SOURCE: Sceats, Sarah. “Flesh and Bones: Eating, Not Eating and the Social Vision of Doris Lessing.” In Theme Parks, Rainforests and Sprouting Wastelands: European Essays on Theory and Performance in Contemporary British Fiction, edited by Richard Todd, pp. 139-49. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000.

In the following essay, Sceats examines the representation of eating and food in Lessing's writing, particularly in terms of their role in interpersonal or social relationships.

[…] there is a terrible gap between the public and the private conscience […]¹

‘Dis-moi ce que tu manges,’ wrote Antoine Brillat-Savarin in 1825, ‘[et] je te dirai ce que tu es …’.² The potent suggestiveness of food is one of a writer's richest resources, and has been drawn upon and exploited ever since Homer. Literary food and eating, often enticingly (or revoltingly) evocative, are of great mimetic power and significance. It is fascinating and intriguing to read about what people eat, who they cook...