The Cleft: A Novel [Hardcover]

Doris Lessing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2007

Doris Lessing, one of England's finest living novelists, invites us to imagine a mythical society free from sexual intrigue, free from jealousy, free from petty rivalries: a society free from men. An old Roman senator, contemplative at his late stage of life, embarks on what will likely be his last endeavour: the retelling of the story of human creation. He recounts the history of the Clefts, an ancient community of women living in an Edenic, coastal wilderness, confined within the valley of an overshadowing mountain. The Clefts have no need, or knowledge, of men -- childbirth is controlled, like the tides that lap around their feet, through the cycles of the moon, and their children are always female. But with the unheralded birth of a strange, new child -- a boy -- the harmony of their community is suddenly thrown into jeopardy. At first, in their ignorance, the Clefts are awestruck by this seemingly malformed child, but as more and more of these threateningly unfamiliar males appear, now unfavourably nicknamed Squirts, they are rejected, and are exposed on the nearby mountainside; sacrificed to the patrolling eagles overhead, the sentinels of their female haven. Unbeknownst to the Clefts, however, these baby males survive, aided by the very eagles sent to kill them, and thrive on their own on the other side of the mountain. It is not until an unusually curious young Cleft named Maire goes beyond the geographical, and emotional, divide of the mountain that this disquieting fact is uncovered -- a discovery that forces the Clefts to accept and realign themselves to the prospect of a now shared world, and the possible vengeance of the wronged males. In this fascinating and beguiling novel, Lessing confronts head-on the themes that inspired much of her early writing: how men and women, two similar and yet thoroughly distinct creatures, manage to live side by side in the world, and how the specifics of gender affect every aspect of our existence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eminent novelist Lessing offers an alternative origin story for the human race, indirectly recalling the alternate world speculations of her Canopus in Argos SF novels. Positing that the primal human stock was female rather than male, Lessing invents a cult of ancient women called the Clefts, a name derived, in part, from that essential part of female anatomy. The story of the Clefts is bookended by the journal of a Roman historian, who interprets ancient documents stating that females were originally impregnated by a fertilizing wind or a wave, to give birth to female children. But one day a deformed baby is born, with a lumpy swelling never seen before. The first rape and the first murder follow soon enough, as do the first instances of consensual intercourse and the babies—the first of a new race, with a nature derived from both sexes—that are the result. Humor, which may or may not be intentional, is introduced into a generally lethargic text when women and men discover they can't live with or without each other, and the battle of the sexes commences. The novel has elements of a feminist tract, but the story it tells doesn't present a significant challenge to that of Adam and Eve. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Outspoken, prolific, and influential, Lessing has cycled through an array of literary genres in her quest to tell stories that protest prejudice, fathom consciousness, and chart the entrenched battle between the sexes. In her newest audacious, ludicrously titled novel––yes, The Cleft does refer to the aspect of the female anatomy you suspect it might––Lessing employs a classic framing device. During Nero's rule, a Roman senator with a much younger and more sexually adventurous wife is working through "a mass of material accumulated over ages," pertaining to a prehistoric all-woman tribe. The Clefts loll about in the surf and are mysteriously impregnated by the sea, until nature plays one of its tricks, and they suddenly give birth to what they call Monsters, but which we recognize as males. After the females' attempts to kill off the baby boys fail, thanks to the intervention of giant eagles, the two adversarial groups gradually discover that they need each other to reproduce, and that just as their bodies are different yet complementary, so, too, are their temperaments. As the good Roman chronicles, to the best of his ability, the way these early, contentious humans formed families and opened themselves to love, he marvels over the processes by which memories morph into myth, and history is assembled. As for Lessing, she overcomes initial narrative awkwardness to forge a mordantly entertaining fable rich in incident, discernment, and reflection. Seaman, Donna

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060834862
• ISBN-13: 978-0060834869
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,237,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay but kinda dull, September 14, 2007

By 

M. Cloutier (Cambridge, ma United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cleft: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Cleft is the new novel by renowned British writer Doris Lessing, author of contemporary classics like The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor. This book is the fictional history of a place called the Cleft, a fictional deep cavern that served as the center of a small ancient society composed entirely of women. These women, the Clefts, were the first humans. They reproduced asexually and bore only daughters. But then a new kind of child is born, with unfamiliar appendages; at first, these are called "monsters" and are shunned and mutilated. Eventually the Monsters, or boys ("squirts," as they come to be called), aided by giant eagles, form a separate village and as time goes on the two societies move closer together. This "history" is told by a nameless Roman senator who also interjects with stories about his own marriage and family, since although the story is ostensibly about the history of the place the theme is the relations between men and women. Parallels are drawn between his wife and the Clefts, between his children's development and that of the youngsters of the long-ago time he's recounting.

I'll admit I'm not very familiar with her works (although I'm working to change that as we speak) and I found the book a little tough going at first. It reminded me a little of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, especially that book's coda or epilogue. After a while though I couldn't quite figure out where it was going, and I found the tone to be remote and abstract, and the characters to be almost indistinct. Apart from the narrator and his family, who occupy a very small part of the narrative, there are no more than five distinct characters and they are not terribly well-formed and seem to serve as representatives for entire races and generations of people.

However, when I discussed the book with a friend who is very familiar with the content and tone of Roman histories (that is, histories written during Roman times) I was assured that these very characteristics- abstractness, representative characters and large amounts of speculation- were actually quite typical of the kinds of histories that Romans wrote and that Lessing therefore was doing a very good job of realistically portraying how a Roman would have told this story.

My friend also warned me that abrupt endings were also typical of Roman histories and to be prepared. Good thing, too, because that's exactly what happened.

When it was over I could see better the narrative's arc and understood the overall structure a little better. But did I like the book? Well, yes and no. Lessing is a demanding writer of challenging fiction; to me The Cleft wasn't the kind of book I like, it's the kind of book I admire. I admired it, and I would recommend The Cleft to anyone who is looking for just that kind of reading experience.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dusty Mythology, October 2, 2007

By 

Rebekah Jarvis "bekah1363" (Troy, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cleft: A Novel (Hardcover)

I won't go into any detail about the plot of this book because it has already been well-covered by the other reviews. What I will say is that I found this book immensely enjoyable. Where others felt it was dry or meandering, I found it to be interesting, not because it evokes specific imagery like most of the fiction I read, or holds any literary "special effects", but because it amorphous and open. This story reads like something distant. It is a myth, contrived by the author recently, but bearing an aura of a story dusty with age and still somehow relevant. Reading this book is like hearing a well-worn story told by a wise person. It is restrained, but still fascinating from start to finish. Overall, this was soothing to read. It was easy-going, captured my interest, and resonated with my beliefs.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HOW DID HUMANS EVOLVE AND FROM WHERE?, August 4, 2007

By 

BARBARA GERSHENABUM "BOOK MAVEN" (CONNECTICUT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cleft: A Novel (Hardcover)

At eighty-eight Doris Lessing has not lost her love of provoking, politicizing, turning traditional beliefs upside down, taking on any topic that she finds interesting and her wonderful sense of humor. THE CLEFT, the newest novel is her ouvre is a very different, though not particularly difficult or long novel, whose premise is that women came first and the creation of men was an afterthought. Needless to say some readers will be deeply offended by this notion and the way Lessing portrays the early inhabitants.
The narrator is a Roman scribe who lives in the time of Nero and has found an ancient set of hidden documents that tell a tale of a world nobody could ever have conceived. He nervously tells the reader who he is and shares bits of his life which humanizes him and adds to his verissimitude.
The story begins ages and ages ago, but time does not exist before and during the copying of the scrolls. He reminds readers that long ago has no real context in trying to date the events that are outlined.
At some time, in some place a community of "sea" women lived on a small beach surrounded by high cliffs and mountains. These creatures had no capacity to think, to be curious, to want to explore, to wonder why about anything. All they knew was to swim, sun themselves on the rocks, eat what the sea provided and give birth at the behest of the moon.
Their only ritual was to climb the rock above them that is called the Cleft because it looks like female genitalia. They push red flowers into the crevice and watch the water that flows through it get red ... then some of them get pregnant. They are called 'Shes' and have always given birth to "babes" who are shes.
Inevitably, one day a boy is born. These vessels had never seen one of these deformed, unacceptable "Monsters" or "squirts" as they were labeled.
As more of them appeared they were tortured, mutilated and ultimately left on the killing rock as food for the eagles, who also inhabited this strange place. Neither the scribe, the "She" telling the story or the reader has any sense of context or time frame.
As the story unfolds readers are privy to the fact that the eagles did not eat the children. Rather they took the infants over the rough mountains to a safe meadow and somehow the first group survived. As more and more babies came to them they approached a doe who lay down and offered her swollen teats to the tiny humans in order to feed them. She licked them and was the only mother/nurturer they knew. They all grew big and strong and in many ways were more industrious than the sea creatures they knew nothing about.
They built primitive huts of branches and leaves, they invented fire, they learned to cook and were always looking for new inventions to work on. Time passed. How much? Nobody knows. And one day a young "She" crawled over the mountains to see where the eagles were taking the squirts. She was frightened, overwhelmed and for the first time saw grown-up "Monsters." These hairy creatures had "sticks" sticking out that didn't look like the squirts of their infancy. From the time of what we know is adolescence these "Monsters" had a yearing and a drive none of them understood until the naked "She" appeared before them. They were begining to realize what their erections were for and as one they allowed their "needs" to guide them. The poor young and oh so innocent creature died during the gang rape.
But since none of the Shes had any curiousity or any allegiance to each other they never missed her. As the tale unfolds more Shes venture over the mountain and the squirts come to spy on them. Eventually the two find intercourse in common and both enjoy it immensely. Eventually as babies are born they make the connection between the "squiet's sticks" entering the Shes has something to do with pregnancy and childhood. The Shes realize that after thier behavior with the Monsters they no longer can get pregnant at the moon's desire. One of the most fascinating themes in THE CLEFT is that sometimes things are not what they seem ... and alternate explanations are fun to play with.
Doris Lessing penned important iconoclastic books like: THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, THE CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE, SUMMER BEFORE THE DARK, BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL and so many others that earned her a place in the pantheon of great writes of the 20th and 21st Centuries. She has written short stories, plays, a libretto, fiction, non-fiction, literary journalism, literary criticism, essays, lyrics and has won many awards.
She has never shied away from controversy and has always written what she believed to be important statements about the relationships between women and men, madness as a way to sanity, mothers and daughters and social injustice in a variety of forms.
She said in an interview that she expects her readers will probably hate this book ... but that did not deter her in writing it. Lessing has a sharp sense of humor and patient readers will understand that it is at work in THE CLEFT. Whether seen as a myth, a parable, a cautionary tale or just plain "weird," one can say only that Lessing, as usual, has written a book that demands attention, discussion and literary respect. In the note at the front of the book Doris Lessing says that after reading an scientific article that proposed men came after women she found this something she wanted to explore. Her inspiration has always come from the world around her and been transformed into some of the best literature etc. ever written.
THE CLEFT should be read with an open mind and valued for its ideas, presentation and value as a story that is certain to leave readers thinking "who knows?"