Briefing For A Descent Into Hell (1981) - Plot & Excerpts
I have a problem with the word ‘experimental’ because most experiments fail; it’s in their nature. When I use word ‘experiment’ here I mean a test to prove a hypothesis. In the case of a novel the word ‘experimental’ usually means: If I try this and this and this do I still have a novel? And the answer to that question is usually: Yes, but not a very good one. Certainly what we’re willing to consider a novel nowadays is different from when the word was first coined and if you want to take the word at face value what Lessing has tried to do here is certainly something novel, something new and for that reason alone the book’s worth reading but if, like me, you know nothing about the book when you pick it up then the first third will test you. All I can say is: Hang on in there, skip a few pages if you have to but watch out for the conference; that’s when they start talking about the briefing and, for me at least, things started to click into place.There is, however, no briefing. There’s no point it seems:“[T]here is to be no Briefing. How could there be? You’d be bound to forget every word you hear now. No, you will carry Sealed Orders.”Here, as some of them unconsciously glanced around for evidences of these, Merk joked: “Come, come, what do you expect? A roll of microfilm? Perhaps a manuscript of some kind, that you’d have to chew up and swallow in moments of danger? No, of course not, give me some credit—brainprints, of course.” Hell is Earth and these beings—extra-terrestrials of some kind, gods possibly—have volunteered to travel to Earth (and some not for the first time so there’s a hint at reincarnation here) to communicate an important message; a Planetary Emergency is apparently brewing and they need to know the truth: An ability to see things as they are, in their multifarious relations—in other words, Truth—will be part of humanity’s new, soon-to-be-developed equipment. To communicate their message—unlike Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still they don’t have flying saucers—they have to be born as humans and grow up and then, somewhere, somehow, hopefully (there is no guarantee), they will remember why they’re there: “At the risk of boring you, I must repeat, I am afraid—repeat, reiterate, re-emphasise—it is not at all a question of your arriving on Planet Earth as you leave here. You will lose nearly all memory of your past existence. You will each of you come to yourselves, perhaps alone, perhaps in the company of each other, but with only a vague feeling of recognition, and probably disassociated, disorientated, ill, discouraged, and unable to believe, when you are told what your task really is. You will wake up, as it were, but there will be a period while you are waking which will be like the recovery from an illness, or like the emergence into good air from a poisoned one. Some of you may choose not to wake, for the waking will be so painful, and the knowledge of your condition and Earth’s condition so agonising, you will be like drug addicts: you may prefer to continue to breathe in oblivion. And when you have understood that you are in the process of awakening, that you have something to get done, you will have absorbed enough of the characteristics of Earthmen to be distrustful, surly, grudging, suspicious. You will be like a drowning person who drowns his rescuer, so violently will you struggle in your panic terror.” At this point I started to realise that the madman in the hospital who’d been raving about his experiences lost at sea and then on an island and finally after entering a mysterious Disc or Crystal which takes him on a journey probably most similar to the one David Bowman takes when he enters the Star Gate in 2001 could quite possibly be an alien—or at least an alien consciousness—struggling towards self-awareness. Was he lost at sea? Unlikely. At least not in this life. He’s discovered wandering along the River Thames.In the second part of the book we learn who the patient is—Professor Charles Watkins (a professor of classics)—and the doctors attempt to aid him regain his memories. Of course he has memories, as he says to his wife when she comes to visit: “My mind is full of memories [but] I don’t remember the things you talk about.” He indeed remembers (and misremembers) many things but unfortunately he can’t remember his mission. He’s aware that he has to remember something but not what. Much of the latter half of the book is made up of letters and memos and it does appear that within his circle of acquaintances over the years there have been others of his kind also struggling to make sense of not quite fitting into the lives they’ve been living. Could these be members of “the colonies on Earth that are the result of previous Descents”? At one point in talking to Doctor Y. he does actually deliver his message but it’s in such a compressed form—and, of course, delivered by a man in a mental hospital—that all that happens is he gets shushed and told to get some rest.Or all of this could be the ravings of a delusional mind; the more we learn about him the more we can see his ranting as a twisted version of things that have happened to him. K-Pax it is not. It’s also not really a study of madness—I use the term loosely—but it does provide an interesting take on what many have believed for years, that the mad—mad to us—are simply those with a different level or kind of insight. Forty years on we look at individuals with savant syndrome and accept that they are differently abled even if we don’t understand how they can do the things they do. They might as well be aliens in human skins. Not an easy read, especially some of the stream-of-consciousness sections which just go on and on but once you’ve got the gist things start to make more sense and then—I haven’t mentioned his memories of the war—maybe we were wrong. What’s probably hardest is the book keeps changing. At first it’s an adventure, followed by a hunk of stream of consciousness writing which then morphs into science fiction; then it becomes a mystery novel, then an epistolary novel, then an historical memoir. The ending, however, is poignant, a final, desperate attempt to regain that thing he's sure he’s lost.
I have read a number of reviews stating that the first 1/4 or 1/3 of this book is slow-going and difficult to get through. While I agree with these assessments, I think the bigger problem is that the first-person portions of the book, in which a mental patient's thoughts and impressions are narrated, ring false. I know very little about Doris Lessing's personal background with regard to mental health issues, but the first-person narrative of the mentally ill man strikes me as having been written by someone who has no idea what mental illness actually feels like. The main character's mental illness seems more like a plot device, rather than an attempt to truly convey the experience of a mentally ill person. My hunch is that, Nobel winner or not, Ms. Lessing simply relied on her imagination to guess what mental illness feels like and then structured that guess to fit her plot. It's a shame she doesn't appear to have researched the literature of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder or, better yet, actually spoken to someone suffering from these disorders. If she did in fact conduct this research or speak with these folks, then she did a horrible job conveying their experiences in the form of her main character. Nobody I've ever met who suffers from these conditions conveys their thoughts in anything approaching the banal style or whimsical, artful fantasy of the main character's first-person narrative.If, as a reader, you don't care if a protagonist functions entirely as a cipher for the author's concept, then by all means read this book. If you're like me, though, and appreciate protagonists whose thoughts and feelings are at least partially based in our shared, lived reality, then do yourself a favor and read one of the many recent memoirs about mental illness instead. If you insist on a whimsical and artful depiction of mental illness, then try Memoirs of My Nervous Condition by Daniel Paul Schreber. You get the best of both worlds - the flights of fancy that Ms. Lessing tried to portray as well as a sense of what it actually feels like inside the brain of one experiencing such flights of fancy.
What do You think about Briefing For A Descent Into Hell (1981)?
Hell as in Hades as in the land of the living dead, a place of stasis. Change in the form or a re-imagined life, or liberation, is not an option for Professor Charles Watkins because he is in the care--at the mercy--of doctors whose perceptions are easily, readily handicapped by the vast array of labels they so easily apply to Professor Charles Watkins. Watkins arrives at an English hospital as a lost soul, a man who has lost his memory and, therefore, his identity. As his doctors attempt to discover him that they might return him to his world, they also seek to recreate him with the aid of medications, therapies, and the recollections of friends and lovers and rivals. Charles imagines himself one way; the doctors, another. What should be a collaboration toward healing becomes a competition as the clock ticks toward Watkins's inevitable release from the institution.Can we be ourselves? Can we remake our lives? Can liberating change ever come? And what if we have no name with which to label this new creation?
—Sandy
This is the third novel I have read by Lessing. I also read The Grass is Singing and The Summer before the Dark, and found both novels to be far more accessible and enjoyable reads. Having said that, though, I rated this novel higher. While it is clearly a more challenging read, Lessing's work is incredibly brilliant. In fact, I would call this novel "genius," as it tracks the mental breakdown of Professor Charles Watkins. The beginning of the novel, when Watkins is at the height of his madness, and crippled by poorly prescribed medication, his thoughts are difficult to follow and become quite grotesque and violent at times. To have written such scenes, though, is truly a marvel, and this makes me want to read more biographical information related to Lessing. Later, some of the insights offered on education and human nature are so intelligently phrased and accurate. I quite enjoyed the very lengthy and detailed letter written to Watkins by Rosemary Baines. I highly believe that any individual going into the mental health field, or those who personally suffer from mental illness, should read this novel. For those in the profession, I found the madness of Watkins to be quite revealing. Lessing is quite revolutionary and bold, and I admire her work here.
—Angela Schaffer
Every line of first 150 pages was absolutely imperceptible. Lessing really has a knack for superfluous stream-of-consciousness writing, which is fine and all, but there must be limits. And as you read about the rat-dogs and "crystal" (weird ass name for a UFO) and rabid monkeys and nonsensical word after word after word after word, you'll probably wonder, "Should I just quit?," pummeling the foremost rule of reading to a pit. Allow me: DON'T. Lessing's message is germane! It exists in the conversations between the Greek Gods and the people of the orbiting planets. You can find it in Charles Watkins' (protagonist/professor/delirious mental patient/amnesiac) lectures. You'll see it in corresponding letters between Watkins' doctors and loved ones. It's in love and war. Rationalism and Mythology. 'WE' and 'I.' Her message is a perplexing, paradoxical dichotomy. And certainly one you'll enjoy if you believe that for we humans, science is "only the most recent religion." However, if you have a certain antipathy toward post-modernism, might as well not pick it up.
—Lina Alam
