Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
I had always found this stanza from The Waste Land mysterious and evocative. In some ways it is only a more posh version of that cheap ‘Footprints’ poem that everyone’s aunt has on her refrigerator, but something about those lines just thrills me every time I read them. Who is the third who walks always beside you? Who is that on the other side of you? It made me think of the tales told by survivors of nature’s extremes: that when you are alone with death, you are not alone at all.
I went through a major ‘disasters in the cold’ phase a few years back. I read stories by people like Edmund Hillary and watched Touching the Void, about a rock climber who falls into an enormous crevice, just to see what it is like at the extremes of human experience, and for the thrill of wondering: What would I do? Could I shoot and eat my faithful husky dog? Could I eat my fellow plane passengers? In extremis, who would I be? I have never read The Worst Journey in the World, an account of Scott’s disastrous Antarctic expeditions, which in part inspired Planet 8, but I think it would fit right into that category.
Planet 8 is easily the best thing I’ve read so far this year. It is simple, devestating and brilliant and made me realise afresh why Doris Lessing deserved to win the Nobel Prize for literature. I finished it two days ago and still I think about it every time I close my eyes. The story is ringing in my ears like a thunderclap.
I think for your own good, I won’t tell you about how the narrative of this book unfolds. If I told you, you might not read it. It is like a news story you can’t bear to watch because it is too sad. But the story is ultimately one which asks the same question that Elliot asked in those lines from The Waste Land: Are we all there is? Is anyone watching over us? How can we transcend ourselves?
Unlike Elliot, however, Lessing is bold enough to provide an answer.
If this book was a person, it would be a hot actor playing Captain Oates, the man who famously – and selflessly - left Scott’s tent saying: “I’m just going out. I may be some time.”
In a nutshell: a once fertile planet is beleaguered by a surprise Ice Age. International space organisation Canopus assures the population they will soon be relocated – but how long can they hold out?
Planet 8 scores an entire box of your favourite chocolates, plus an empty house, six hours of babysitting and a rainy day.
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
I had always found this stanza from The Waste Land mysterious and evocative. In some ways it is only a more posh version of that cheap ‘Footprints’ poem that everyone’s aunt has on her refrigerator, but something about those lines just thrills me every time I read them. Who is the third who walks always beside you? Who is that on the other side of you? It made me think of the tales told by survivors of nature’s extremes: that when you are alone with death, you are not alone at all.
I went through a major ‘disasters in the cold’ phase a few years back. I read stories by people like Edmund Hillary and watched Touching the Void, about a rock climber who falls into an enormous crevice, just to see what it is like at the extremes of human experience, and for the thrill of wondering: What would I do? Could I shoot and eat my faithful husky dog? Could I eat my fellow plane passengers? In extremis, who would I be? I have never read The Worst Journey in the World, an account of Scott’s disastrous Antarctic expeditions, which in part inspired Planet 8, but I think it would fit right into that category.
Planet 8 is easily the best thing I’ve read so far this year. It is simple, devestating and brilliant and made me realise afresh why Doris Lessing deserved to win the Nobel Prize for literature. I finished it two days ago and still I think about it every time I close my eyes. The story is ringing in my ears like a thunderclap.
I think for your own good, I won’t tell you about how the narrative of this book unfolds. If I told you, you might not read it. It is like a news story you can’t bear to watch because it is too sad. But the story is ultimately one which asks the same question that Elliot asked in those lines from The Waste Land: Are we all there is? Is anyone watching over us? How can we transcend ourselves?
Unlike Elliot, however, Lessing is bold enough to provide an answer.
If this book was a person, it would be a hot actor playing Captain Oates, the man who famously – and selflessly - left Scott’s tent saying: “I’m just going out. I may be some time.”
In a nutshell: a once fertile planet is beleaguered by a surprise Ice Age. International space organisation Canopus assures the population they will soon be relocated – but how long can they hold out?
Planet 8 scores an entire box of your favourite chocolates, plus an empty house, six hours of babysitting and a rainy day.
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