 Ben, In the World: The Sequel to the Fifth Child Books In Print, Audio Books. |
| Home » All Books |
|
|
Ben, In the World: The Sequel to the Fifth Child
buy bestselling books in print, audio books
|
 |
List Price: $13.00
Our Price:
$11.05
You Save: $1.95
|
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] |
Book : Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
|
Ben, In the World: The Sequel to the Fifth Child description
In a 1957 short story, "The Eye of God in Paradise," Doris Lessing brought to life a disturbed and disturbing child, a "desperate, wild, suffering little creature" who bit anyone who approached him. This child haunted not only the story's protagonist but the author. She first revived him in a powerful 1988 novel, The Fifth Child, pondering this strange offspring of an otherwise idyllic middle-class family. Who, or what, was Ben? Beast, goblin, throwback, alien, or a "normal healthy fine baby"? Lessing wrestled with these questions without ever quite managing to answer them. She takes them up again, however, in Ben, in the World. Now 18, but looking 35, Ben is estranged from his family, forced to find his way in a basically hostile world. His yeti-like appearance invariably evokes fear or amusement. And his other habits (including an appetite for raw meat) hardly allow him to blend into the crowd: He would catch and eat little animals, or a bird.... Or he stood by the cow with his arm around her neck, nuzzling his face into her; and the warmth that came into him from her, and the hot sweet blasts of her breath on his arms and legs when she turned her head to sniff at him meant the safety of kindness. Or he stood leaning on a fence post staring up at the night sky, and on clear nights he sang a little grunting song to the stars, or he danced around, lifting his feet and stamping. After three fictional encounters, Lessing knows Ben well. She constantly intervenes to direct the reader's response to him, to the people who surround him, and to his (sometimes unlikely) experiences in Europe and South America. His misery and alienation remain the focus of the novel. Yet they are offset by the odd individuals who offer Ben their friendship--and finally, by his wayward quest to find people like himself. --Vicky Lebeau |
|
Ben, In the World: The Sequel to the Fifth Child Customer Reviews
|
|
|
|
♥♥♥♥♥ |
Award winning author? Bah!
|
| I read The Fifth Child and found it a passable piece of literature: It had a fair amount of character development and an interesting plot. It interested me to the point where I wanted to read more about Ben. Big mistake! While Ben, In the World started off along the same lines as TFC, it changed, horrifically, about midway through. Perhaps Lessing pushed the writing assignment onto a hack as she tired of writing the book. The pages became filled with tripe, plain and simple. All of a sudden, the reader is taken away from Ben, and vice versa, to be fed a bunch of little stories about this side character or that one, and those stories are, at once, insipid and inane. I found myself angry as heck as the book drew to a close. It was easy to see where it was leading, but painful to go along for the bumpy ride. The ending, as written, was not necessary, to strongly disagree with another reviewer here. It was as frustrating to read as the preceeding half of the book, leading up to it. I am now soured on Lessing. I may read a few reviews of other books she has written, but unless I can determine that she is a better writer than what I have been shown in this Ben book, I will pass her by, for good! |
|