Margot Schiavon Schiavon itibaren Guijuelo, Salamanca, إسبانيا itibaren Guijuelo, Salamanca, إسبانيا

The Fifth Child is a delightfully haunting little piece of literature that questions the nature of the family/family values on several levels. Though Doris Lessing often takes the tone of a children's story, the vocabulary and themes of The Fifth Child make it an experience intended for adults. Harriet and David, with old-fashioned style and old-fashioned (and naive) dreams, set out to buy a large Victorian home and fill it with happy children. They accomplish this a little sooner than planned, as Harriet keeps becoming pregnant before recovering from the last childbirth. Then the fifth child comes along, which--Harriet eventually assumes--must be from a race of the past, a vehement little beast with abnormal strength. It then becomes a story of how baby Ben affects the family and Harriet's sanity. Harriet's internal struggles are endless, as she must somehow distribute her attention to all her children while controlling Ben, decide whether or not to send him to an institution, and deal with consequences of her supposedly moral choices. Her regular doctor and a new doctor both make her feel that Ben is "completely normal" and that she is the one with the problem, while Harriet insists that she's done everything she can to nurture and love him. Who is right? The book presents an irony (I won't reveal too much) that deals with the attempt to save someone, only to have that person turn into a destructor; so as a result, you preserve one life but ruin many. Lessing tells the story with charm and force, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.