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Ben, in the World (2000)

Tekijä: Doris Lessing

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4221459,090 (3.31)33
The Fifth Child is Doris Lessing's 1988 account of marital and parental bliss shattered by the arrival of Ben. That child, now grown to legal maturity, is the central character of this sequel, a misunderstood, maladjusted teenager out in the world.
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Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 14) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
Lessing continues the bizarre tale of an archaic human born to modern humans in the 1960s/1970s through some genetic fluke. I kind of love this weird saga of a brutish neanderthal adolescent making his way in a world where he is unloved. His only salvation are people who alternatively use him or take pity on him . In both this novel and its predecessor, he does horrible things, but others do horrible things to him; his predicament is oddly poignant. The concluding scene in the mountains suggests we are not all that different from him. ( )
  jklugman | Oct 5, 2022 |
After reading The Fifth Child by Lessing, I was interested in finding out what happened to Ben, a seemingly feral child born into a family with four well-behaved blue-eyed, blonde siblings. Ben was the object of derision throughout his school years for the way he looked and his aggressive demeanor. His adolescence was a continuation of his threatening actions. When he was eventually sent to an institution, he was terrified and his aggression escalated until his mother retrieves him despite her family's objections. His mother was his only source of kindness, and she sacrificed her family life on the pyre of Ben's unrelenting behavior.

Ben in the World is the story of what happens to Ben. Eventually shunned by his siblings and his father, he lives on the street, and makes everyone who sees him wary. He is used and misused by a number of individuals, who see him as a money-making vehicle. What is heartbreaking is his grateful response to even minimal kindness that he encounters. I will long remember Ben, and his attempt to understand the world into which he has been born. ( )
  pdebolt | Nov 2, 2020 |
The badly needed sequel to the Fifth Child, but disappointing. Ben is now in the world - 18, legally an adult but still lost. He is a misfit in the truest sense of the world, and now knows it. Little mention is made of the Lovatt family other than a lingering hatred for Paul, distrust of David and ambivalence toward Harriet. Ben does not really recognize them as "family" but has been fortunate enough to find a few people who will look after him, offering food and shelter on occasion. These people are misfits too - an old lady in council flats, a couple prostitutes. There are many more who will take advantage of him by withholding wages, using him as a drug runner and promising him many things they never deliver. Ben sees patterns in these things, but cannot always see them in the set-up. He is a much more sympathetic character on his own in this setting vs. the Lovatt home in The Fifth Child. And Ben really is out in the world -- London, then the South of France, then Brazil. We learn a little more about him - he is primal, feral, his eyes are super sensitive to sunlight and he is a "throwback" but no one knows to what. What I didn't like about this book was that so many ancillary characters become the focus with backstory and motivations but really are not that integral to Ben. It was disorienting. Finally, in the mountains of Brazil, there are cave paintings that resemble Ben. That is the best scene in the book when he is at last able to recognize himself in others. That the people no longer exist heightens his alienation. Ben cannot be in the world, because he is not of it. ( )
  CarrieWuj | Oct 24, 2020 |
Ben in the world by Doris Lessing
I read the prequel [The fifth Child] in one sitting and Ben in the world also’. The Fifth child ended with Ben leading a gang of young delinquents as his family tried all they could to distance themselves from him. Ben is an abnormal child a throwback to some sort of caveman. He is tremendously strong and a sort of blood lust in him is easily evoked. In the Fifth Child Lessing focuses rather more on Bens effect on the people around him. Ben in the world finds Ben happy enough working on a farm he realises now that he must curb his emotions or he will find himself caged and drugged. He does all the hard work on the farm which is gradually sinking into insolvency and he must move on. He works on a building site but is cheated out of most of his money and lives a hand to mouth existence. He befriends a prostitute who finds sex with Ben exciting and her pimp Johnson is looking for one big deal that will get him clear of his debts. They get Ben a passport and his is escorted to Marseille carrying a huge payload of narcotics. Johnson’s idea is that because Ben is so odd he will not be stopped or searched and they are lucky it works. Everyone gets rich and Ben is looked after by the criminal fraternity, however when this situation starts wearing thin we find Ben able to cope with living in a good class hotel, people look out for him. A film director sees Ben and immediately dreams of a film featuring Ben, he arranges for him to go to Rio de Janeiro and finds a house in the suburbs where Ben is looked after by his girlfriend.

This fast moving and unlikely novel focuses on Ben. Lessing puts her readers inside Bens thoughts and feelings. Ben just wants to find somewhere that he can call home. He dreams of going somewhere safe, perhaps back to the farm or to Johnson. He struggle with his eyes which cannot cope with bright sunlight. He does not know who to trust, he has periods where he becomes morose and uncommunicative. Lessing takes us through the Rio Favelas where Teresa Bens latest nursemaid has fought her way up and out. There is a plot to capture Ben for scientific research, but it is thwarted and Ben is told that there are people like him High up in the mountains. An expedition is launched and the party go higher and higher. Ben with his huge barrel chest is the only member of the group who is comfortable at greater and greater altitudes……. The book ends in the snowy wastes and there is something a bit Lawrentian about it.

It is fast paced and our sympathies are all with Ben as he Battles against the strange world he has been born into. To be read in one sitting and to be read for its strangeness and for enjoyment. 3.5 stars. ( )
  baswood | Feb 20, 2018 |
(This review was originally written the day Doris Lessing died)

Because I am feeling a little maudlin. Doris Lessing did much to foster my love of reading, and of wicked women who don't follow the rules.

I read these books many times, most recently a couple of years ago, but I've never written a review about them. I thought it apropos to do so, on the eve of Doris Lessing's death.

These are both short novels and fast reads, and Lessing is certainly of the school of "don't supply detail unless it drives the story forward", which some people find very difficult reading, but I don't. And they are stunning, the first perhaps more than the second.

It surprises a lot of people to know that Lessing wrote in so many genres, from Shikasta's science fiction to the Good Terrorist's (my first exposure to Lessing) exploration of domestic terrorism and arguably one of the best depictions of the banality of mental illness I've ever read. These two are often shelved as horror novels, particularly the first one, The Fifth Child. And they are certainly horrific in their own way, but it's a sly, dark, creeping horror, not a slasher fest.

Indeed, the plot is simple: David and Harriet lead a perfectly charmed life: A perfect marriage, a perfect house, perfect jobs, and four perfect children, all seemingly with no effort on their part. Some people are just lucky that way. And then comes the unexpected fifth child Ben, and he is.. wrong. He is alien, unloving, unlovable, and soon enough, dangerous. But clearly perfectly healthy. So what does a perfect mother do with such a child?

The Fifth Child explores Ben's life until the age of fifteen, and Ben in the World the rest of his life. The slow disintegration of particularly Harriet's world around her, forced to choose between this one child she never wanted and who doesn't want her, or her perfect life, you would think the choice is simple, but it's far from it. For how does a perfect mother admit even to herself that she doesn't love her child, and he doesn't love her? What is love really? and what meaning does family really have, how far does that blood tie really bind you?

Ben in the World turns away from exploring love and family, into exploring what it means to be human at all, and how to fit into a world you are not made for and don't really understand. It's not nearly as good as the first book overall, but it does have some parts that are quite stunning.

Overall, if you haven't read any Lessing at all and have no idea where to start, I'd recommend two things: The Fifth Child, and her Nobel lecture from 2007. And then if you like her style (and admittedly, she was a stylist, and is not for everyone), then maybe pick up The Good Terrorist or some of the Shikasta books, or The Grass is Singing (if you liked her Nobel Lecture, head there next).

As for me, I'll be taking these two books on the train tomorrow, for another re-read in honour of a truly remarkable woman. ( )
1 ääni krazykiwi | Aug 22, 2016 |
Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 14) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
Hatte Doris Lessing im ersten Band die bedrohliche Aggressivität und das zerstörerische Potential dieses Jungen betont, so setzt sie im Fortsetzungsteil einen anderen Schwerpunkt. Zwar ist auch dieser Fast-Erwachsene voller ungebändigter Aggressionen, doch erscheint er hier eher als Opfer: Opfer seines Wesens, für das er nichts kann, Opfer aber vor allem einer Welt, die ihn ausgrenzt.
 

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The Fifth Child is Doris Lessing's 1988 account of marital and parental bliss shattered by the arrival of Ben. That child, now grown to legal maturity, is the central character of this sequel, a misunderstood, maladjusted teenager out in the world.

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