One of postcolonial fiction's brightest lights makes mythic the
battle of the sexes. It's men vs. women. Or, less subtly,
"Monsters" vs. "Clefts." Lessing (The Story of General Dann and
Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog, 2005, etc.), manufacturing
a legend out of prose somewhere between grunting and incantation,
imagines pre-history. As if commenting on ancient lore, a Roman
senator tells of "the Cleft where the red flowers grow," a
Shangri-La soon to turn oppressive that's peopled only by
moon-worshipping women bearing the name of their land. One day, on
this isle of Fish Skin Curers, Seaweed Collectors and Old Shes, a
virgin birth produces a Monster, complete with a "tube" below his
navel and nipples that "aren't good for anything." As in old
Greece, unwanted babies are exposed to the elements on the Cleft,
and even while the Clefts insist that "there is no record of any of
us doing cruel things - not until the Monsters were born," they
leave most of the Monsters out to die or castrate them. Except
Maire, who instinctively mates with one of the surviving Monsters
grown to adulthood (they're then dubbed "Squirts"). In time, more
Cleft-Squirt copulation ensues (they do it fast, Lessing says, like
birds). The Squirt offspring are pretty much dunderheads who "did
not understand that if they did this, then that would follow," but
they're resourceful, making fire and suckling female deer when
their Cleft mothers abandon them. After a while, in this
anti-Genesis, an alternative Adam and Eve rise up: Horsa and
Maronna. Like all Clefts, who "always talked down to the men,
chiding and scolding," Maronna rules the roost; Horsa explores. But
just as he seems about to venture toward some new wonderland and
Clefts and Monsters achieve some kind of acceptance, the Cleft,
like Vesuvius, explodes.A dark parable, powerful yet baffling.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, invites us
to imagine a mythical society free from sexual intrigue, free from
jealousy, free from petty rivalries: a society free from men. An
old Roman senator embarks on what may be his last endeavour: the
retelling of the story of human creation. He recounts the history
of the Clefts, an ancient community of women living in an Edenic,
coastal wilderness, in the valley of an overshadowing mountain. The
Clefts have no need, or knowledge, of men - childbirth is
controlled through the cycles of the moon, and their children are
always female. But with the birth of a strange, new child - a boy -
the harmony of their community is thrown into jeopardy. At first,
the Clefts are awestruck by this seemingly malformed child, but as
more and more of these threateningly unfamiliar males appear, they
are rejected, and are exposed on the nearby mountainside,
sacrificed to the patrolling eagles overhead. Unbeknownst to the
Clefts, however, these baby males survive, aided by the eagles, and
thrive on the other side of the mountain. It is not until a curious
young Cleft named Maire goes beyond the geographical, and
emotional, divide of the mountain that this disquieting fact is
uncovered - forcing the Clefts to accept the prospect of a now
shared world, and the possible vengeance of the wronged males. In
this fascinating and beguiling novel, Lessing confronts head-on the
themes that inspired much of her early writing: how men and women,
two similar and yet thoroughly distinct creatures, manage to live
side by side in the world, and how the specifics of gender affect
every aspect of our existence.
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