the fifth child
El quinto hijo es una novela de la escritora británica-zimbabuense y Premio Nobel de Literatura Doris Lessing publicada en 1988, que ha sido traducida a varios idiomas. Describe los cambios en la vida feliz de una joven pareja casada, Harriet y David Lovatt, como consecuencia del nacimiento de Ben, su quinto hijo.
‘Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other’s hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.’ Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt’s life is a glorious hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, ‘full of cold dislike,’ tears at Harriet’s breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness …
- Ancho: 13 cm
- Alto: 20 cm
- Fecha de lanzamiento: 02/04/2001
- Plaza de edición: LONDON
- Año de edición: 1989
- ISBN: 9780586089033
- Encuadernación: Tapa blanda bolsillo
- Idioma: INGLÉS
- Editorial: HARPERCOLLINS PUB.
- Nº de páginas: 159
Este libro ha sido escrito y pretenece a Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing’s contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society’s unwillingness to recognize its own brutality.Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an idyll of domestic bliss in defiance of the social trends of late 1960s England. While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their old-fashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby. Gruesomely goblin-like in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong and violent, Ben has nothing innocent or infant-like about him. As he grows older and more terrifying, Harriet finds she cannot love him, David cannot bring himself to touch him, and their four older children are afraid of him. Understanding that he will never be accepted anywhere, Harriet and David are torn between their instincts as parents and their shocked reaction to this fierce and unlovable child whose existence shatters their belief in a benign world.
