Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog: A Novel [Paperback]

Doris Lessing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2006

Dann is grown up now, hunting for knowledge and despondent over the inadequacies of his civilization. With his trusted companions—Mara's daughter, his hope for the future; the abandoned child-soldier Griot, who discovers the meaning of love and the ability to sing stories; and the snow dog, a faithful friend who brings him back from the depths of despair—Dann embarks on a strange and captivating adventure in a suddenly colder, more watery climate in the north.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This sequel to Lessing's futuristic novel Mara and Dann continues the saga of Dann, the refugee boy prince of the Mahondi, who searched with his older sister Mara for habitable land on a planet Earth beset by a new ice age. Several characters from that novel reappear, including Griot, a soldier who served under Dann, but Mara has died in childbirth. Grief deafens General Dann to the pleas of those who believe he alone can save civilization from the warring chaos of displaced populations. Lessing's long literary career includes much science fiction (the Canopus in Argos series), but this dystopia, underscored by its reluctant hero's existential dilemma—why go on just to go on?—resembles a classical myth, albeit one with no gods to intervene. As Dann disastrously tries to assuage his grief with opium, loyal Griot raises an army and finds a repository of books that preserves the wisdom of lost civilizations. Less of an adventure story than its predecessor, this sequel requires patience through several repetitive passages devoted to Dann's refusal to act. But that is a small price to pay for Lessing's acute observations. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In Mara and Dann (1999), the orphaned brother and sister survive their perilous adventure as they slog across the devastated continent of Ifrik thousands of years in the future, and they finally separate knowing that their passion cannot be consummated. Now Dann is grief-stricken to learn that his sister has died in childbirth. A respected general, he has left his own demonic wife and child, but he meets up with Mara's child, Tamar, and loves her as his own, training her to take over as leader of his people. The intimate family connection, the "passionate shyness," is exquisitely rendered. Unfortunately, Tamar only arrives three-quarters of the way through the story. To get there, one must slog through endless generic journeys in a future world destroyed by drought, floods, ice, and mud, with armies of refugees fleeing war and famine. Of course, the message does connect with the dire warnings in today's disasters. But the drama is in the personal, not only Dann's family but also his bond with his loyal snow dog and his friendship with his army officer Griot. Clearly there is plenty more to come. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060530138
• ISBN-13: 978-0060530136
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A theme driven, thought provoking piece, December 19, 2006

By 

C. R. Eads (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am currently reading "The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog: A Novel." It's the sequel to Mara and Dann which is number one on my favorites list. This book reads in typical Lessing fashion; propelled by stream of consciousness of the main character. Dann's dilemma, observations and musings, presented in omniscient third person, is the sole narrative. The first chapters seem to be using the spare voice of one re-telling an ancient fable or distant memory. There are few adjectives and detail is saved for seemingly random moments and Dann's inner dialogue. I've already read five years of Dann's life and I still don't feel that the story has begun. There is only the barest of character investment. Seemingly important characters are introduced and discarded within pages. If you have not read the first book then I doubt you would feel any character sympathy at all. As it is, I am familiar with the world Dann inhabits and I am excited to return.

This isn't the desperate, fast paced adventure that "Mara and Dann" was but it does explore some interesting themes. For instance, Dann is obsessed with what he does not know. He is constantly tantalized by fragments of knowledge and remnants of truth. He is frustrated by the complacent incuriosity of those around him and it begs the question: When are we satisfied with our knowledge, world, condition? When do we stop asking questions? It has me examining my own desire to learn and I can empathize with his frustration of apathy.

I haven't finished the book. As I said I am still waiting for the story to begin but I've had that same anticipatory feeling in other Lessing novels and found that I was missing the story, the crux, because I was expecting something else. Once I realized this I could settle down and appreciate the challenge and story she was sharing with the reader. She is a unique writer and her style defies stereotype. Doris Lessing is a true artist whose talent and method of conveyance would be impossible to teach.

On a lighter note a "snow dog" has been introduced as a central character and I like stories that have fuzzy animal friends.

Read it if you are a Lessing fan but not as an introduction to her work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive New Novel of a Far Future Earth from Doris Lessing, December 24, 2007

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog: A Novel (Hardcover)

In "the Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and The Snow Dog", acclaimed Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing has rendered a most captivating tale about friendship, loss and love, set sometime in Planet Earth's distant future; a time when the world has been plunged anew in yet another great Ice Age that has entombed much of the Northern Hemisphere in great ice sheets. Humanity's great cities are but a distant, almost forgotten, memory, buried under these thick ice sheets or submerged in seas and oceans. In her latest novel, a sequel to her 1999 "Mara and Dann", Lessing focuses upon the trials and tribulations of the adult Dann, now General Dann, and the leader of a great army in the barren wastes of northern Africa. Dann must contend with news of the sudden, tragic death of his sister Mara, and comes to terms with her newborn daughter, and with his own wife and newborn child. It is an emotional, intensely psychological journey that Dann undertakes, and one in which he nearly fails, over the course of years that are so elegantly collapsed within the relatively terse confines of Lessing's novel. Lessing's prose has never been better, and she has crafted such a mesmerizing tale that I found almost impossible to set aside, even for brief moments of time. For those wondering why Doris Lessing deserved the Nobel Prize for her excellent science fiction and fantasy literature, then reading this elegant little novel may provide you with some intriguing, perhaps delightful, answers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The worlds of ghosts, October 20, 2007

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog: A Novel (Paperback)

"Mara and Dann," this tale's haunting predecessor (and, I think, one of Lessing's most powerful and imaginative and accessible books), followed its brother-and-sister heroes as they traversed the African continent at the end of an Ice Age many millennia in the future. Their harrowing adventures brought them to a farm within walking distance of the Rocky Gates (Straits of Gibraltar), the Western Sea (Atlantic), and the rapidly filling cavernous expanse of the Middle Sea (Mediterranean).

The sequel begins nine months later, when Dann decides to fulfill his dream of exploring the Middle Sea to see for himself the ice-covered continent of Europe and ultimately to confront the demons that assailed him during his trek through the desert. The subsequent narrative expands upon two subjects from the first book: the lust for knowledge that fueled Mara and Dann's transcontinental journey and the drug-stimulated schizophrenia that inexorably worsens Dann's ability to lead, as a reluctant "general," the refugees who make up his slapdash army. During Dann's period of incapacity, the task of running the army devolves to a sidekick named Griot; like many messianic figures, Dann requires a loyal administrator to smooth over the public perception of his bipolar outbursts.

Although "The Story of General Dann" will make little sense if you haven't read the earlier book, as a sequel it is both satisfying (tying up loose ends and expanding on earlier themes) and frustrating (leaving just as many loose ends). The book's pacing is admittedly slower and the plot is slighter: this is more a character study than an adventure story. Significant portions of the book deal with Dann's psychological breakdowns, with Griot's hunger for Dann's approval, and with their obsession with finding out as much as they can about the mysteries of the past. This sequel seems, in fact, to be a bridge to a yet-to-be-published finale.

Yet Lessing still conveys her preoccupations with the frailty of knowledge and our continual need to recreate the discoveries of the past: "it's likes seeing the worlds of ghosts.... We are looking at words that were copied from others, written by people who lived long before them." In an interview with John Freeman, Lessing spoke about this theme: "What pains me is that everything the human race has created has happened in the last 10,000 years, you know, and most of it in the recent years. An ice age would just wipe that out. It would. Then we have to begin again then, don't we, which is what we always do." The Mara and Dann books, then, are not simply disturbing fantasies disguised as adventures stories, but parables on the tenuousness and persistence of human civilization.