BEN IN THE WORLD (SIGNED)

LESSING, DORIS

ISBN 10: 0060196289 / ISBN 13: 9780060196288

Published by Harper, 2000

About this Item

HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2000. First Edition. An As New copy in black boards with gilt spine lettering in an As New illustrated dustwrapper. Book and jacket are pristine. In the predecessor to this book, The Fifth Child, Lessing described the birth of Ben into a happy family with four other children, Because he is so difficult, subsequent events lead to a horror story for all. Here, in the sequel, we find Ben grown up, bewildered and alone. He travels to France, Brazil, and ultimately to the mountains of the Andes, where at least he discovers where he has come from and who his people are. The dramatic finale grips most readers in this strong story by the Nobel Laureate. Lessing has signed this copy on the title page. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing directly on the title page; The sequel to The Fifth Child. Ben is now eighteen and must become part of the world even though he can never fit it. He is too huge and awkward, too strange. Alone and estranged from his family, he travels to London, France, Brazil and the Andes, searching for his people and a reason for his being. How will the world receive him and how will he fare? First US Edition; First Printing; Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 29844 More information about.

Seller Inventory # 010047

Bibliographic Details

• Title: BEN IN THE WORLD (SIGNED)
• Publisher: Harper
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060196289
• ISBN 13: 9780060196288
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

A sequel to The Fifth Child finds a grown Ben in the care of good-hearted prostitute Rita and her boyfriend, who enlists the unknowing Ben to help him transport drugs to Paris. 30,000 first printing.

Review

Described as "one of the world's great living writers', Doris Lessing's fiction continues to compel, and surprise, her readers. In the context of Lessing's writing career, the tale of Ben, in the World, the sequel to Lessing's powerful The Fifth Child (1988), is a long, and complex, one. It goes back (at least) to 1957, and the appearance of her short story, "The eye of God in paradise" (included in The Habit of Loving). That story includes the description of a child, "a desperate, wild, suffering little creature", who bites if you get close to him. That child haunts both Mary Parrish (the protagonist of the story) and, it seems, Doris Lessing. She returns to him in The Fifth Child, a short novel dedicated to the problem of how to tell the difference of "Ben": the fifth child born to an idyllic middle-class family. Who, or what, is Ben? Beast, goblin, throwback, alien, or a "normal healthy fine baby"? Wrestling with that question--the ethical difficulty posed by the appearance of difference at the heart of "normal" life--The Fifth Child allows for a hesitation in knowing what, or how, to think about Ben. Ben, in the World pursues the theme, but with far more certainty. Now eighteen, but looking thirty-five, Ben is estranged from his family, forced to find his way in a basically hostile world: "And Ben left: he had no home in this world." By now, Lessing knows him well; the narrative voice constantly intervenes to direct the reader's response to Ben, to the people who surround him and his (sometimes unlikely) experiences in Europe and South America. The misery, and alienation, of Ben's life remains Lessing's preoccupation, offset only by the friendship of the odd individuals she depicts so skilfully--and, finally, the waywardness of Ben's quest to find people like himself. Vicky Lebeau