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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The Fifth Child was about the mother and what having a ‘profoundly different’ child meant for her as she struggled with her own reactions as well as those of her family. Ben in the World was all about Ben, his needs and wants and challenges and … ultimately … his decisions.
It certainly is clear that Lessing knows that the poor, marginalized, destitute can find one more place at the table, shelter in the inn, while the middle class and rich can’t slam the door shut fast enough.
It certainly is clear that Lessing knows that the poor, marginalized, destitute can find one more place at the table, shelter in the inn, while the middle class and rich can’t slam the door shut fast enough.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Like The Fifth Child, I read this in less than 24 hours. I found it compelling, and liked how this book reminded me of, and made me rethink some of my reactions to that book. Ben is a fascinating character and creation, a boy who is a genetic sport, a throwback, is more animal than humanoid. This book is a series of encounters that move back and forth in time, which Lessing handled deftly. Ben struggles to survive, and is cared for by a series of people, mostly women, whose sketched backstories are all too human and believable. He is used, again and again, by men who seek ways to make money off him.
The pacing lagged a bit toward the end, and there were some characters that felt extraneous. Throughout, Lessing does an omniscient narrator, flashing forward and giving us future glimpses into various characters' lives. But we don't find out Ben's fate till the penultimate page.
This is a really weird, dark book and I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to, but I was fascinated by it.
The pacing lagged a bit toward the end, and there were some characters that felt extraneous. Throughout, Lessing does an omniscient narrator, flashing forward and giving us future glimpses into various characters' lives. But we don't find out Ben's fate till the penultimate page.
This is a really weird, dark book and I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to, but I was fascinated by it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Abandonment
I had really mixed feelings about Ben's first story, The Fifth Child. About this book I have only one. It's a terrible shame that, in the first book, his mother rescued him from the institution where he was going to be quietly sedated to death. There is no world for Ben and it would have saved him a great deal of bewildered suffering if she had just accepted that when he was three.
Roy Jones Junior. Robert De Niro. Evander Holyfield. Ricky Ponting. Muhammad Ali. It’s hard when the greats lose their powers for all the world to see.
I really wanted to like this novel, only the premise is flawed, the plot is almost non-existent and meandering and the whole novel degenerates into a barely believable sub-par Days of Our Lives conclusion. Moreover, the book is filled with empty caricatures. There’s far too much telling and not enough showing, and ultimately the whole thing is really unworthy of the term ‘literature’. That it comes out of the mind of an obviously great artist like Lessing makes the whole thing more tragic.
Seriously, there is not one but TWO "hookers with a heart of gold", multiple “evil scientists” and a crude caricature of a central character that renders the exploration of alienation as something that is as superficial as it is laughably simplistic. It is also incredibly poorly written. Really, the quality of prose on offer here is not even near ‘third-rate’.
Like Roy Jones Junior et al, you get angry that those around Lessing would let her diminish her reputation by publishing this book.
Please do yourself and Doris a favour and steer well clear of this one.
I really wanted to like this novel, only the premise is flawed, the plot is almost non-existent and meandering and the whole novel degenerates into a barely believable sub-par Days of Our Lives conclusion. Moreover, the book is filled with empty caricatures. There’s far too much telling and not enough showing, and ultimately the whole thing is really unworthy of the term ‘literature’. That it comes out of the mind of an obviously great artist like Lessing makes the whole thing more tragic.
Seriously, there is not one but TWO "hookers with a heart of gold", multiple “evil scientists” and a crude caricature of a central character that renders the exploration of alienation as something that is as superficial as it is laughably simplistic. It is also incredibly poorly written. Really, the quality of prose on offer here is not even near ‘third-rate’.
Like Roy Jones Junior et al, you get angry that those around Lessing would let her diminish her reputation by publishing this book.
Please do yourself and Doris a favour and steer well clear of this one.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a really satisfying conclusion to Ben's story and really thought-provoking.
I like the eerie, more threatening nature of Ben in The Fifth Child better, not to mention his crazy family.
But the sequel will stay with me just like the original novel and I'm sure it will keep me thinking.
Not surprised there was over a decade between the two books.
I like the eerie, more threatening nature of Ben in The Fifth Child better, not to mention his crazy family.
But the sequel will stay with me just like the original novel and I'm sure it will keep me thinking.
Not surprised there was over a decade between the two books.
The sequel to The Fifth Child.
Ben is a freak, a genetic throwback, a Neanderthal. When he was born into a 'perfect family' in England, the arrival of this weird, often violent little boy ("a controlled explosion of furious needs, hungers and frustrations") alienated and frightened his family and drove them apart. His childhood signified the destruction of the relationships of all those around him. He ended up truanting from school and running away from home, seemingly destined to a life of crime.
But this book is mostly from Ben's perspective. Rather than being afraid of Ben's innate violence, we understand that he is alone and terrified. He is a wild man who doesn't understand human society and certainly doesn't fit in. He is exploited by a variety of men and consoled by a number of women. In this book, the reader learns to empathise with the bogeyman.
Lessing understands what people mean when they talk to one another, and what they mean when they communicate without words, through tone of voice, posture and the way they look at one another. She understands each of the characters in this story and her writing is so good that the reader is made to understand them too.
The story is narrated from a distance and using multiple third-person perspectives; the plot is driven by the characters and the ending is psychologically inevitable but still gripping.
As a sequel it is very different from the first book but it is utterly complementary in those differences so that the two books make a tragic but coherent whole.
Ben is a freak, a genetic throwback, a Neanderthal. When he was born into a 'perfect family' in England, the arrival of this weird, often violent little boy ("a controlled explosion of furious needs, hungers and frustrations") alienated and frightened his family and drove them apart. His childhood signified the destruction of the relationships of all those around him. He ended up truanting from school and running away from home, seemingly destined to a life of crime.
But this book is mostly from Ben's perspective. Rather than being afraid of Ben's innate violence, we understand that he is alone and terrified. He is a wild man who doesn't understand human society and certainly doesn't fit in. He is exploited by a variety of men and consoled by a number of women. In this book, the reader learns to empathise with the bogeyman.
Lessing understands what people mean when they talk to one another, and what they mean when they communicate without words, through tone of voice, posture and the way they look at one another. She understands each of the characters in this story and her writing is so good that the reader is made to understand them too.
The story is narrated from a distance and using multiple third-person perspectives; the plot is driven by the characters and the ending is psychologically inevitable but still gripping.
As a sequel it is very different from the first book but it is utterly complementary in those differences so that the two books make a tragic but coherent whole.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
فى الطفل الخامس ... تكرة بن, الطفل الغريب والذى عكر صفو الأسرة السعيدة
فى هذا الكتاب تقترب أكثر من شخصية بن وترى الأشياء من منظورة. كائن غريب ومدرك أنه لا يشبة أحداً ممن حولة. لا تدرك هل هو طفل لا حيلة لة أم رجل بالغ تحركة غرائزة. يفهمة القليلون ويحاولون الإعتناء به, ولكن من يستطيع التخلى عن حياتة من أجل بن الغريب.
النهاية آلمتنى للغاية ولكنها تعطينا بعداً آخر لشخصية بن لم نكن ندركة
وبعد ذلك تمضى الحياة بالجميع ويبقى بن لغزاً غامضاَ مروا بة لكن لن يلتفتوا إلية ثانية
فى هذا الكتاب تقترب أكثر من شخصية بن وترى الأشياء من منظورة. كائن غريب ومدرك أنه لا يشبة أحداً ممن حولة. لا تدرك هل هو طفل لا حيلة لة أم رجل بالغ تحركة غرائزة. يفهمة القليلون ويحاولون الإعتناء به, ولكن من يستطيع التخلى عن حياتة من أجل بن الغريب.
النهاية آلمتنى للغاية ولكنها تعطينا بعداً آخر لشخصية بن لم نكن ندركة
وبعد ذلك تمضى الحياة بالجميع ويبقى بن لغزاً غامضاَ مروا بة لكن لن يلتفتوا إلية ثانية
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