This year I've read crappy books and I've read outstanding books, but this is the first one that bored me to sleep. Luckily, I read it on the Greyhound, so snoozing was pretty much the best thing I could have done. Thanks, Doris.

Maybe it's just different tastes. I feel like Lessing created a few flashes of a story I'd be interested in reading. Where were the gathering tribes going? What were all those people doing to scavenge the parts they sold in collected markets? What happened to folks picked up by the powers that be? What was the deal with the cat-dog? I wanted to know more about the amoral children living in the sewers and the sexual morals created in an end-times situation.

Instead I got a sort of dreamy, drifty, shoulder-shrugging, oblivious side view of the whole affair. A story about a girl's first experience with love and sex, but without any real passion applied to the tale telling. And something about an alternate reality that may or may not exist only in the narrator's mind.

final thought: Not my cup of tea, but there was enough happening around the borders that I wouldn't refuse to try another of her novels. ( )

Although I'm not done with this book, I don't think I'll be finishing it any time soon. Even though Doria Russell is a great writer and a unique one, this book just wasn't for me. ( )

http://home.comcast.net/~tonydal/wise... ( )

Doris Lessing lends her considerable talents to this post-apocalytic tale. The narrator is a mature women given the responsibility of caring for a twelve year old child in the flat of an apartment block. The city is changed and gangs are roaming the now lawless streets. The child begins to build a life outside the confines of the flat whilst the woman escapes into an alternate reality that she supposes exists behind one wall. A strange half dog/cat creature is featured and its ambiguity is reflected in the story as it develops. ( )