The Fifth Child

Geschreven bij Fifth Child

Het boek zelf is erg goed geschreven maar die karakters in dit boek vond ik echt belachelijk, de keuzes die ze maken, hoe ze kijken naar het kind en wat volgend hun een gelukkige familie is. Overigens is het erg irritant dat dit boek niet bestaat uit alinea's en hoofdstukken wat het moeilijk maakt om de lezen. Wel was de levering en proces van bestellen foutloos gegaan, erg snelle levering en perfect product voor een niet zo dure prijs

Geschreven bij Fifth Child

This novel has a slightly disturbing plot which makes you think about choices the main character made and whether you would make those same decisions the same way... Once you start, you'll have to finish.

In the mid-1960's Harriet (24) and David (30) dreamed of a warm, happy life with lots of children and family around. David's father helps them buy a big country house with 3 floors, a huge attic and a big overgrown garden.
Harriet had 4 pregnancies in 6 years. None were easy, but fortunately, the deliveries were. Their relatives love to spend the Easter, Summer and Christmas holidays in their hotel-sized house, staying for days or weeks: David's parents with their new partners, Harriet's sisters with their children; other cousins, nieces, etc. A paradise for children and parents. After the birth of Paul, their 4th baby, H & D decide to postpone a fifth child for at least 3 years: Harriet is dead tired, dependent on her mother Dorothy to deal with daily affairs. These are the happy, often magical parts of this short novel full of earnest values and ideas about the concept of family.

Soon after Paul's birth, Harriet is pregnant again despite her being ever so careful. The wider family is worried and peeved. Was their advice ignored? Her 5th pregnancy is also very painful. The foetus kicks from the third month. Harriet's pain creates stress and turns the warm home into an unhappy motherless house, because she is trying, 24/7 to survive the horrible pregnancy of her 5th child.

When Ben is born prematurely after 8 months, this book becomes a horror novel: he weighs 5 kilos, looks like a muscular Neanderthaler. What follows is for readers to find out.

Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. She wrote a sequel to this family drama entitled "Ben, in the World", about how Ben survives, inarticulate, barely literate, unfeeling, with a primitive memory, in modern times. This reader has not read it yet, but it may be as great a masterpiece as this novel.