Ben, in the World - Softcover

Lessing, Doris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006552293 ISBN 13: 9780006552291

Publisher: Flamingo, 2001

Synopsis

From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the sequel to one of her most celebrated novels, ‘The Fifth Child’.

‘The Fifth Child’, Doris Lessing’s 1988 novel, made a powerful impact on publication. Its account of idyllic marital and parental bliss shattered by the arrival of the feral fifth child of the Lovatts made for unnerving and compulsive reading. That child, Ben, is the central character of this sequel, which picks up the fable at the end of his childhood and takes our primal, misunderstood, maladjusted teenager out into the world. He meets mostly with mockery, fear and incomprehension, but with just enough kindness and openness to keep him afloat as his adventures take him from London to the south of France and on to South America in his restless quest for community, companionship and peace.

Lessing employs a plain, unadorned prose fit for fables; again, we have a childlike perspective at the heart of the book; again, the world in all its malevolence and misapprehension swirls around at the edge, while, occasionally, a strong character steps forward to try to set a good example.

About this title

About the Author

Doris Lessing was one of the most important writers of the second half of the 20th-century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist. In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". She died in 2013.

From the Back Cover

"Outstanding… A tour de force that poses stark equations about modern-day Britain and what it is to be human."
SUNDAY TIMES

"'Ben in the World' picks up the story of Ben Lovatt, the neanderthal anti-child who in 'The Fifth Child' experiences the family as an engine of hatred, rejection and perfectionism mobilised against him. Now an adult, Ben inhabits the world of the modern freak: the world of the homeless, the unregistered and the unwanted. With the mind of a child in a giant, simian body, he is at once vulnerable and threatening capable of violence. and terribly dependent on approval and trust… Lessing has a striking ability to illustrate human moral worth through such a simple lens. In this short, gripping and tragic novel, she conveys a powerful message about the limits of love and the destructive power of selfishness; and most of all our brutal desire to live our lives unfettered by the helpless, by those who slow us down with their need for kindness."
RACHEL CUSK, 'Sunday Express'

"As a sardonic yet passionate commentary on difference, the book stands on its own. But readers who admired 'The Fifth Child' will find in it something familiar yet breathtakingly unexpected, as the monstrous child from that novel is endowed with recognisable emotions and allowed to speak."
JOAN SMITH, 'Sunday Times'

"'Ben in the Wild' is huge in scope, humanity and pathos. Lessing created a monster; her triumph is that he not only personifies the human yearning to belong, but that we also come to love him."
SHENA MACKAY, 'Daily Telegraph'

"Hugely compelling, fantastically moving, shot through with a sense of the precariousness of life."
CHRISTINA PATTERSON, 'Independent'

Edition details

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006552293
• ISBN 13: 9780006552291
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192