Cleft, The

Disappointing:
I've read a few of Lessing's works, especially the Canopus series, and enjoyed them immensely. As a result, I came to this work looking for more of the same: deep insight into human strengths and weaknesses, cast into a new mythology. It just never came together for me. The beginning showed every sign of promise: a parthenogenetic world of women, begetting their own kind generation after generation, with nary a Y chromosome in sight. Then the Monsters are born, later to be known as the Squirts, in numbers that only increased after startling first few. Despite this strong start, the story seemed to fall apart. Instead of the subtlety of her earlier work, Lessing seemed to rely much too heavily on broad steretypes: of men as irresponsible risk-takers and women as nags, of men all too eager to enjoy women's charms, and all to ready to discard them when a burgeoning belly means they're not so much fun any more. Oh, there's truth in all that, but there's a lot more to explore in the shades of gray and in the accomodations that each sex develops in dealing with the other. Well, even the best authors write things that don't suit all readers. It happened this time - 'Cleft' doesn't show me anything new, and I don't find the language so pleasing that it rescues the book from its other weaknesses. Maybe the best of Lessing's earlier work set my expections too high. Whatever the reason, it just never lived up to my hopes. -- wiredweird

Sounds Like The Truth To Me:
I've been a fan of Doris Lessing for over thirty years but haven't read anything of hers in some time. I loved The Golden Notebook and The Summer Before the Dark, and found Canopus in Argos, her science fiction series, fascinating. I was delighted when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. In truth, I was surprised she was still alive. The Cleft is tale narrated by a Roman senator and scholar about pre-history. He finds his information from myths and fragments of clay tablets written long after the time of the Clefts. It is a "sounds like the truth to me" story. The Clefts were the first community--a community of women living by the sea near huge up-cropping of rocks, one of which had a large cleft, a caldera that steamed with noxious gases. This community of women gave birth only to girls until one day, a "deformed" child arrived--a boy. The first deformed children were given back to the goddess in the cleft until one woman refused. Thus came the beginning of history and the beginning of union between women and men as well as conflict between women and men. Interspersed between the telling of the tale is the senator's life story, which has many parallels with the history. The senator also speculates as he writes, "We assume that because these people had shapes like ours, were so much like us, that they felt the same. Perhaps no one had taught them loneliness? Is that such a ridiculous question?... There is not much in the records, for instance of love..." Who knows what tales will be birthed next by the remarkable Doris Lessing? She is the storyteller of the twentieth century and continues her legend into the twenty-first. Her imaginings all hold a kernel of possible truth. by Judith Helburn for Story Circle Book Reviews reviewing books by, for, and about women

Not her best:
I recently read Lessing's "Fifth Child." I loved it and was excited to read another book by the same author. I liked the premise of "The Cleft." I really made an effort to get through this. The writing was awkward and the story was not interesting. I finally gave up and skimmed the last third. It was far into the last third that she made her point about men and women, but she didn't have to write the whole rest of the book just to stick in the anectdotal summary. I get it. Men are like this and women are like that. It does not seem like the same writer wrote "Fifth Child" and this dreck as well.

Interesting, but...:
Lessing provides an interesting take on creation in The Cleft, but.... I, a normally fast reader, took a week to finish this short novel. It just didn't hold my interest for longer than thirty pages, if that, at a time. While offering an unique perspective on the male-female conflict, The Cleft is just ... underwhelming. Borrow, don't buy.

Great topic, disappointing story:
This is my first novel by Doris Lessing and if I were to judge by this - I wouldn't read her again. But she did win the Nobel Prize, so I'll give it another shot with The Golden Notebook. The subject was promising and the beginning was really exciting. And then half way through I got a little impatient - there was too much repetition and I was thinking ''ok, yes, I get the point, got it 20 pages ago'' Overall - pretty disappointing!