A harrowing novel that kept me thinking for several days about the difficult issue of societal acceptance of what is not "normal", not "nice", and not "like us", and the power of a mother's bond to her child. Set in the 60s, Harriet and David -- middle class, conservative, old-fashioned, with strong family values, begin planning a large family. All seem happy and well, four children are born in succession, Harriet is exhausted though content, everything is in order.

Then came the fifth child -- hated the moment his mother feels him in his womb -- large, overly active, very difficult, so unlike her other pregnancies -- regarded as a monster growing in her belly. He comes out large, ugly, malformed, repugnant. He is uncommunicative, has incredible strength and a huge appetite, and most of all, a violent and malevolent streak -- everything a child should not be. Very quickly, he alienates his own family -- his own father loathes him, the other children are deathly afraid of him. Instead of laughter that used to fill the house, it has become a house of dread. Ben, the fifth child, is kept in a cage, but the whole house seems like a cage since he came.

Harriet suffers a dilemma, as I imagine only mothers in similar situations can. She sees her family disintegrate, the personalities of her other children severely affected maybe even irreversibly. She is alone in this, her husband has disowned the "problem". All the relatives who used to converge regularly in big parties in the house, are now staying away. It is she who will determine the fate of this loveless, luckless, ugly child.

Lessing's narrative is straightforward, uncomplicated, but the questions she raises are dark and immensely important. How prepared are we to accept deviation, in our family and in others? What is the extent of a mother's love, duty --- to this child, and to her other children? Where to find the balance to be able to keep the family together?

This is a powerful book, highly recommended. ( )

well written old novel that I recently read. Harriet and David buy a too large house that his dad has to help pay for. Then they have 4 wonderful children and life is tooo happy until she has a 5th child. The whole lpregnancy is awful as was the birth of an 11 lb monster who destroys their life and happiness. ( )

The idea of a mother not loving her own child seems almost taboo as a subject for a novel. Such feelings just aren't possible, or at least they're not natural or normal, are they? That's the general consensus. I wanted to read The Fifth Child because someone said it put them in mind of Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin, which I reviewed here. They are both about having a child who is difficult to love. Let's be honest, even their mothers find them impossible to love. They do try, very hard, over a period of long years, but ultimately admit their true feelings. Both books are well written and I thought at first they were quite different stories. Kevin, in Shriver's book is a teenager who's killed fellow students in a school shooting before the story even begins. Ben, the fifth child to a couple who planned a large family and celebrated each child's arrival, is odd and frightening and difficult to control from the day he's born. We follow his beleagured mother and family from birth through to his teen years.

Then I realized that the only difference in the stories is whether they are related to us before disaster strikes, as in the case of Ben, or afterward, as with Kevin's killing spree. Each book hits tender spots and like most tragedies are not the easiest to read. But I think they both need to be read. The questions raised need to be faced-by everyone. Should these children be drugged? Is psychiatry or behaviour therapy enough? Should they be "put away" in cases where they cannot be controlled? Then there's the issue of blame. People seem to need to point fingers when things go wrong. Are the parents, especially the mothers, ultimately responsible for the monstrous behaviour of their children? I'm glad I read these books. I learned things, empathy being the very least of these. I highly recommended We Need to Talk About Kevin. I recommend The Fifth Child as well. ( )

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2007/10... ( )

Overview
The Fifth Child is the story of David and Harriet Lovatt -- a young couple who meet, realize they have common values and goals, marry and decide to start a family -- a family with lots of children. They purchase a giant house they can barely afford and begin having children -- one right after another. Their life is full and busy and full of happiness -- their extended family regularly stays for long visits at Christmas and Easter. David and Harriet are living their dream, until Harriet gets pregnant for the fifth time. This pregnancy is different in a way that Harriet cannot describe to anyone -- it begins to change her and the way she feels about the unborn child. Then the fifth child arrives, and Harriet's worst fears come true when the baby arrives and changes the family dynamic for the worse -- ripping the family to pieces and causing Harriet to question whether a child can truly be unlovable and unwanted.

My Thoughts
I read this book because of an article in Cookie magazine that recommended unusual books about motherhood. It sounded intriguing and a little freaky, so I had to see what it was all about. When I got the book from Paperback Swap, there were two blurbs on the back. The New York Review of Books called it "Terse and chilling...a witch's brew of conflicting fears." The New York Times Book Review called it "A horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse ... a moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's 1984."

I wouldn't call this inaccurate as the book did indeed read more like a fable than a novel. There is not a lot of character development, and the writing is very terse and cold. And although the book is set in the 1960s, I could not shake the feeling that the story was taking place in the more distant past. It didn't have a modern feel about it. I was also unable to "buy" into the character of Ben -- the fifth child. I just couldn't imagine that this type of child would exist; I guess that explains the comparison to Frankenstein. I'm willing to accept the idea of the girl in the Bad Seed more than Ben because the character of Ben seemed so exaggerated. Because of all this I didn't love this book (but I suspect it isn't a book that anyone would fall in love with). If it wasn't a short read, I don't know if I would have stuck with it.

All that being said, you do kind of get sucked into the story and want to find out what happens to the family and Ben. At the midpoint, Ben gets sent away to an institution, and the description of what happens there just made me ill. I was also very uncomfortable with the Harriet character, but I suspect that is Lessing's point. She wants to make you uncomfortable. She wants to disturb you. The main questions of the book seem to be: Can a mother love any child -- no matter how awful? Can a mother's attention to one child ruin the lives of the others? Should a mother choose one child at the expense of the others? These are uncomfortable questions, and Lessing doesn't give the reader an easy answer. I really don't know what Harriet should have done or what I felt about her decisions. It was a strange and uncomfortable read.

The Bottom Line
If what I wrote about this book intrigued you, then you might want to check it out. It is not a long read, and the writing isn't bad. However, I did not fall in love with this book and I wouldn't really recommend it -- I'm not really sure who might be interested in reading this type of book. I'm listing it on Paperback Swap so if you want to snag a copy, head on over. (I couldn't, in good conscious, do a book giveaway of a book that I felt so ambivalent about.)

If you have read this book or reviewed it, I would love to hear what you think or get a link to your review and see what you thought.

Excerpt
The opening lines of the book: Harriett and David met each other at an office party that neither had particularly wanted to go to, and both knew at once that this was what they had been waiting for. Someone conservative, old-fashioned, not to say obsolescent; timid, hard to please: this is what other people called them, but there was no end to the unaffectionate adjectives they earned. They defended a stubbornly held view of themselves, which was that they were ordinary and in the right of it, should not be criticised for emotional fastidiousness, abstemiousness, just because these were unfashionable qualities. ( )