Fifth Child (Paladin Books) [Paperback]

Doris Lessing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 1996 | Series: Paladin Books

A classic tale from Doris Lessing, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007, of a family torn apart by the arrival of Ben, their feral fifth child. '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!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The married couple in this novel pull off a remarkable achievement: They purchase a three-story house with oodles of bedrooms, and, on a middle-class income, in the '70s, fill it to the brim with happy children and visiting relatives. Their holiday gatherings are sumptuous celebrations of life and togetherness. And then the fifth child arrives. He's just a child--he's not supernatural. But is he really human? This is an elegantly written tale that the New York Times called "a horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse . . . a moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's 1984." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Lessing's latest novel is profoundly disquieting, not only for the story it tells but also for the message it conveys. Harriet and David, both conservative, old-fashioned and out of step with the liberated '60s, meet in London and know immediately that they are meant to marry. They buy a white elephant of a house in the suburbs and begin to fill its many bedrooms with children. Smugly determined to create a happy family, they unashamedly sponge off David's father and exploit Harriet's mother as an unpaid nanny. The first four children are adorable, but when Harriet becomes pregnant for the fifth time, she realizes that this baby is different. Painfully active in the womb, newborn Ben seems more like a monster than child; Harriet thinks he is a throwback to humanity's primitive forebears. Howling and raging, enormously strong, Ben inspires fear and horror. After he strangles two pets and menaces his siblings, David sends him away to an institution. Harriet is compelled to bring him home, but his presence irrevocably destroys family harmony. Ben eventually finds his niche with a group of dropouts who become thugs, thieves and muggers. There this horror story ends, and we are left with Lessing's indictment of those in authority who refuse to acknowledge responsibility for the violence inherent in mankind. More disquieting, in equating Ben with the lower and, she intimates, uncivilized strata of society, Lessing seems to assert a message of upper-class superiority. The implications of this slim, gripping work are ominous. 30,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Paladin (July 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0586089039
• ISBN-13: 978-0586089033
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,913,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone..., August 7, 2005

By 

Rouba El-Ali (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fifth Child (Paperback)

I saw Lessing in an interview with Bill Moyer where she talked briefly about this book. When she was asked if she meant this or that by writing it, she simply said "No, you see, people always read messages and things, which I don't intend." "It's a story. I'm a storyteller." So I picked up the book... I loved it. I still do. I've read it for the third time this past weekend while traveling and enjoyed it. It is easy reading, yet it touches on so many subjects if you want to read too much into it. You can consider it from the "mother love" aspect or the way we dispose of things because they don't fit within our acceptable "norms" or the "troubled youth" or many other social issues... To me, the act of sending Ben to die is not any worse than the horrible acts Ben commits for being what he is.

I do not sympathize with David or Harriet. Not because they wanted too many children, but because they wanted to achieve their dreams on the expense of others. Harriet always needed her mother and David his dad. This was well known before they set out on their endeavor. So they consciously and selfishly continued their plan, until they were dealt a bad hand. They simply couldn't deal with it, they weren't prepared and it wasn't something that their parents can solve for them so their empire crumbled.

This book is different, unique and if you insist on having quality in what you read, this book delivers this as well. Hey you can even consider the genetic possibility of conceiving a Ben if you are into science fiction as well :)

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessing again turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, June 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fifth Child (Hardcover)

I was surprised to find the "experts" listing "The Fifth Child" in a horror category. This is Lessing as we have come to know her style of bringing you into the characters' lives quickly. You find yourself passing judgements alongside the fictional characters.
Though the book starts as a dream of being different by upholding the traditional values of family, it quickly turns into an understanding of the dynamics of family and friends who, facing an unknown, turn their backs and pass judgement on a loving couple who soon turn their backs on each other to preserve each one's value system. A family torn apart by what is considered the "curse" of the fifth child to this family who wanted children to the rafters, is a family you can identify with. A discovery into the heart of human, and perhaps "un-human" experiences of dear Mother Nature. I read it in an afternoon and wanted more.

48 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This one hits way too close to home, December 29, 2003

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Fifth Child (Paperback)

I keep expecting Lessing to deliver a high quality of fiction. The quality is there, for sure, but I have to wonder about how much is fiction.

The elements are all too familiar in real life. An eager young couple sets about raising a family, and succeeds far too well. They can not support their own ambitions, whether measured in dollar amounts or in units of work caring for the children. The fifth child embodies a tragic accident of birth, and the fragile sitation implodes.

I don't mean to trivialize Lessing's story - even when I saw what was coming, I was hypnotically compelled to see it through, like the proverbial bird in front of a snake. (I've also avoided spoilers as much as I can, so vagueness is intended.) Taken in literal terms, the story carries a gut-wrenching sensation that's much too close to life.

One step above literality, I parented a "fifth child", or tried to. It wasn't my own spawn; it had been cast out by it's natural parent, the one that hadn't bailed out long since. My concerns for the child were twice the usual: I had a duty to prepare the child for the world, but had a second duty of protecting the world from that child. (That unpleasant period didn't last, and I was truly relieved at its end.) I did not need to grant Lessing very much poetic license to see the fact in her fiction.

If I let the immediacy of memory die down, I can read the story at more metaphorical levels, too. I suppose that many parents have high hopes, before the reality of a pimply teenager sprawls on their couch. Outside of parenting, I know that I have undertaken tasks way beyond my capacity, with some silly faith that things would work out somehow. The more I rely on faith, the worse the outcome.

I understand that Lessing has written a sequel. To tell the truth, I don't think I have the stomach for it - and I mean that as a compliment. She is far too successful in invoking the dark spirits that resemble my personal demons, and no other author has ever come close.