Two women …

… Public Books — Analytic Rage: The Genius of Jenny Diski. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In Gratitude is more than anything else a fascinating account of a young woman’s relationship with a great woman writer who appoints herself mentor. Its contours closely recall those of Sigrid Nunez’s Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Although the young Jenny Diski is relatively immune to Lessing’s charisma, she gives herself over quite thoroughly to the environment of Lessing’s house in Charrington Street. Lessing’s novel The Golden Notebook had been published the year before, and regular visitors to the house included the novelist and feminist activist Naomi Mitchison, the poet Ted Hughes, and the psychiatrist and social critic R. D. Laing.