i wish this series would have ended at the fourth book and skipped the third. but whatever, even with the drop off of those two this series is still amazing (definitely) and important (probably).

This was a doubling of the first book in the Children of Violence series. What was enjoyable and engaging over 300-some pages in book 1 became downright tedious through 670. As others have said, Lessing may have realized "this is it!" and just crammed the rest of her life/fictitious-similar-life into the final book. Without making conscious effort, my brain was editing out several pages at a time, sometimes even whole story arcs that would have removed about 15-20 pages of text, to create a more concise story.

If you want to look deep, deep into the minds of several people, their motivations, loves, etc, then pick this up. However, there is so much here that is written down that does not advance the narrative or introduce/explain something about the characters that even turn-of-the-20th-century Russian authors are looking at this and saying "that's a lot of words."

For me this is like reviewing three different books, the one I expected and didn't get, the one that is there, a story of a divorced woman who goes to England from Africa and ends up being kind of a family lynch-pin, and an appendix in which the world has gone completely to hell in a slight connection to what came before.

I really enjoyed the first four books in the The Children of Violence, liking each one a little more, so I had high expectations after finishing Landlocked. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I cannot imagine that when she wrote Martha Quest back in 1952 she imagined ending the series like this. I get the feeling that sometime shortly after Landlocked she had some sort of epiphany. Or maybe she was just tired of the series.

There were parts that were really strong, but there were other parts that just dragged on and on. As far as the conclusion goes, I don't know what to say. Perhaps what is there was once considered a novel in itself, and she slapped it on the end.

Wow, there's a lot going on in this book! It's like reading several books at once. There's post-war Britain, cold war and communism, madness and apocalyptic ponderings.
At the end I was left feeling mostly confused, like I must have missed the part where the author explained the whole thing. After reading the first four books very quickly, this was not the conclusion I was expecting.
I wouldn't say that I'm dissappointed with the book either, it had many interesting ideas and thoughts plus a rather dark view of the possible future of humankind. It was, however, a bit too cryptic for my taste. The author uses a lot of uncompleted sentences and other broken grammar structures to portray the way the characters think. Most of the time this just left me feeling frustrated, like there was something that they wanted to say but they never really said it. Or maybe I just missed the point completely?

Very dense novel and not my favorite of the series. The story strays too far away from Martha Quest. The novel's value is in revealing Lessing's perception of history and world events and her predictions for the future, which are our present-day.

Ambitious, far-reaching, prophetic and terrifying; but also bloated, rambling and ultimately disappointing.

The four-gated city flirts with several themes but never really decides on one. The main characters are difficult to find any sympathy with: they're supported by myriad crudely sketched extras who come in and out inconsequentially, so that you neither notice nor care that they've been missing for a few hundred pages. Most die - I'm not too concerned.

A lot of the interesting ideas are contained in the appendices - disjointed infodumps contrasting the flowing ramblings of the book itself. I'd have liked to see them developed but really by that point I was more than ready for the end.

This book took uncharacteristic months to read - a real slog through chapters of relentless mundanity. Throughout, it promised much, but it never really delivered.

My favourite reading of the year! So true, so powerful and it still applies to today's society. It made me think a lot about how society has driven each and every character crazy. I didn't read the previous books but I thoroughly recommend this last one of the saga!