The novel “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” by Doris Lessing was published for the first time in 1980. It’s the second novel of the Canopus in Argos series and follows “Shikasta“.

The Providers decided that Al-Ith, the Queen of Zone Three, must marry Ben-Ata, the King of Zone Four as a solution to the problem of the fertility collapse of both humans and animals in the two Zones. The two sovereigns embody the practically opposite characteristics of their original Zones and their relationship, that neither of them wanted, is complicated from the beginning.

Initially, each of the two spouses is baffled by characteristics of the other they finds incomprehensible yet the contact between the two of them starts a change in them that also leads to a better mutual understanding. Their paths remain personal while the Providers have their plans that involve Zone Five as well.

In “Shikasta”, Doris Lessing introduced the story of a planet that was an increasingly transparent allegory of the Earth. The author took inspiration in various themes related to spirituality and mysticism that she studied and used levels of consciousness taken from Sufism to create the Zones on Shikasta. This concept becomes central in “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five”, in which the story is concentrated in a relatively short period, unlike the first novel, which embraced the entire history of humanity.

“Shikasta” and “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” can be read independently because the author started with the idea of ​​writing only the first one and then had more ideas linked to it in the setting but to be told in an autonomous plot with other characters.

“The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” is classified as science fiction but Doris Lessing interpreted this genre in a very personal way by adding elements of other genres mixed in various ways in the novels of the Canopus in Argos series. In this second novel the setting makes it some way a fairytale, a feeling reinforced by the fact that the era in which the story is set is unspecified. It’s definitely a fairy tale for adults with a complex allegory and sometimes Doris Lessing is crude in telling it.

The underlying theme of gender conflict is certainly not new but the author develops it within the fictional universe of Shikasta. The Zones, with their spiritual value, are a first key of interpretation. In “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” Doris Lessing also added a feminist component and again she interpreted it in a personal way that’s far from trivial.

Zone Three is what can be called a matriarchal utopia but the author doesn’t idealize it blindly. The stagnation that drives the Providers, the mysterious rulers of the Zones, to order the marriage between Al-Ith, the Queen of Zone Three, and Ben-Ata, the King of Zone Four, struck Zone Three too.

The meeting between the two protagonists changes both with a series of consequences that in the course of the novel also involve Zone Five. Their mutual knowledge and the changes that take place in Al-Ith and Ben-Ata over time that they live together offer a series of points for reflection, including on maternity and paternity.

In some cases some remarks are explicitly offered by the Chroniclers who telle the story mostly in the third person occasionally switching to the first person. The novel’s subtitle is “As Narrated by the Chroniclers of Zone Three” exactly referring to them.

The plot of “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” is linear and years after its publication it was adapted into an opera of which Doris Lessing wrote the libretto and composer Philip Glass the music. The superficial simplicity hides a complexity of contents on which the reader can reflect. It’s a novel very different from “Shikasta” and could appeal to readers who are specifically interested in the themes developed in it.