Reviews

This was a dark but realistic story about a failing marriage, racism, and class struggles. I thought the descriptions were sometimes too long, but they really shone in the moments that were important. The characters were interesting. As much as I disliked Mary Turner—she was a pathetic and whiny main character—I found it a bit heartbreaking that she never got over herself. She was a white woman who expected things from society that she could not obtain. Coupled with her hatred of black people, I think it was her mental health issues that led to her downfall.

She was married to Dick seemingly just so they could say they were married: she didn’t like him and bashed on him all the time. Additionally, she hated the household’s native servants. This was not only because they were black, but also since they routinely outperformed her. She couldn’t think about that happening because of her more privileged status, and yet it did. The black man Moses had even ironically been kind to her for a period of time before, well, she was killed. Mary never improved herself, but I guess that’s the whole point of the story.

The author did a great job at connecting various issues of colonization through the characters and their relationships with one another.

Content Warnings

enilia's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

andrew61's review against another edition

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5.0

Over the last few months I have read some brilliant novels by 20th century women novelists including Jean Rhys and Muriel spark . I hesitate to suggest that they are not as lauded as their male contemporaries particularly as Doris Lessing ended up with the Nobel prize however this book stands head and shoulders above many other books considered modern classics. My reading group decided to read this or 'The Golden Notebook'- I wimped out of the latter at 500+ pages but it did look intriguing and with this first my try of Lessing I expect I will try and venture further soon.
At the outset of The Grass is singing we visit a crime scene via a newspaper cutting. Mary Turner has been killed by her house servant, Moses, on the run down Rhodesian farm. The farm manager calls for Slatter, the neighbouring farmer, and Moses hands himself over whilst Dick (Mary's husband) is wandering around in a almost insane state. The rest of the book then tells us how this came to pass. Thus we meet Mary again as a hopeful young woman escaping from her fractured childhood and difficult parents to an independent life in the city. Lessing then plays with time ( a feature of the book) so several years later she overhears her work colleagues cruelly criticising her dress sense and her inability to marry. She then quickly falls into a marriage with hapless Dick who runs a struggling farm far from anywhere. Mary struggles to survive boredom and loneliness ( the farm is miles from anywhere and Dick works from dusk to dawn) as time seems to pass quickly in the turn of the page. She is socially incompetent so she estranges any possible local friends and whilst Dick recovers from malaria she is brutally cruel to the estate native workers a trait she has already vividly exhibited in sacking repeatedly house servants. Her only company is the natives or the dogs who move around the farm finding shade. Whilst she starts not wanting a child Dick does, however many pages on when she feels a child will rescue her Dick sees no point in bringing up a child in their life
The narrative continues visiting Mary and dick's life as they struggle to manage before reaching the finale.
Some scenes are riveting such as Mary's cruel confrontation with the 'slaves' (workers) in the field where the tension is strong as she overcomes her fear. Some are poignant as she unsuccessfully tries to escape and is confronted cruelly with her image now many years on as she seeks to regain her old life. some are tragic as we see her last days and her indignities.
There is also some great writing, I am not a close reader , so it was unusual for me to be struck in the final pages by a beautiful description of the changing skies as Mary is in what we know to be her last day.
The book is a great picture of the brutality of the life, the cruelty of the master servant relationship and treatment of native Rhodesians, but most of all it is a stunning portrayal of the destruction and breakdown of an individual. I'm looking forward now to exploring more of a writer who is obviously a twentieth century great.

sarareadseverything's review against another edition

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4.0

This book wasn't so much entertaining or pleasant to read - it's the bleak analysis of a failed marriage and the sensitive characterization of Mary Turner's progressive despair and psychological dissolution as a white woman in 1940s Southern Rhodesia. It’s a thoroughly implicitly feminist story, and an anti-colonialist expose of the system and the movement of poor people who try to escape their grinding lives by emigrating. This book is honest about the fault lines in the white psyche, tracking a farming couple and the downturn of their fortunes as a metaphor for the whole white presence in Africa. I said it was not entertaining to read, but it is interesting and enjoyable, in way... It feels like looking at human nature and the worlds we create unsparingly, which is powerful, even if it is difficult.

misslin's review against another edition

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5.0

A brilliant read. Lessing really gets into the heads of her characters. I didn't like Mary but I did empathise with her.
A string indictment of colonial society.

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