The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire
US first edition cover (Alfred A. Knopf)
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| Author | Doris Lessing |
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| Country |
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| Language | English |
| Series | Canopus in Argos |
| Genre | Novel (science fiction) |
| Published | 1983 (Alfred A. Knopf, US, Jonathan Cape, UK |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 178 |
| ISBN | (US) 0-224-02130-3 (UK) |
| OCLC | 9154744 |
| 823/.914 19 | |
| LC Class | PR6023.E833 D59 1983 |
| Preceded by | The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 |
(Documents Relating to) The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire is a 1983 science fiction novel by Doris Lessing. It is the fifth book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series and comprises a set of documents that describe the final days of the Volyen Empire, located at the edge of our galaxy and under the influence of three other galactic empires, the benevolent Canopus, the tyrannical Sirius, and the malicious Shammat of Puttiora. It was first published in the United States in March 1983 by Alfred A. Knopf, and in the United Kingdom in May 1983 by Jonathan Cape.
The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire is a social satire written in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell, and focuses on the debasement of language in political rhetoric. In Lessing's fictional universe it is propaganda that keeps the fragile empires afloat, and when language becomes too distorted, some of her characters succumb to a condition called "undulant rhetoric" and are placed in a Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases.
Because of its focus on characterisation and social/cultural issues, and the de-emphasis of technological details, this book is not strictly science fiction but soft science fiction, or "space fiction" as Lessing calls her Canopus in Argos series. While The Sentimental Agents can be read as a stand-alone book, Lessing does continue with the history of the Sirian Empire, picking up from where she left off in The Sirian Experiments (1980), the third book in the Canopus series.
Edward Rothstein in a review in The New York Times describes The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire as "a satirical romp through rhetoric in a foreign empire", but complains that the tone of the book "wavers uncertainly, mixing farce, cynicism and banal religiosity."
In another New York Times review, Michiko Kakutani writes that in this book Lessing has "narrowed her cosmic focus to a specific issue, namely the manipulative use of language and words" which, she believes, was handled with "more acerbity and more humour" by George Orwell in Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
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