Product Description

'Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other's hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.' Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt's life is a glorious hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, 'full of cold dislike,' tears at Harriet's breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness and a strange defiance she has never known before, Harriet is deeply afraid of what, exactly, she has brought into the world

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13138 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"The Fifth Child has the intensity of a nightmare, a horror story poised somewhere between a naturalistic account of family life and an allegory that draws on science fiction. Read it and tremble." CLARE TOMALIN, Independent "The Fifth Child is a book to send shivers down your spine, but one which it is impossible to put down until it is finished. Doris Lessing's power to captivate and convince is evident from the first, and the effect of the odd, alien child on the family is conveyed with quiet understatement which adds to the mounting sense of horror." Sunday Times "A powerful fable. Like the story of Frankenstein or the Minotaur, it generates all sorts of uneasiness. Its strength is expressive not didactic. A disturbing vision, The Fifth Child offers a faithful if chilling reflection of the world we live in." Sunday Telegraph "Doris Lessing can take any genre she chooses and brilliantly reinvent it; this time, the horror story. The Fifth Child is dramatic and memorable, playing as it does upon a most ancient fear." JUDY COOKE, Guardian

Many mothers will be familiar with the emotions Harriet has when she first sets eyes on Ben, her fifth child. Initial disbelief, a reluctance to hold him, a pang of disappointment. There is something strange and disturbing about him. Harriet and her husband David have constructed an idyll of perfect happiness in their large house full of children and relatives, but when Ben is born, their world is torn apart. Ben is weird looking, he doesn't speak but makes odd grunts and noises, and he doesn't seem quite human. Although at first you seriously doubt whether there is anything really wrong with the poor child, at the same time you begin to dislike him. Sympathy only comes when Ben is briefly banished to a special home in a bleak Scottish landscape, a drugged creature in a straitjacket. Rescued by his mother and brought back to the family home he becomes ever more nightmarishly 'different' and succeeds in shattering the family. Harriet's dogged devotion is then all the more remarkable as you come ultimately to realize the real and terrible nature of the creature that is Ben. This novel, reprinted five times, is a riveting read and a haunting addition to Lessing's body of work. (Kirkus UK)

Ever unpredictable, Lessing now offers a rather cryptic yet uncommonly accessible tale of psycho-social horror: a variation on the classic "changeling" formula - here marbled, subtly and disturbingly, with such Lessing themes as apocalyptic doom, the rough dignity of society's outcasts, and the dark underside of human nature. (The five-novel "Martha Quest" series, Lessing readers will remember, is called Children of Violence.) In the 1960's, that "greedy and selfish" time of alienation and "bad news from everywhere," young architect David (terribly old-fashioned) meets solid, homey Harriet (a grownup virgin) - and soon they're a couple, blissful and confident in their sharing of all the traditional, "unfashionable" values. They buy a big house (with help from David's wealthy father), joyfully begin having babies (they want at least seven or eight), and become the happy center of rich, extended family life, continually visited by assorted in-laws. Circa 1972, they're relieved and grateful: "they had chosen, and so obstinately, the best - this." With Harriet's fifth pregnancy, however, this idyll (quickly, hypnotically sketched) begins to fall under a sickly, expanding, implacable shadow. The expectant mother is tormented by the fierce, unnaturally strong fetus. When born, baby Ben is heavy, muscular, creepy-looking - "like a troll, or a goblin or something" - and violent. As a child, he's hostile, unteachable, "neanderthal"dike, more dangerously violent (he kills a dog, then turns to humans) with each passing year. The family is splintered, cruelly transformed - by fear, shame, and furious sorrow (especially vulnerable little Paul). Eventually, urged on by David and flinty Grandma Dorothy, Harriet agrees to give Ben over to "one of those places that exist in order to take on children families simply want to get rid of." But, in a truly nightmarish sequence, the mother reclaims her unlovable horror-child from a death-ward for the unwanted. And, through sheer willpower and ruthless shrewdness, Harriet manages a sort of coexistence between the family (forever fractured) and the "throwback" - though the teen-age Ben inevitably takes off to roam the earth with the punks and outlaws who accept him. "Perhaps quite soon. . . she would be looking at the box, and there, in a shot of the News of Berlin, Madrid, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, she would see Ben, standing rather apart from the crowd, staring at the camera with his goblin eyes, or searching the faces in the crowd for another of his own kind." As a symbolic summing-up of the past three decades, from Sixties cataclysm to Eighties terrorism, this short novel is vaguely provocative at best; the even broader, socio-anthropological subtext - civilized, familial mankind forced to confront the primitive animal within - is only slightly more persuasive. But, despite echoes of pop-fiction (Rosemary's Baby, etc.) and TV-movie case-histories (damaged child, valiant mum), the plain story itself - fine-tuned with ordinary-life details yet also insidiously fable-like - is stark, relentless, and memorably harrowing. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Doris Lessing is one of the most radical, provocative and diverse writers of the modern age. 'A major figure in twentieth century literature, her labours and prodigious output have helped to change the way we see ourselves.' Michele Roberts, New Statesman

Customer Reviews

thought provoking read
I'd never read Doris Lessing before and this was a really pleasantly surprised. This is a thought provoaking and disturbing tale, a horror story really. I will definitely be reading the follow up 'Ben in the Real World'. Recommended

A thoroughly disturbing read
Doris Lessing is one of those authors you know you ought to read but never do. A case in point: I've had both The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist in my possession for more than three years and never once cracked them open. The sheer size of the books and the weight of the subjects contained within, combined with Lessing's awesome literary reputation, have made me doubt my ability to understand and enjoy her work. Easier, then, to leave well alone.

That was until I heard about The Fifth Child. Maybe it was time to take the plunge? A slim book -- just 160 pages -- seemed the perfect introduction to her work.

Billed as a horror story, it's not from the Stephen King school of horror -- it's slightly more subtle but oodles more menacing because of it.

It's about two people -- David and Harriet -- who meet at an office party in the 1960s and get married shortly after. Lessing describes them as "freaks and oddballs", not least because they have old-fashioned views about sex at a time when the sexual revolution was in full swing. But also because in each other they saw what they were looking for:

"Someone conservative, old-fashioned, not to say obsolescent; timid, hard to please: this is what other people called them, but there was no end to the unaffectionate adjectives they earned. They defended a stubbornly held view of themselves, which was that they were ordinary and in the right of it, should not be criticised for emotional fastidiousness, abstemiousness, just because these were unfashionable qualities."

With their minds set on living in a big house within commuting distance of London, they purchase a "three-storeyed house, with an attic, full of rooms, corridors, landings... Full of space for children in fact". And then waste no time filling it with offspring -- four children in ready succession -- even though they can barely pay the mortgage.

Fortunately, David has a rich father who helps with the bills, while Harriet's mother, Dorothy, is able to move in on a semi-permanent basis to help with the childcare. This enables the pair to create a welcoming, cosy home visited by a steady stream of relatives. Christmas and Easter become big family events that stretch into week-long parties. It seems an idyllic kind of life on the surface, but underneath there are sores that are beginning to fester: David has to work longer and longer hours in the city to pay for his children's upkeep; Dorothy finds herself being taken for granted and brands the pair "selfish and irresponsible"; and Harriet becomes more and more exhausted with each pregnancy.

It is only when Harriet falls pregnant for the fifth time that things take a turn for the worse. The unborn baby is a "wrestler", causing Harriet so much pain and discomfort she starts taking sedatives on the sly.

"The drugs did not seem to be affecting her much: she was willing them to leave her alone and to reach the foetus -- this creature with whom she was locked in a struggle to survive. And for those hours it was quiet, or if it showed signs of coming awake, and fighting her, she took another dose."

When she eventually gives birth to 11-pound baby Ben she notices that he doesn't look quite right. He had a "heavy-shouldered hunched look" and a strange hairline. "He's like a troll, or a goblin or something," she tells David.

This feeling of having produced a non-human baby continues when Ben continually tears at Harriet's breast, roars and bellows to the point of turning white with rage, and stares at her with cold malevolent eyes.

To say anything more would ruin the plot of the book, but essentially Ben's mental development stalls, which has consequences for the entire family. Much of the story hinges on Harriet's relationship to her child and raises that age old dilemma of whether it is nature or nurture that shapes who we become.

If you are thinking that The Fifth Child sounds like a disturbing read, you'd be right. But it is also a memorable, thought-provoking one. The brevity of this book does not make it less interesting or less controversial than a more page-heavy novel, because within this slim volume there are so many issues worth debating: does class structure affect our family lives? to what extent should a mother take responsiblity for her child's misbehaviour? is it responsible to have so many children when you must rely on help to raise them?

Personally, I found the narrative immediately gripping although the fast pace left me breathless at times. Everything seems to move so quickly, and Lessing is brilliant at hurrying things along with a minimal of detail or explanation -- which is a necessity if you are to cover one couple's life from courtship to raising teenage children in the space of 160 pages. I thought it was a rather effortless read and it has now given me enough courage to delve into Lessing's rather extensive back catalogue, the first of which is likely to be the sequel to this book, Ben in the World, which looks at how Ben copes with life as a strange, inhuman adult. Fascinating.

A bit pointless
I didn't get this book at all. What was the point of it? I read it having read another review about We Need to Talk About Kevin, where that book was compared (unfavourably) with this one. So I thought I'd check it out. But rather wished I hadn't wasted my time.

As a commentary on psychopathy/social and familial dysfunction it had nothing to offer whatsoever. It's laughably over the top (bikers hanging out with a five year old - I think not) and there is no set up for debate as to what made Ben the way he is. Sooo... I thought, maybe that's not the kind of book it's supposed to be. Maybe it's just a thriller. But no, it doesn't work on that level either. The characters are barely there. Often, even towards the end of the book, I was flipping back to remember which one was Jane, or Deborah, or Luke or whatever their names all were. And when you keep in mind that the novel covers 20-odd years in just 159 pages (it's almost a pamphlet) you'll probably get the idea of how thinly the story and the characters are drawn. It's not scary, it's not thought provoking and it's simply boring. This was the first novel(ette) I've read by the highly decorated Miss Lessing, and if this is an indication of her work, I won't bother again.