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Ben, in the World by Doris Lessing
5.0

Lessing continues the bizarre tale of an archaic human born to modern humans in the 1960s/1970s through some genetic fluke. I kind of love this weird saga of a brutish neanderthal adolescent making his way in a world where he is unloved. His only salvation are people who alternatively use him or take pity on him . In both this novel and its predecessor, he does horrible things, but others do horrible things to him; his predicament is oddly poignant. The concluding scene in the mountains suggests we are not all that different from him.