Mara and Dann [Hardcover]

Set in Africa thousands of years in the future, after cataclysmic events have destroyed civilization and towards the end of a new Ice Age, the novel certainly boasts plenty of coy references to fossilized and bastardized remnants of our own era. Yet, in spite of its futuristic veneer, "Mara and Dann" has more in common with many fantasy novels than with science fiction. Lessing's plot is modeled after a sword-and-dragon tale: their parents slaughtered, siblings Mara and Dann are spirited away from their homeland during the calamities prompted by an unrelenting famine and drought. As the heat wave advances north, they flee up the continent, searching for a new paradise.

Some of the reviews in the press fault the book for being repetitious, and those notices may have, unfortunately, turned off some readers. The New York Times, for example, assigned two inappropriate reviewers: for the daily paper, a critic who has shown a recurring and predictable hostility towards "literary" sci-fi/fantasy novels (and who, if she in fact did read Lessing's Canopus series, certainly doesn't remember as much of it as she pretends) and, in the Sunday Times, a little-known novelist and admirer of Doris Lessing's more "realist" novels who seems never to have read post-apocalyptic fiction at all.

On the surface, their chief criticism is correct: like many fantasy novels, this one employs a cyclical rhythm in its presentation of Mara and Dann's escapades--new locale, followed by capture or separation, then dangers and threats, ending with flight or escape. Although the story doesn't start with "Once upon a time," Lessing admits in her introduction that the characters in this "reworking of a very old tale" end up "happily ever after." But the critics entirely miss the allegorical (and, yes, political) undercurrent: as the two survivors travel north and each civilization they encounter becomes more "advanced," individual liberties deteriorate in more elaborate--and more troubling--ways. While journeying through a continent, Mara and Dann progress from the tribal culture of the Stone Age to the mercantile society of the Middle Ages. Their adventures may resemble each other in kind but definitely not in degree, and they "live happily ever after" only when they escape the trappings of "civilization" and accept an arrangement that values individual freedom over collective subjugation.

One could argue further that Lessing has created a microcosm of human history, but she's also managed to tell a great story. Indeed, instead of finding the book monotonous or slow-paced, I (like many other readers) couldn't put it down.

How will the brother and sister survive? How will they change? What is the meaning behind their incredible adventures? As they move slowly and painfully north, from one disastrous situation to another, North becomes a metaphor for everyone's search--the place where things will somehow be better. The place where life will have meaning. As always, Lessing is creating more than an adventure; it is also a commentary on the human condition, on the rise and fall of civilization, on the desperate human wish to ignore bad news and cling to a comfortable present, on the thoughtless destruction of the environment, on meaningless cruelty, on tribalism, on hope and hopelessness.

It takes a little effort to get started, to travel this hot, dry, dusty road with Mara and Dann, but the adventure soon takes hold of you and draws you onward. You also have to go North. This book is a masterpiece.

Mrs. Lessing's strong imagination and narrative control results in a fully developed future world that reads more like history than science fiction. The novel is set at the presumptive beginning of the end of an ice age far in the future. We follow Mara and Dann, the two protagonists, on their quest from drought-stricken south central Ifrik, what we call Africa, towards the undefined North. A permanent drought has developed where they live, and the region no longer supports human life. The North becomes the symbolic goal of their quest, an undefined something where things simply have to be better. This is an heroic quest, but the characters are seeking a life, not a throne.

The book is brutal, and the characters live unforgiving lives. In a time when there is not enough, people steal basic necessities from others and look upon death in a roadway as just another part of life. Children die, are left in the desert, and no one grieves for them. Ifrik is changing so that only insects and reptiles thrive. Humans have changed inexplicably, but the protagonists have no frame of reference to explain what is different. Some groups seem almost Neanderthal, living in caves and rock villages, and some villages contain only people who are exact copies of each other.

As the characters move North on their quest, they pass through many cities, towns, and villages. There are moderately benign states that ignore the expanding drought to their ultimate detriment. There are river towns that live in more or less anarchy. There are states ruled by incredibly stupid generals. There are frontier cities where money is still the most important thing and women can be won and lost at dice. The pictures Lessing paints of these different ways of life is for me the most fascinating aspect of the book.

Mrs. Lessing continues to amaze me with the range and depth of her talents. "What did you see?" I saw a world that is hard to forget.

HIGHLY recommended.