-people, 1-read-on-hand, r-goodreads, antidote-think-twice-read

This work is kin to Oryx and Crake, and to a lesser extent Babel-17: conservative where it needs to be progressive, progressive where it needs to be informed, and all in all amounting to little more than a done to death rehashing of various mainstream assumptions sprinkled with a few intriguing hints at veritable open fields. The insensate jabbering on and on about the evils of history with nary a holistic breakdown into tiers of intra community issues and intersectional community action outside This work is kin to Oryx and Crake, and to a lesser extent Babel-17: conservative where it needs to be progressive, progressive where it needs to be informed, and all in all amounting to little more than a done to death rehashing of various mainstream assumptions sprinkled with a few intriguing hints at veritable open fields. The insensate jabbering on and on about the evils of history with nary a holistic breakdown into tiers of intra community issues and intersectional community action outside the jurisdiction of the status quo is, I imagine, one reason why liberals are laughed at so much. I expected a history lesson from the back cover description (indeed, I expected much more, given this is yet another Christian writing fanfiction about Jewish people à la Paradise Lost and Joseph and His Brothers, but where the latter succeeded via specificity and a refusal and/or inability to use the Shoah as narrative fodder, this one bloated itself beyond the realm of redemption), but I did not expect key plot points and climactic turnings to be based on a few proclaimed factoids that were either dramatic oversimplifications, ahistorical applications, or flat out wrong in terms of scientific conjecture. True, that was then and this is now, but now is when I'm making the decision to continue reading this series, and seeing how little I got out of its first iteration, I must say nay.

'White' people have the greatest genetic diversity: false, even with all the expanded boundaries applied to this artificial construct. Whiteness, and race in general, is an incontrovertible biological construct that has veritable and significant impact on the various sciences: false. The concept of blackness related to a specific people is anything more than a convenient aesthetic excuse utilized for commercial purposes whose convenience has evolved alongside its evolving antithesis of whiteness: false. Thus crumbles a great deal of this narrative's final moments, rendering its initial stories of utopia with all its sentimental murmurings about defective pale mutants (nice eugenics there) and hearty brown utopians (noble savage, anyone)? Even without those few obnoxiously persistent fairy tales driving the course of supposedly logical conclusions, we have an outsider's obsession with Hinduism that apparently legally cancels out all the evils of Euro colonialism, a Magical Crazy Person (We never should have locked up the useful ones! but they seem to have been the better for it, for what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, of course.), the equating of depending on another to the Absolute Evil of parasitism (As if the eugenics weren't bad enough. It helps that I'm currently playing a video game birthed of a critique of Rand's objectivism, and the bombastic pieces of this narrative that are supposedly in the voice of the Absolute Evil go right alone with the repeated warnings against the "parasite" that fill the video games background acoustics), and a complete and utter lack of self-reflection on part of the benevolent alien for which this is all a little scientific experiment. As I've said before, I don't give authors the benefit of the doubt anymore, so if Lessing isn't going to critique her mystical mojo of a seemingly paradisaical ethical system that works only when it isn't questioned, I'll have to do it for her.

It was exhausting reading Beijing Coma and watching various mechanics of legal courts and political backgrounds put a stop to policies that would have concretely resulted in the outright deaths of increasing numbers of people while carting this around. All those paragraphs glibly rendering those real life discussions and maneuverings and dialectics as worthless actions that said nothing and resulted in nothing, and the only excuse is it's because the participants are young, and therefore know nothing of what is at stake. Again, that was then and this is now, but God's Bits of Wood was published nearly two decades before this, and that seems nearly enough time for it to have been translated and made its way to the hands of an author so seemingly concerned for the generic space of "Africa" and its social movements. If Ma Jian ever read this, he'd probably laugh his head off at the portrayal of those calm and efficient and silently menacing Chinese that frame the last few hundred pages, positive stereotypes doing nothing to reaffirm the humanity of the stereotyped. As such, I'm glad Lessing's dead, else she'd probably have something to say to that group of under-21's who are looking to sue Trump for fucking up the Earth to the point that it will no longer be livable after he is dead while they live on. If this isn't true, she could have least given me something novel to work on instead of repeating all this history I already know about and all these outdated jargon that means as much to me on a logical level as the tooth fairy or the boogeyman. Seeing as how my reading trend has been with Lessing, this might just me getting old and cranky, but considering she's the one writing off those in their mid-20's as doomed to building castles in the sky, what does that make me?

Over and over again, people who have been kept on the move mentally, always having to defend and sharpen and refine their perceptions of events, will suddenly find themselves in a spotlight focussed on them by the many publicity machines, will be made national figures, will be frozen, in fact, in public attitudes. Again and again, valuable people become neutralised, made into—often—figures of fun, at the least lose their impetus, their force.

...more

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Oct 14, 2014 Jörg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: english-lit, science-fiction

Shikasta is the first of five volumes in Lessing's Canopus in Argos cycle. Lessing herself calls these books space fiction and explains that this genre (i.e. a type of science fiction) in her eyes is unjustifiably maligned and provides the opportunity to think beyond boundaries.

Essentially, the five books together represent nothing less than a holistic view of Earth and mankind. The planet Shikasta is clearly recognizable as Earth. Canopus is the home planet of a superior, almost transcendental Shikasta is the first of five volumes in Lessing's Canopus in Argos cycle. Lessing herself calls these books space fiction and explains that this genre (i.e. a type of science fiction) in her eyes is unjustifiably maligned and provides the opportunity to think beyond boundaries.

Essentially, the five books together represent nothing less than a holistic view of Earth and mankind. The planet Shikasta is clearly recognizable as Earth. Canopus is the home planet of a superior, almost transcendental civilization influencing Shikasta's development in the best possible way. Sirius hosts another more materialistically orientied space age civilization that will be thematized in the third volume. The antagonist of all these cultures is the Puttiora system with its rogue planet Shammat trying to destroy all positive efforts and draining energy and wealth from Shikasta.

This first volume is written from the view of Canopus. It's an odd assortment of direct reports, mostly from the envoy Johor but also in the form of memorandums, letters or entries from history books. It tells the whole history of Shikasta (Earth) from its beginning to a period in the future. Canopus first helps in the development of higher life forms by migrating species from one of their colonies, by building cities according to a structure of invisible energy flows and by establishing a direct 'energy channel' between Canopus and Earth, thereby transferring knowledge and guiding the development. Changes in the cosmic constellation interrupt this channel almost completely, with Shammat draining what is left. In effect, Shikasta enters a long era of regression that ends in a century of wars and finally WW III.

By creating these galactic entities, Lessing models each of them as an epitomization of human traits. Canopus incorporates everything mankind should aim for. Shammat is the embodiment of evil. Without adherence to superior motives, mankind will sink into barbarism. The whole of Lessings convictions see the light of day. Her belief in diversity and equality is obvious. At the same time, I recognize some ideas which might be considered opposite to this believe. Extraordinary people are supposed to take the lead, not necessarily in a democratic way. Interestingly, the Chinese take over dominance in this history of Earth from the Western cultures. Quite farsighted for 1979 when China was not much more than the poor brother of USSR. I also recognize some esoteric tendencies in her writing when it comes to the 'energies'.

A very interesting start into the cycle, proposing an 'alternative history' of Earth. I'm curious to learn more about the different planets, civilizations and ideas. ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 Glenn Davisson rated it it was amazing

I first read this book over 20 years ago. I reread it a couple of times in the following 10 years. I am not a person who rereads books; especially not novels. My reading comprehension is and always has been extremely high. So I generally get it when I first read it. The fact that I read this book multiple times is an indication of the importance that this work holds in the constellations of some people’s universes.

I made the mistake of reading some of the negative reviews. I am astonished at th ...more

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Dec 19, 2020 Neal Adolph rated it really liked it

Shelves: woman-author, nobel-prize, european, 2020-reads

A book like Shikasta is hard to describe and difficult to reflect upon. It's full of ideas. Perhaps so many ideas that it is too big and too full to truly coalesce into itself and become that perfect creation that every book has the potential to be. But that's not unfamiliar territory for Lessing, an author who often got away from herself when she was writing but also, often, and maybe even always, wrote something that really mattered when she did. I finished reading Shikasta convinced that it i A book like Shikasta is hard to describe and difficult to reflect upon. It's full of ideas. Perhaps so many ideas that it is too big and too full to truly coalesce into itself and become that perfect creation that every book has the potential to be. But that's not unfamiliar territory for Lessing, an author who often got away from herself when she was writing but also, often, and maybe even always, wrote something that really mattered when she did. I finished reading Shikasta convinced that it is a book that, actually, truly matters.

Of course, it is somewhat of a relic. Books like this are hard to imagine these days. Comprehensive and self-certain, combatting formulas and tropes, reimagining the very shape of a novel without having the shield of being sold for that reimagination. Meandering and missing in characters and plot for portions, perhaps overly didactic in its ideals and morals in others. Maybe a bit too smart and well-imagined because it stands on its own, but begs for something more to build up what it was saying. At times obvious in a way that feels like it undermines the intelligence that built this book up.

But this is Doris Lessing, after all. A bright, clear observer who was also a bright, clear, direct writer. And she didn't need to prove her intelligence to you at all, thank you very much, because you must have already accepted it once you picked this novel up, thank you very much.

Recently my friend and I were talking about books. It was after he had read his first (and then, immediately afterwards, his second) book by Nadine Gordimer. We were trying to understand why it is that most books that we seem to be reading these days - at least the ones that are published regularly - can't really do what it is that Nadine was doing (and, I would suggest, Doris as well, among others).

Of course, it is worth remembering that even in their lives, the Nadines and the Doris' of the world were the exception. But there was something in the water and in the air that meant literature was tackling the very purpose of life itself.

As I was walking home from the bookstore today, where I purchased old used paperback copies of the remainder of Lessing's Canopus in Archives series, I couldn't help but explore this idea a bit. And it might just come down to a vision of history and humanity that was developed - a political thought that was big and expansive, that felt like it had an understanding of power and relationships on a big inhuman scale, and that saw it in the deeply personal and then in the broadly historic. And in this book we see all of Doris' talent in that regard on full display - the broad strokes of history and the small bits of the individual as agent and victim thereof. and then that unusual and unique imaginative power for worlds, individuals, events, and situations.

It may never have been displayed better than here.

This book is a triumph. Not an absolute one, of course, because I don't think Lessing ever wrote a perfect creation. But it is a triumph nonetheless. I think I can now confidently state that Doris Lessing is one of my favourite authors. ...more

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Mar 07, 2015 Ted Child rated it did not like it

I don’t recommend this book. Actually I don’t think it should have ever seen print. Don’t get me wrong, I like slow, deep books with profound spiritual and political messages, especially if their science fiction. I don’t recommend this book for one reason: it is inexcusable boring. Let me explain. I liked the three page introduction, where Lessing makes some important comments about science fiction. The first half of the novel, a retelling of the Old Testament with SF elements, is kind of intere ...more

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Jun 30, 2013 Jan Rice rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites-best-books, bibliotrauma, fantasy-horror

I am including this book in my "favorites" because of the unusual impact it had on me for about 25 years. I have the 1981 paperback image that's shown. I read most of the book sometime soon after that. It's a rather old book, but, still, I'll use the spoiler alert since what I'm going to say reveals something not that far from the end.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Aug 30, 2010 David C. Mueller rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sf-misc-authors

This novel is the first of Lessing's classic "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series. It differs from much modern science fiction in that is defies classification. In part science fiction, in part psychological-religious exploration, in part modern doomsday tale, in part pseudo-historical documentation, the story follows the earthly life of Geoge Sherban, human incarnation of the Canopan being Johor. George/ Johor visits a near future Earth where human society is on the brink of total breakdown. Joh ...more

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Nov 17, 2013 Matt rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: media-ebooks, eyes-on-the-prize, pearl-ruled

Rating 1¾ of 5 stars.

I had to abandon this book!

I read about half of it and skimmed the other half, reading some pages here and there. It just didn't work for me. I was bored almost all of the time. The writing style is way too wordy to me, the sentences too long where they don't necessarily have to be.

I neither found a coherent story, nor any characters to care for, and parts of it is too much of a lecture to me. This, combined with the biblical/mystical/esoteric undertones was enough to finall ...more

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May 24, 2012 Nora rated it did not like it

Shelves: abandoned-puppies

I think I'm just reading the wrong Doris because I know people love her but this was the boringest thing ever. Just a dull froth of myth + sci fi. IT'S EARTH THE PLANET IS EARTH OMG. Hated it. Forget why I started it. Not finishing it. ...more

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Jul 26, 2008 Stephanie "Jedigal" rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Wow. I am happily surprised how much I liked this book. My 1st try at D. Lessing was THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, and I could not get myself into it, gave it up pretty quickly. When I was researching her work, I was curious to hear she had written a series of sci fi titles.

The "sci" in this sci fi is on the light side. As is the case in much of the finest science fiction, distancing us from the known world can help an author frame a story the better to make points about that same world. The basic point ...more

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May 13, 2009 Erik Graff rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: no one

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: sf

Doris Lessing was first recommended to me by Karen Spilke, my next-door neighbor in the senior year at Union Theological Seminary, who read part of her Golden Notebook aloud while I was driving her car up to visit her parent's summer house near Leeds, New York. I had certainly heard of Lessing before and this reading put it back in my head to get down to reading her fiction.

Then, Shikasta came out, a science fiction novel by the intended. Great! I bought it in hardcover and two of the subsequent ...more

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Jul 24, 2016 Alli rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, books-2016, theme-2016-nobel-laureates

This was the latest in my Nobel Laureate readings, and I started this one I think back in May. It took me this long to finish it, and if it weren't for the fact that it was part of my challenge this year... I may not have forced myself through it.

I chose this because I thought it was interesting that a Nobel Laureate had written a sci-fi novel, but I've been really careful to NOT read reviews before I read one of these books, since I'm trying to stay open minded. But... I really wish I had chos ...more

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Jun 27, 2019 Benjamin Ettinger rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviews

This is not an easy book to review. I'm not even sure of my own opinion. If I rate the book highly, it's not for the usual reasons one might cite - that it was a particularly emotional read, or one that I found tremendously gripping or thrilling (a "page-turner"). Quite the opposite. The book, both while you're reading it and in retrospect, comes across as rather deliberately dispassionate - the intellectual calisthenics of a highly political literary mind finally let free to experiment with a n ...more

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Nov 27, 2020 Osama Siddique rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, historical-fiction, english-novel, nobel-prize-winning-author, science-fiction

What if all of human history and pre-history was a carefully monitored experiment by civilizations that dwelt on nearby stars. An experiment which wasn't always controllable and was affected and impaired by the movements of heavenly bodies as well as forces of chaos. What if such forces nurtured various species (some gigantic, other less so - with interesting variants emerging with passage of time), cross-bred them, steered them through evolution but also at times saw them dwindle, degrade and p What if all of human history and pre-history was a carefully monitored experiment by civilizations that dwelt on nearby stars. An experiment which wasn't always controllable and was affected and impaired by the movements of heavenly bodies as well as forces of chaos. What if such forces nurtured various species (some gigantic, other less so - with interesting variants emerging with passage of time), cross-bred them, steered them through evolution but also at times saw them dwindle, degrade and perish - suddenly or catastrophically. What if all the beliefs and superstitions that such species held were carefully cultivated constructs introduced by higher powers or feeble attempts to make sense of such powers on part of the species. Doris Lessing's epic novel is an exploration of such phenomena. Though it can be broadly categorized as belonging to the 'ancient astronaut' sub-category of sci-fi (and by the way Lessing is clear that this is Space Fiction) it is so much more.

Written from the standpoint of the colonizers it is in the form of journal entries, reports and archival materials that cover events over critical days as well as over millennia, and through periods of destruction and decimation as well as revival. These are also supplemented by findings of official missions. The planet in focus is the poetically named Shiksta - or the impaired one - which appears so alien in its early history but it is indeed none other than earth. From pre-history to degeneration leading to the 'Century of Destruction' to Apocalypse (World War III) the novel is a poignant commentary also on the human civilizational experience and destiny.

Though Canopus is the name of the galactic empire that has colonized the planet of Shikasta - with Sirius as its ally empire and Puttiora their mutual enemy - the names of Canopus's emissaries whose notes and diaries constitute the narrative, appear to owe their inspiration to Lessing's early years in Persia. Johor, Nasar, Taufique and also the always ominous destructive forces of Shammat. In the first half of the book there are some particularly lyrical passages, especially the ones dealing with the corrosive impact of Shammat as well as the deep anguish of a species that realizes that its prescribed purpose is over. Many of the descriptions of the physical landscapes as well as grand cities carefully calibrated and humming to the vibrations of distant constellations, are quite compelling.

However, there are also times - in the middle and latter sections of the book - when the descriptions become overlong and rather turgid, especially when Lessing goes into great details of the lives, pursuits and travails of individual inhabitants of Shikasta whose life trajectories could have been very different had Canopus's plans been fully effective. However, these anthropological and psychological passages also demonstrate Lessing's ability to provide granular detail as well as tremendous sociological and political insights (based on and directed at the human experience on earth) after providing grand and vast sweeps of history so made possible by visits of the same emissary from Canopus which can be separated by thousands of years. Most remarkable is how she shows that how prophets and religions as well as cults and at times distortions of the essential normative code that Canopus provided to various eras of Shikasta in its long-term project of accelerated evolution aided by advanced species for less advanced species and societies.

The book can thus really be looked at from three perspectives - (a) the perspective of the outsider looking upon us as a species - something which also invokes in one a sense of wonder because the possible existence of such a Creator & Sustainer-being upends many closely held notions about our origins, evolution, divinity and the idea of God; at the same time it makes our preoccupations appear trivial against the scale of inter-galactic preoccupations. These mega contestations in turn also help explain the at times wanton destruction of humans - "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods" (b) the deep sociological insights into individual and collective human fates are closely intertwined and how our actions and omissions have deep and complex outcomes - there is not just an assessment of what has transpired by speculation also of what may, including a memorable trial of the 'white races' for their historical patterns and technology of destruction and exploitation, as well as their partial overrunning by the 'yellow races' and revenge sought by the 'colored races' for past humiliations and deprivations (for those asking about political correctness remember this from the vantage point of the aliens); and, (c) the more metaphysical insights that Lessing provides given her explorations in the area, especially with Sufism.

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing enjoyed a formidable reputation for her literary fiction and her foray into speculative fiction/space fiction was frowned upon by quite a few. However, she defended the genre as full of tremendous possibilities and demonstrated the remarkable diversity of her vision and writing. Though at times difficult to read Shikasta remains a tremendous exploration of the human civilizational experience from an alien perspective - one that has played a domineering role in its shaping and yet also remains ineffectual in the face of its own inter-galactic contestations as well as the complex nature of human societal progress and regress. ...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Paul Kieniewicz rated it really liked it

Shelves: great-novels

I know that a book is exceptional if I’ve read it more than once. More than twice, and it has to be extraordinary. Doris Lessing’s Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (the first in a series known as Canopus in Argos) is one of those. Known for her extensive corpus of mainstream, left-leaning fiction, Shikasta represents her first foray into science fiction., and into mysticism. Her die-hard fans hated her new direction and hoped it wouldn’t last. She’d already tried their patience with Briefing for I know that a book is exceptional if I’ve read it more than once. More than twice, and it has to be extraordinary. Doris Lessing’s Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (the first in a series known as Canopus in Argos) is one of those. Known for her extensive corpus of mainstream, left-leaning fiction, Shikasta represents her first foray into science fiction., and into mysticism. Her die-hard fans hated her new direction and hoped it wouldn’t last. She’d already tried their patience with Briefing for a Descent into Hell a non-linear novel that explores the the mind of a man whom everyone agrees is insane. At the end of the book, the reader is left asking, is there such a thing as sanity?

And now Shikasta, a view of the Earth’s history that suggests the presence of cosmic influences on our race for good and ill. To enjoy the book, you have to excise everything the book may remind you of: Von Danniken, L. Ron Hubbard, 2001-A Space Odyssey.
Lessing is more mystical. You can tell that she has read Sufi writings extensively. Shikasta, the name that Canopus gave to our planet, means the stricken one. The sick planet. Long ago when giants lived on our planet, things were different. Human evolution was being accelerated by a link established with the advanced civilization of Canopus. Then something went wrong. It’s a story as old as Adam and Eve but unlike in the biblical story where the blame is laid on the woman who ate an apple, Lessing removes the element of guilt from humanity. What happened was a disaster --- the word meaning a stellar misalignment. Nothing that our ancestors are responsible for.Canopus sends its agent Johor to help our stricken race. He can do nothing except to evacuate those ready to leave everything behind, and leave the others to thousands of years in spiritual darkness.

We skip to our post-modern age, a time of deep economic depression when our civilization is disintegrating. Johor returns to salvage what can be saved before a nuclear holocaust decimates the Earth’s population. This time he’s born of human parents.Canopus agents are born like us, except that they retain the memory of their origin. When they’re finished with their job, they shed their bodies by committing suicide. Then there are agents who, just as the rest of us, have forgotten who they are. The book climaxes in a mock trial on capitalism where Johor is the prosecutor and an amnesiac agent plays the defense. The trial awakens memory in the amnesiac agent. As expected from Lessing, the novel contains some obligatory socialist philosophy, but it doesn’t dominate the action.

Lessing delivers her vision of the loss of an ancient relationship with cosmic powers, dark ages and the future recovery of what was lost. She develops the vision further in subsequent books in the series. ...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Mikael Kuoppala rated it liked it · review of another edition

The first volume in Doris Lessing’s praised sci-fi quintet is a truly curious piece of literature. I almost hesitate to call “Shikasta” a novel, due to its erratic structure. Lessing’s style here brings to mind Virginia Woolf, early Jack Vance and most of all William S. Burroughs. It’s much like “The Naked Lunch,” even though its sci-fi setting creates a bit more congruence between the individual stories, manifesto’s, apologies and philosophical as well as mythological deconstructions the whole ...more

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About Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing

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Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Oliv Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.

In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org). ...more

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