Sublime

“Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa.”

She felt too young to be washed up, but then again, she had ridden an improbable string of luck. Her whole life, in fact, had been a gift of good fortune—she had been given whiteness. Blonde hair, a pretty face, a nice figure, a rich father. She’d sobbed out of speeding tickets, flirted her way to endless second chances. Her whole life, a bounty of

Doris Lessing, flying away from Africa, is like a character from a fable: The Woman Who Gave Up Her Child to Be an Artist. We need fables, parables, myths, because they illustrate, in simple, broad, stark brushstrokes, the moral complexities that rule our lives.