Customer Reviews

The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five

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I first read this book many years ago, and had a happy memory of it. I was very pleased that a fresh reading lived up to that memory.

On its surface, it examines the roles of men and women, represented by two estranged, neighboring Zones. The first is pastoral, prosperous, and ineffective. The second is harsh, militaristic, and also ineffective. The two are not really reunited, but they break their polarization and isolation. Peaceful exchange between them is restored, and both are healthier for it.

Saying anything more would be saying too much. I was interested, though, that the nations seemed to imitate the mating of their ambassadors. One nation was archetypically male, the other female. The ambassadors, like germ cells, are living things that pass from one nation to the other, and are united. I never though about it before, but fertilization is destructive both sperm and ovum, even if somthing new comes from the fusion. The protagonists, the envoys of the two Zones, similarly suffer for the greater future. Other metaphors emerge from the story, too, and some may have strong personal meaning for you.

I really can't do justice to the elegance and peaceful pace of Lessing's writing. That, you'll have experience for yourself. Although this book is second in a series of five, they can be read in any order. Each book's story is unrelated to the others, but the set as a whole is far more than the concatenation of its parts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and eventually enjoy coming back to it again.

I read this brilliant and much beloved book of Doris Lessing every year. And I learn something more from it each time I read it. There is one page near the end of the book which is rippled with my tears of past readings. Each time I read it, I think that I won't cry this time. And yet when I arrive at the bumply page, my tears unleash yet again.

This is a profoundly moving story, yes, a brilliant and touching love story. Yet, it is much more than that. It is a map of transformation, one of the deepest, truest ones which I have found.

I am the author of six metaphysical books myself, and this beloved book of Doris Lessings, along with the rest of her inspirational "Canopus in Argus" series, has played a profound part in my own personal growth and transformation. For this, I am extremely grateful. Thank you Doris Lessing for writing so exquisitely about what is usually only known deep within our core beings!

This novel, the second in the Canopus in Argos series is a look at some of the zones alluded to in Shikasta, the first volume in the series. The Marriage is well written and interesting, between fairy tale and philosophy, and builds somewhat on conditions in the first novel. At a bit of a tangent however. It hints at the upwards reincarnation of souls where the levels of enlightenment live side by side although divided by barriers difficult to cross. Each level has problems of perception and thought that stall the rising of a soul towards its ultimate being. Zone five draws a parallel to Shikasta and hence to earth. The Marriage is required reading if you are going through the series, but is not as thought provoking or as original as Shikasta. Fortunately, the third novel brings you back to the original settings and gets you really thinking again.

I want to tell you all that if ever a book was more appropriate to read NOW ITS THIS BOOK.

LESSINGS talent for writing books that can be read and understood on so many levels is uncanny,This book could be about War and Peace or about Male and Female or Refined and Primitive, or about connecting with other cultures than our own, or Growth through emotional healing or different dimensions of being like here and "astral plane " or different planets people meeting and intermarrying. IT IS ALL OF THESE AND MORE . AND SO SO IN TUNE WITH WHAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING NOW ON OUR PLANET. I bought and read it in 1983 and it has been a life changing factor for me,it was on my course at Uppsala university. Someone borrowed and kept it so I was glad to buy new copy on Amazon as it has meant so much to me .Zumi Zeviar (Therese Sumner)