The story of General Dann and Mara's daughter, Griot and the snow dog: a novel

In Mara and Dann (1999), the orphaned brother and sister survive their perilous adventure as they slog across the devastated continent of Ifrik thousands of years in the future, and they finally separate knowing that their passion cannot be consummated. Now Dann is grief-stricken to learn that his sister has died in childbirth. A respected general, he has left his own demonic wife and child, but he meets up with Mara's child, Tamar, and loves her as his own, training her to take over as leader of his people. The intimate family connection, the passionate shyness, is exquisitely rendered. Unfortunately, Tamar only arrives three-quarters of the way through the story. To get there, one must slog through endless generic journeys in a future world destroyed by drought, floods, ice, and mud, with armies of refugees fleeing war and famine. Of course, the message does connect with the dire warnings in today's disasters. But the drama is in the personal, not only Dann's family but also his bond with his loyal snow dog and his friendship with his army officer Griot. Clearly there is plenty more to come. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2005 Booklist

This sequel to Lessing's futuristic novel Mara and Dann continues the saga of Dann, the refugee boy prince of the Mahondi, who searched with his older sister Mara for habitable land on a planet Earth beset by a new ice age. Several characters from that novel reappear, including Griot, a soldier who served under Dann, but Mara has died in childbirth. Grief deafens General Dann to the pleas of those who believe he alone can save civilization from the warring chaos of displaced populations. Lessing's long literary career includes much science fiction (the Canopus in Argos series), but this dystopia, underscored by its reluctant hero's existential dilemma-why go on just to go on?-resembles a classical myth, albeit one with no gods to intervene. As Dann disastrously tries to assuage his grief with opium, loyal Griot raises an army and finds a repository of books that preserves the wisdom of lost civilizations. Less of an adventure story than its predecessor, this sequel requires patience through several repetitive passages devoted to Dann's refusal to act. But that is a small price to pay for Lessing's acute observations. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this sequel to Lessing's Mara and Dann, Dann is now a grown man instead of the four-year-old boy of royalty that readers met in the first saga. His initial exploits had him and older sister Mara looking for a place to exist on Earth after a major ice age has covered the planet. The continent where they reside is now known as Yerrup, and Dann has become a general commanding much respect and attention and has positioned himself as a leader in this futuristic world. Sadly, Mara has died in childbirth. As the world descends into chaos, Dann launches on a new adventure with a snow dog who instinctively pulls him back from the desolation and misery of his loss. Readers will be familiar with the many repeat characters appearing in this sequel, including Dann's loyal subordinate, Griot, who is busy rallying the troops. The battalion ultimately goes on to uncover a hidden library that may possess the secrets and wisdoms of lost worlds and long-gone civilizations. Unfortunately, this work is not as fully fleshed out as its predecessor. While its construct is steeped in the oral storytelling tradition, the language is often repetitive. Fans of Lessing will read this title, but many reader may be confused by the meandering passages. For urban public libraries only.-Christopher Korenowsky, New Albany Lib., Columbus Metropolitan Lib. Syst., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A sequel to Mara and Dann (1999), this book employs a similar terse narrative style, appropriate to people who for centuries have been adrift in a world of primitive technology and thought and violent social structures. This story of a wounded visionary leader, General Dann, his pragmatic second in command, Griot, his orphaned niece Tamar, and the loyal half-wild dog who guards and adores them, is set in a distant dystopian future, when "Yerrup" is covered with sheets of crumbling ice, and warring migratory peoples restlessly cross the parched continent of "Ifrik." To anyone accustomed to the moral complexity of, for example, Lessing's African Stories, this sober fantasy will seem to lack subtlety. In fact, all Lessing's work shows an identical commitment to revealing how power arises and informs relationships, and how the racial and sexual become the social and political. When Lessing choses to dispense with subtlety, as she does here, the mechanisms of leadership and loyalty, and love and possession, stand out with a sometimes painfully didactic clarity. Dann's adversary, a schemer named Kira, who is raising an army of malcontents, and by whom Dann has fathered a disagreeable child, is a quintessential Lessing villain: quarrelsome, greedy for attention, unprincipled in securing an advantage and careless of the well-being of anyone less powerful. She is thus emblematic of the narrowly self-serving behavior that has led to the collapse of technology and culture. Haunting the ruined repositiories of books left millennia ago, struggling to understand the scope of what has been lost, Dann has a sorrowful awareness that civilizations crumble "over and over again. Never mind about the Ice, we don't even need that. We can destroy everything without that. Again and again." Although this is a startling insight for a backward age, it will not strike readers of our era as a revelation. It is Lessing's ability to summarize a complex behavior in a sentence rather than the haphazard plot that compels our interest here. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In Mara and Dann (1999), the orphaned brother and sister survive their perilous adventure as they slog across the devastated continent of Ifrik thousands of years in the future, and they finally separate knowing that their passion cannot be consummated. Now Dann is grief-stricken to learn that his sister has died in childbirth. A respected general, he has left his own demonic wife and child, but he meets up with Mara's child, Tamar, and loves her as his own, training her to take over as leader of his people. The intimate family connection, the "passionate shyness," is exquisitely rendered. Unfortunately, Tamar only arrives three-quarters of the way through the story. To get there, one must slog through endless generic journeys in a future world destroyed by drought, floods, ice, and mud, with armies of refugees fleeing war and famine. Of course, the message does connect with the dire warnings in today's disasters. But the drama is in the personal, not only Dann's family but also his bond with his loyal snow dog and his friendship with his army officer Griot. Clearly there is plenty more to come. ((Reviewed December 1, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

In this sequel to Lessing's Mara and Dann , Dann is now a grown man instead of the four-year-old boy of royalty that readers met in the first saga. His initial exploits had him and older sister Mara looking for a place to exist on Earth after a major ice age has covered the planet. The continent where they reside is now known as Yerrup, and Dann has become a general commanding much respect and attention and has positioned himself as a leader in this futuristic world. Sadly, Mara has died in childbirth. As the world descends into chaos, Dann launches on a new adventure with a snow dog who instinctively pulls him back from the desolation and misery of his loss. Readers will be familiar with the many repeat characters appearing in this sequel, including Dann's loyal subordinate, Griot, who is busy rallying the troops. The battalion ultimately goes on to uncover a hidden library that may possess the secrets and wisdoms of lost worlds and long-gone civilizations. Unfortunately, this work is not as fully fleshed out as its predecessor. While its construct is steeped in the oral storytelling tradition, the language is often repetitive. Fans of Lessing will read this title, but many reader may be confused by the meandering passages. For urban public libraries only.--Christopher Korenowsky, New Albany Lib., Columbus Metropolitan Lib. Syst., OH

This sequel to Lessing's futuristic novel Mara and Dann continues the saga of Dann, the refugee boy prince of the Mahondi, who searched with his older sister Mara for habitable land on a planet Earth beset by a new ice age. Several characters from that novel reappear, including Griot, a soldier who served under Dann, but Mara has died in childbirth. Grief deafens General Dann to the pleas of those who believe he alone can save civilization from the warring chaos of displaced populations. Lessing's long literary career includes much science fiction (the Canopus in Argos series), but this dystopia, underscored by its reluctant hero's existential dilemma--why go on just to go on?--resembles a classical myth, albeit one with no gods to intervene. As Dann disastrously tries to assuage his grief with opium, loyal Griot raises an army and finds a repository of books that preserves the wisdom of lost civilizations. Less of an adventure story than its predecessor, this sequel requires patience through several repetitive passages devoted to Dann's refusal to act. But that is a small price to pay for Lessing's acute observations. (Jan.)