ABSTRACT
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five is the second book in the series Canopus in Argos: Archives which Doris Lessing is writing, having turned to the genre of science fiction. Doris Lessing gives her reasons for adopting science fiction in her preface to Shikasta, which is the first of this series. Science fiction – or, nowadays, space fiction – is impressively, concurrently relevant – morally, politically, aesthetically. Shikasta fictionalises a galactic history and an epochal overview of Earth’s history. It is not about the ‘real world’, since it constructs a cosmology, yet the planet Shikasta is also recognisably Earth. Shikasta blows through and unclutters our perspective. Through it, Doris Lessing questions any residual clinging to the belief that we have attained the pinnacle of progress. The dreamy contours of the landscapes in The Marriages, and the formalised, ballad cadence in the narration evoke the uncertainties and anticipations of the fairy-tale.
