The Fifth Child

Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking book
Review: Doris Lessing's "The Fifth Child" will be loved by some and hated by others, but it's hard to be ambivalent about a book that evokes such strong emotions in its readers. The premise of the book--how family, friends, and distant relatives deal with the birth of Ben, the fifth child of David and Harriet Lovatt--is soon overshadowed by the reader's own feelings about the characters and the values each one represents. This one is definitely worth a read. Even if you walk away hating it, it will have challenged your perception of "normalcy" and how society should deal with people who "aren't like us".

Rating:
Summary: Doris Lessing's monster for the 20th century
Review: The Fifth Child is a remarkable book. The story of a young couple who have a dangerous, violent child and the consequences of this, particularly for the mother, is chilling. What do they do with him, especially after it becomes clear that he is a danger to the family? How far can mother love go when your child is a "monster?" Note the child's last name is a variation of "love it"...as in must the mother love him/it? The book is a thought provoking study of this problem, as well as a commentary on the society in which the child was born. He was born into an upper middle class London family at the height of the Thatcher era. It is no coincidence that this monstrosity seems most at home in the company of other violent, inarticulate youths who are (frighteningly) like him. One of Doris Lessing's most readable novels, I highly recommend The Fifth Child.

Rating:
Summary: The Fifth Child
Review: This book is one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read. It really made me think about my own family and also about other people's family values.
Doris May Lessing was most diffinately put a moral into this story that over the course of the book is hard to figure out but in the end is very clear. I believe the book is really about society and how it turns away and tries to forget about the abnormal or strange.
I loved the way Doris May Lessing wrote this book. It is written in a very straight forward way. If this book has any flaws, it is the lack of character development.
I would recomend this book but I'm not sure to who.

Rating:
Summary: The Fifth Child
Review: We have a pregnant woman where I work--relax, she's not due for a couple of months--and now, after reading this book, I get the shivers when I think she may be carrying around the equivalent of Lessing's loathsome but pathetic creation: Ben. Poor Ben.

Ben is the fourth--no, wait, fifth!--child of David and Harriet, who had produced quite a serene home despite running a bit amok in the baby-making derby (to the chagrin of many friends and relatives who don't see how they can manage or finance so many mouths to feed). They live in a gigantic house that they can't really afford, away from the bustle of London--but they create their own bustle with so many kids (and plans for as many as ten in total!), and frequent holiday parties, where the doors are thrown open to guests of all sorts. Many of the guests stay on for indefinite periods, creating a time-tested support network, including stoic Dorothy, who helps raise the assorted kids, and David's father--call him moneybags--who grudgingly comes up with the cash to help his less-successful son afford the little, densely populated microcosm of busy-bee harmony he has sired.

But then, it all changes, when Ben is conceived. Harriet's pregnancy with the fifth child is an awful thing of pain and distress and little sleep. Ben breeds resentment well before he sees the world. When he is born, he takes over the lives of everyone in the house, and those who cannot flee and stop visiting--like his mother, father, and siblings--face the challenge of co-habiting with what seems to be a little monster.

Little? Ben comes across as some kind of titanic, destructive force of nature--and the always-disturbing dynamic with his withering mother becomes the focus of the narrative; in truth, the only weak spot of this eerie tale is Lessing's handling of Ben's father, who seems to clock out of the story by hiding out at work, and when showing up, not displaying much personality. But given Ben's shattering presence, I suppose someone had to get squeezed out of the picture.

Harriet struggles to make the right choices when dealing with her cold, snarling troll of a child; she makes a few shocking choices, like sending Ben to a rather horrid place of rejected children, at least for a time, and neglecting Paul, the child who came before Ben, and who starts to scar from lack of nurturing. But through it all, it's hard not to feel for poor Harriet, never mind "poor Ben".

Compelling stuff that has led to a sequel.