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The Cleft

A Novel

By Doris Lessing

(32)

| Paperback | 9780060834876

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Book Description

From Doris Lessing, "one of the most important writers of the past hundred years" (Times of London), comes a brilliant, darkly provocative alternative history of humankind's beginnings.

In the last years of his life, a Roman senator embarks on one final epic endeavor, a retelliContinue

Critics

Saved by a Squirt

The Cleft by Doris Lessing 260pp, Fourth Estate, £16.99 A Roman scholar of the age of Nero possesses a mysterious manuscript from ancient times - times that he considers ancestral to his world, though they differ strangely from Roman, or even human, ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

Women and children first

The Cleft by Doris Lessing Fourth Estate £16.99, pp288 Doris Lessing has always been a novelist enthralled as much by ideas as people and, in her latest book, she more or less does away with people altogether. To be strictly accurate, her latest book ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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3 Reviews

Absolutey amazing ... how can she have read this without taking any kind of drugs? Her imagination is borderless

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eva said on Apr 16, 2010 | Add your feedback

It's interesting that the story is told through a historian's view yet the depiction of gender images is rather stereotyped.

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Eva said on Mar 7, 2009 | Add your feedback

An interesting book. It read like a historical research paper, but it was unique. I didn't particularly like the historian's intrusions, every time he saw fit to add something. I got bored half way through the book, but trooped on. I owe Doris Lessing that much. I didn't learn anything new, which is ... (continue)

An interesting book. It read like a historical research paper, but it was unique. I didn't particularly like the historian's intrusions, every time he saw fit to add something. I got bored half way through the book, but trooped on. I owe Doris Lessing that much. I didn't learn anything new, which is a prerequisite for any book I read. This book reminded me of that movie that came out last year, "The Wicker Man." I'm not sure what Lessing was doing here - perhaps experimenting? (chuckle) Some bits were funny, however I found that a lot was repeated, over and over. I suppose this book will now be an interesting conversational topic and it's worth reading just for how interesting it is.

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April Moran said on Jan 7, 2009 | Add your feedback