About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarperCollins

ISBN-100060196289

ISBN-139780060196288

eBay Product ID (ePID)1648676

Product Key Features

Book TitleBen, in the World : the Sequel to the Fifth Child

Number of Pages192 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2000

TopicPsychological, General, Literary

GenreFiction

AuthorDoris Lessing

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight13.2 Oz

Item Length8.2 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN99-089804

Reviews(A) fine new novel. Here is a work of great imagination with considerable sympathy for its strange subject. To write a novel based on a situation so improbable as this requires considerable courage, a quality that Doris Lessing possesses in plentitude. -- The Newark Star-Ledger As a work of art BEN, IN THE WORLD, like its predecessor [THE FIFTH CHILD], is a conspicuous success. It is, if anything, an even more controlled, finely honed and gripping work of fiction, a real pleasure to read. Lessing's audacity as an artist is undiminished. -- San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle Both [The Fifth Child and Ben, In the World] are the products of the same vigorous, audacious mind in battle against the status quo. -- The Baltimore Sun Far from resting on her laurels, Lessing goes from strength to strength. Ben's half-human ignorance, paranoia, and rage are magnificently imagined and vividly present on every page. The condition of the outsider has hardly ever before in fiction been portrayed with such raw power and righteous anger. Few, if any, living writers can have explored so many forbidding fictional worlds with such passion and conviction. -- Kirkus Reviews Lessing still takes quite extraordinary risks. A subtle meditation on what could possibly happen to a creature like Ben. He is more poignant than Frankenstein's monster just because he has hope. At times, Lessing's spare, sharp prose lets you see things as Ben sees them, as you have not seen things before. The book shares that uncanny effect with the best fiction. -- The New York Times Book Review Powerful writing from an author noted for dealing effectively with difficult human issues. -- Library Journal (starred review) Where [Lessing] excels is in the sheer power of her storytelling and in the visceral impact of the story she tells. -- The Wall Street Journal

Dewey Edition21

Dewey Decimal823/.914

SynopsisBen Lovatt can never fit in. To those he meets, he seems awkward: too big, too strong, inhumanly made. He baffles and he terrifies: those who do not understand him want him locked up. His own mother locked him up; then, guilty, she liberated him. But her unyielding love for him corroded their family; this fifth child broke the home into bits. And now he has come of age and again finds himself bewildered and alone. He searches in the faces of those he meets to see the hostility there, or the fear, or more rarely the kindness. Occasionally a gentler, less fearful person to fit understands his need, how hard he is trying it in. Mostly people make use of him, and he finds himself in the south of France, in Brazil, and in the mountains of the Andes, where at last he discovers where he has come from and who his people are. The Fifth Child is one of Doris Lessing's most powerful and haunting books. In this sequel, Ben Lovatt is loosed on the wider world; how that world receives him, and how he fares in it, will keep the reader of Ben, in the World enthralled and on tenterhooks until its dramatic finale., Far from resting on her laurels, Lessing goes from strength to strength. Ben's half-human ignorance, paranoia, and rage are magnificently imagined and vividly present on every page. The condition of the outsider has hardly ever before in fiction been portrayed with such raw power and righteous anger. Few, if any, living writers can have explored so many forbidding fictional worlds with such passion and conviction. -- Kirkus Reviews The poignant and tragic sequel to Doris Lessing's bestselling novel, THE FIFTH CHILD. At eighteen, Ben is in the world, but not of it. He is too large, too awkward, too inhumanly made. Now estranged from his family, he must find his own path in life. From London and the south of France to Brazil and the mountains of the Andes. Ben is tossed about in a tumultuous search for his people, a reason for his being. How the world receives him, and, he fares in it will horrify and captivate until the novel's dramatic finale.

LC Classification NumberPR6023.E833B4 2000