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leliforever's review against another edition
1.0
I feel proud that I didn't give up and finished it because I was struggling with it since page 2!Not my type of book and I expected it to be completely different.
I didn't enjoy it and I had issues with how by trying to explain the world he generated things like "men are careless" or "women complain" .
Things that ,yes, we say everyday but they are not true!
and also,are we to assume that there was no relation at all between same sexes?why the men needed the women and vice versa? are we suppesed to believe that these first people never questioned sexuality?
All in all,I hated it...
I didn't enjoy it and I had issues with how by trying to explain the world he generated things like "men are careless" or "women complain" .
Things that ,yes, we say everyday but they are not true!
and also,are we to assume that there was no relation at all between same sexes?why the men needed the women and vice versa? are we suppesed to believe that these first people never questioned sexuality?
All in all,I hated it...
mana_elena's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Somehow I am never ready for a Doris Lessing book when I pick it up. When I first read The Golden Notebook it was nothing to me, and kind of upsetting, though looking back on it I recall much that could have been useful to me if I read it now.
I can hope that The Cleft will be something I'm inclined to revisit. But it felt claustrophobic to read and it gave me no peace. It resolved nothing for me, and I think of one of the closing scenes of Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. "I'm sure I'll understand when I'm older." "I am older and I don't want to understand."
I think the novel has an unreliable narrator, an aging Roman senator, who has the authority of a good historian but whose position in Roman society may give us cause to doubt some of his interpretations of the scrolls he is piecing together to give us this story. I have always struggled with how authors employ unreliable narrators to tell their stories and make their points, so I'm unsure what Lessing wants us to make of this history. Some of the first 29 pages are told from a different (and altogether much more interesting) narrator, a primary source in the setting of the novel, and I feel her inclusion is meant to illustrate that, while our Roman historian has a pretty good skill in preventing his own ideas from warping the story, he is nevertheless painting it with a strong bias. Is Lessing making a statement about how men are inclined to tell women's stories, even when they try their best to be fair? I almost wish Lessing had made a tome, rather than a novel, full of all the conflicting Memories and accounts of history, but I see the difficulty in that, especially since it comes at the cost of our Roman narrator and his life story, the strictest scale and order and measure of which is meant to contrast with the vague, legend-like scale of The Clefts.
I will accuse this book of gender essentialism and I will reiterate that it was an incredibly claustrophobic experience for me that resolved no questions for me. So much that was stated as a fact of nature felt foreign and unnatural to me and I could not tell if that was the point. I won't say it didn't ask any interesting questions, or make me ask any interesting questions, because it did, but not ones I find useful or am equipped to answer any better for having read the book.
Again, I don't know how she's using her narrator because I am stupid.
I don't know. I'm tired and I'm glad to be done reading this little thing.
I can hope that The Cleft will be something I'm inclined to revisit. But it felt claustrophobic to read and it gave me no peace. It resolved nothing for me, and I think of one of the closing scenes of Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. "I'm sure I'll understand when I'm older." "I am older and I don't want to understand."
I think the novel has an unreliable narrator, an aging Roman senator, who has the authority of a good historian but whose position in Roman society may give us cause to doubt some of his interpretations of the scrolls he is piecing together to give us this story. I have always struggled with how authors employ unreliable narrators to tell their stories and make their points, so I'm unsure what Lessing wants us to make of this history. Some of the first 29 pages are told from a different (and altogether much more interesting) narrator, a primary source in the setting of the novel, and I feel her inclusion is meant to illustrate that, while our Roman historian has a pretty good skill in preventing his own ideas from warping the story, he is nevertheless painting it with a strong bias. Is Lessing making a statement about how men are inclined to tell women's stories, even when they try their best to be fair? I almost wish Lessing had made a tome, rather than a novel, full of all the conflicting Memories and accounts of history, but I see the difficulty in that, especially since it comes at the cost of our Roman narrator and his life story, the strictest scale and order and measure of which is meant to contrast with the vague, legend-like scale of The Clefts.
I will accuse this book of gender essentialism and I will reiterate that it was an incredibly claustrophobic experience for me that resolved no questions for me. So much that was stated as a fact of nature felt foreign and unnatural to me and I could not tell if that was the point. I won't say it didn't ask any interesting questions, or make me ask any interesting questions, because it did, but not ones I find useful or am equipped to answer any better for having read the book.
Again, I don't know how she's using her narrator because I am stupid.
I don't know. I'm tired and I'm glad to be done reading this little thing.
cookedw's review against another edition
2.0
The Cleft is told through the voice of a Roman historian in the age of Nero. The story is essentially the “real” creation myth, with the contrary starting point being that women were the primary beings, and men began as an anomaly. From this basic beginning, Lessing spins a new yarn, touching upon themes of sex, war, and other primal social interactions.
Considering the story pivots around the basic point of “no it wasn’t men, it was women,” I was quite startled and put off by the complete lack of feminist perspective in the book. The book largely takes place centered around stereotypes—women nagging men, men being impulsive and reckless, cattiness between women, men being the explorers, etc. On the one hand, because the narrator is a Roman man who I expect to hold these views, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But it seems awfully difficult to see the point in this story if the author actually wanted to inject a feminist view. I mean, her female-only/female-dominant society doesn’t even adhere to some of the basic precepts of such matriarchal cultures that have existed throughout history.
While the myth arc propels nicely, and I appreciated the interjections of “modern” Roman parallels in the historian’s voice as a reminder of how these types of histories have been laid down throughout time, I was never able to escape my fundamental confusion over what the author was trying to achieve here. It just invites and furthers stereotypes of gender…it seems like she has simply taken what could have been a feminist idea and instead utilized it to engage in mythic storytelling. And to me, it isn’t just that this becomes a missed opportunity as a result—it’s that the fundamentals of the story escape credulity and a fleshed out rationale. The myth is so one-dimensional in its male/female dynamics that it is just as dull as the various creation myths with which the reader is already familiar. It makes it impossible to care about the characters.
I really would love to know whether there is some secret to this book that I’m missing—but judging by other reviewers, it doesn't seem like it. While the writing was paced reasonably well for the style and fairly cohesive, I could only find the book itself to be stodgy and frustrating and would not recommend it at all.
Considering the story pivots around the basic point of “no it wasn’t men, it was women,” I was quite startled and put off by the complete lack of feminist perspective in the book. The book largely takes place centered around stereotypes—women nagging men, men being impulsive and reckless, cattiness between women, men being the explorers, etc. On the one hand, because the narrator is a Roman man who I expect to hold these views, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But it seems awfully difficult to see the point in this story if the author actually wanted to inject a feminist view. I mean, her female-only/female-dominant society doesn’t even adhere to some of the basic precepts of such matriarchal cultures that have existed throughout history.
While the myth arc propels nicely, and I appreciated the interjections of “modern” Roman parallels in the historian’s voice as a reminder of how these types of histories have been laid down throughout time, I was never able to escape my fundamental confusion over what the author was trying to achieve here. It just invites and furthers stereotypes of gender…it seems like she has simply taken what could have been a feminist idea and instead utilized it to engage in mythic storytelling. And to me, it isn’t just that this becomes a missed opportunity as a result—it’s that the fundamentals of the story escape credulity and a fleshed out rationale. The myth is so one-dimensional in its male/female dynamics that it is just as dull as the various creation myths with which the reader is already familiar. It makes it impossible to care about the characters.
I really would love to know whether there is some secret to this book that I’m missing—but judging by other reviewers, it doesn't seem like it. While the writing was paced reasonably well for the style and fairly cohesive, I could only find the book itself to be stodgy and frustrating and would not recommend it at all.
tove_reads's review against another edition
3.0
It‘s hard to review this book. It has a low score on GR. I understand that. This is an alternative history of Romans. It‘s about an ancient female cult, The Cleft. A society without men. Then the first son is born... Quick read. I am certain there are many people out there enjoying this book. 3- stars
roach808's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting concept and idea but the history with another ancient historian jutting in didn't jive with me.
andyshute's review against another edition
2.0
Not quite sure what to make of this tale looking back at the beginning of man. Disturbing at times, disjointed at others.
lateacherwoman's review against another edition
Fables are a difficult craft. A disappointing introduction to a Nobel Prize winning author.
jennyyates's review against another edition
3.0
This is not so much a novel as a fantasy wrapped around a theory. The theory is that humans came from the sea and started off by reproducing parthogenetically. Here, a Roman historian describes the quirks of early humanity, based on old written documents which are a transcription of still older oral histories.
The story is that women started giving birth to men, and, considering them deformed, put them out to die. Some of the men survived and then began rescuing the new male babies. After a lot of social upheaval, the men and women got together, and the human race switched over to sexual reproduction. Meanwhile, this tale explains most of the tensions between modern women and men.
Who knows - maybe it did happen that way? Kind of unlikely though. My feeling is that Lessing whipped this book off one daydreamy afternoon, which is about how long it takes to read it.
The story is that women started giving birth to men, and, considering them deformed, put them out to die. Some of the men survived and then began rescuing the new male babies. After a lot of social upheaval, the men and women got together, and the human race switched over to sexual reproduction. Meanwhile, this tale explains most of the tensions between modern women and men.
Who knows - maybe it did happen that way? Kind of unlikely though. My feeling is that Lessing whipped this book off one daydreamy afternoon, which is about how long it takes to read it.
cbwiggy's review against another edition
1.0
If I could give zero stars I would. WTF. This book was a nightmare. Made no sense. Bizarre.