I was taken around and shown things as a "useful idiot" […] that’s what my role was […] I can’t understand why I was so gullible. - Doris Lessing

"A hundred things to do, but only one thing to be," he said, obstinately. "But perhaps I don't feel myself worthy of such a wealth of opportunity?"

Yes, my child, you must read. You must read everything that comes your way. It doesn’t matter what you read at first, later you’ll learn discrimination. Schools are no good, Matty, you learn nothing at school. If you want to be anything, you must educate yourself.

The novel has become a function of the fragmented society, the fragmented consciousness. Human beings are so divided, are becoming more and more divided, and more subdivided in themselves, reflecting the world, that they reach out desperately, not knowing they do it, for information about other groups inside their own country, let alone about groups in other countries. It is a blind grasping out for their own wholeness, and the novel-report is a means toward it.