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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
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.
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.
Spoilers off ;)
It's definitely a great story, a lot realistic! Its ending kind of shocked me. The plot is so intense and passionate, definitely passionate. Also, power's role plays an important part in this book. It begins with power and it finishes likewise. 'The Human Being thing' plays such an incredible role, here.
Highly recommended to those who should appreciate what they own and who they are, more than what others have and who they come from.
It's definitely a great story, a lot realistic! Its ending kind of shocked me. The plot is so intense and passionate, definitely passionate. Also, power's role plays an important part in this book. It begins with power and it finishes likewise. 'The Human Being thing' plays such an incredible role, here.
Highly recommended to those who should appreciate what they own and who they are, more than what others have and who they come from.
A powerful, eloquent book with startling imagery that rises to a grim, shocking yet foreshadowed crescendo which dramatically closes the story, but leaves an imprint of its oppressive content on one's mind.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
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.
Mary starts out basic. Good job, super cute, a little naive and single. When she overhears her friends calling her simple and single, she feels the urgency to make major changes. Panicked and embarrassed, she makes the life sentencing decision to marry a man with little to no expectation of her other than to be a good wife and someone to stand by and enable to him to self-destruct.
Dick bleeds Rhodesian dirt and because of this, he is able to romance the very bruised confidence of Mary. While his intentions are to build ‘the good life’, he settles Mary in a harsh country environment. Unsuccessful and incompetent, Dick manages to hide behind years of ill attempted farming practices. Married to his commitment to the idea of how a successful a South African farm should be managed, he lives in constant denial as to why he can’t produce more than dust, drought and poverty.
While she doesn’t understand her husband, she is certain of one thing, everything comes before her; including a proper roof, a basic living standard, and respect from the good for nothing help. The neighbours don’t like her. The natives don’t like her. And her friends have all but forgotten her.
Depression, pity, disinterest, and spite take over her emotional capacity, driving her to runway to her old life. She quickly finds out the world has moved on without her. Her world has become nothing more than Dick’s shanti. When Dick runs ill, there is a moment, a glimmer of promise. But she has abused everyone in her path at the farm, and is respected by none. Her blatant racism throws her into a solitary strong hold, limiting her options to make anything happen.
Her final descent is devastating and tragic. So wasted and devoid of being able to function, she allows herself to be taken care of by Moses, the help, the negro, the nigger. As Dick slowly recovers from his illness, her own state of mind is questionable. She just seems to plumitt lower and deeper with every morning she wakes. Eventually, fate grows bravdo, and Mary’s life is taken the same way in which she was living it, with little to no regard.
Mary reminds me of the two faces of despair. On the one hand we are considered to face eternal damnation, on the other, an opportunity for salvation. Had she seen her position in the marriage as an adventure/opportunity, could it have been different? If she had fallen in love with the land, could she have been a balance to her husband’s obsessions? Had she been able to relinquish her hate of black skin, could she have formed partnerships? I doubt it. Her childhood laid the cornerstone for her future, validating her belief that she was a victim of circumstance.
I didn’t like Mary, in her old world or new. But I did have compassion for her. She gets lost in the societal expectations and falsified rewards of being a good wife. Dick is not an easy man. He is self centered and stubborn to a fault. I can understand the abandonment Mary feels when she realizes she was nothing more than a token for the farm, a piece in Dick’s version of the game of life. Does she have the choice to leave and start again? We always have the choice until it is time to decide.
The emotion I felt in the finality of her life was lackluster. The book and her life just kinda came to an end. No real reason. No real purpose. Just a shoulder shrug. I liken the author’s efforts to Mary’s life story; all that work, and then nothing. This is not a book that I would recommend, simply for the fact that you get all the way through it, hoping for some profound moment of empathy or emotion. At the beginning, with the introduction of Tony, it feels like there might be a twist to the story. There’s none. It just ends. C’est la vie. Let’s move on. The End.
Dick bleeds Rhodesian dirt and because of this, he is able to romance the very bruised confidence of Mary. While his intentions are to build ‘the good life’, he settles Mary in a harsh country environment. Unsuccessful and incompetent, Dick manages to hide behind years of ill attempted farming practices. Married to his commitment to the idea of how a successful a South African farm should be managed, he lives in constant denial as to why he can’t produce more than dust, drought and poverty.
While she doesn’t understand her husband, she is certain of one thing, everything comes before her; including a proper roof, a basic living standard, and respect from the good for nothing help. The neighbours don’t like her. The natives don’t like her. And her friends have all but forgotten her.
Depression, pity, disinterest, and spite take over her emotional capacity, driving her to runway to her old life. She quickly finds out the world has moved on without her. Her world has become nothing more than Dick’s shanti. When Dick runs ill, there is a moment, a glimmer of promise. But she has abused everyone in her path at the farm, and is respected by none. Her blatant racism throws her into a solitary strong hold, limiting her options to make anything happen.
Her final descent is devastating and tragic. So wasted and devoid of being able to function, she allows herself to be taken care of by Moses, the help, the negro, the nigger. As Dick slowly recovers from his illness, her own state of mind is questionable. She just seems to plumitt lower and deeper with every morning she wakes. Eventually, fate grows bravdo, and Mary’s life is taken the same way in which she was living it, with little to no regard.
Mary reminds me of the two faces of despair. On the one hand we are considered to face eternal damnation, on the other, an opportunity for salvation. Had she seen her position in the marriage as an adventure/opportunity, could it have been different? If she had fallen in love with the land, could she have been a balance to her husband’s obsessions? Had she been able to relinquish her hate of black skin, could she have formed partnerships? I doubt it. Her childhood laid the cornerstone for her future, validating her belief that she was a victim of circumstance.
I didn’t like Mary, in her old world or new. But I did have compassion for her. She gets lost in the societal expectations and falsified rewards of being a good wife. Dick is not an easy man. He is self centered and stubborn to a fault. I can understand the abandonment Mary feels when she realizes she was nothing more than a token for the farm, a piece in Dick’s version of the game of life. Does she have the choice to leave and start again? We always have the choice until it is time to decide.
The emotion I felt in the finality of her life was lackluster. The book and her life just kinda came to an end. No real reason. No real purpose. Just a shoulder shrug. I liken the author’s efforts to Mary’s life story; all that work, and then nothing. This is not a book that I would recommend, simply for the fact that you get all the way through it, hoping for some profound moment of empathy or emotion. At the beginning, with the introduction of Tony, it feels like there might be a twist to the story. There’s none. It just ends. C’est la vie. Let’s move on. The End.
Engrossing, but ugh. So depressing. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from a class about postcolonialism?
I was so impressed by "The Golden Notebook," which was a novel of high accomplishment, confidence and artistic command, that I decided to read Lessing's first novel, "The Grass Is Singing." After all, we tend to have a skewed view of authors when we only focus on their mature work without taking into account how they launched.
Good writing often contains good journalism. That is, it is able to elegantly give the reader the insight and background he or she needs to fully appreciate the story. Lessing is very good at providing information when she needs to. She also can be incredibly poetic, especially in describing a landscape, the colors of a dawn, the movement of muscles as men work or a character's disintegrating sanity. The description of Mary Turner's hallucinatory state in "The Grass of Singing" is a kind of prelude to Anna's dissociative mental state in "The Golden Notebook."
Despite all of that, I found this novel a bit hard to get through. It read too much like a narrative treatise on the debasing and disintegrating effect of racism and exploitation on white South African white farmers, with the Turners and the servant Moses being the subjects of the case study.
In the end, Lessing's sensitivity and penetrating psychological insight ultimately spin around rather than pinpoint the fundamental tragedy. The author deftly describes Mary in broad strokes as a creature overcome by the forces of African climate, social isolation, a difficult family life growing up, poverty and the social strictures of society. All of these combine to seal her in her own dismal fate. But Lessing describes Mary's psychology in fairly conventional, social and even behavioral terms, e.g. When Mary hears people at her club talking about her as a spinster, she reacts by wanting desperately to marry. That is too much respondent conditioning to seem more than plausible. It is a convenient device for the writer to move the character along on the assembly line to her fate. we never learn how Mary feels and thinks from the inside until she falls apart.
The same holds truer for Dick, Mary's good-natured but hapless husband. He is described as one of those stock characters who are cursed with incompetence, bad luck and the stubborn rectitude to carry on without improving or conceding. He is also riddled by guilt for sharing his wretched life with Mary, yet unable to address her needs, or to see her as anything but a reproachful hindrance to his true love--the farm.
Charlie Slatter, the Turners' wealthy, pragmatic and callous neighbor, is a very well drawn character, but his motivations are the very obvious ones of a shrewd and candid businessman. Slatter serves as the choragos of the tragedy--the leader of the chorus of white Africans who remain at perpetual war with the land and the natives and determine to keep a solid white front.
Meanwhile, Moses, the ambiguous man-servant, is described as an enigmatic colossus, powerful, sensual, perceptive, kind, attentive, indolent and arrogant. And yet, despite the physical descriptions of his body, his work and behavior, Lessing never provides insight into this deus-ex-machina of a man. He remains an agent of change, a delegate of Africa and oppressed Africans. His humanity, and Mary's acknowledgement of it, threaten the walls of apartheid, as surely as the vegetation and fauna will push against and ultimately ruin the white African houses encroaching on them. Finally, like many of the characters in this novel, Moses is more symbolic than flesh-and-blood, a figure in a morality play.
Lessing is most perceptive, in my view, when she is describing people in society. She has much to say about social structure and interaction. When it comes to describing the interactions of men and women, she slips into very basic terms--passive/dominant, kindness/pity. The characters' limited interactions and communication are either realistic depictions of people of that milieu, a deliberate indictment of her times, or just a sign of her own limited scope of interest.
"The Grass Is Singing" provides an evocative picture of southern Africa in the mid-20th century. It is also an interesting landmark of where Lessing came from as a woman and a writer.
Good writing often contains good journalism. That is, it is able to elegantly give the reader the insight and background he or she needs to fully appreciate the story. Lessing is very good at providing information when she needs to. She also can be incredibly poetic, especially in describing a landscape, the colors of a dawn, the movement of muscles as men work or a character's disintegrating sanity. The description of Mary Turner's hallucinatory state in "The Grass of Singing" is a kind of prelude to Anna's dissociative mental state in "The Golden Notebook."
Despite all of that, I found this novel a bit hard to get through. It read too much like a narrative treatise on the debasing and disintegrating effect of racism and exploitation on white South African white farmers, with the Turners and the servant Moses being the subjects of the case study.
In the end, Lessing's sensitivity and penetrating psychological insight ultimately spin around rather than pinpoint the fundamental tragedy. The author deftly describes Mary in broad strokes as a creature overcome by the forces of African climate, social isolation, a difficult family life growing up, poverty and the social strictures of society. All of these combine to seal her in her own dismal fate. But Lessing describes Mary's psychology in fairly conventional, social and even behavioral terms, e.g. When Mary hears people at her club talking about her as a spinster, she reacts by wanting desperately to marry. That is too much respondent conditioning to seem more than plausible. It is a convenient device for the writer to move the character along on the assembly line to her fate. we never learn how Mary feels and thinks from the inside until she falls apart.
The same holds truer for Dick, Mary's good-natured but hapless husband. He is described as one of those stock characters who are cursed with incompetence, bad luck and the stubborn rectitude to carry on without improving or conceding. He is also riddled by guilt for sharing his wretched life with Mary, yet unable to address her needs, or to see her as anything but a reproachful hindrance to his true love--the farm.
Charlie Slatter, the Turners' wealthy, pragmatic and callous neighbor, is a very well drawn character, but his motivations are the very obvious ones of a shrewd and candid businessman. Slatter serves as the choragos of the tragedy--the leader of the chorus of white Africans who remain at perpetual war with the land and the natives and determine to keep a solid white front.
Meanwhile, Moses, the ambiguous man-servant, is described as an enigmatic colossus, powerful, sensual, perceptive, kind, attentive, indolent and arrogant. And yet, despite the physical descriptions of his body, his work and behavior, Lessing never provides insight into this deus-ex-machina of a man. He remains an agent of change, a delegate of Africa and oppressed Africans. His humanity, and Mary's acknowledgement of it, threaten the walls of apartheid, as surely as the vegetation and fauna will push against and ultimately ruin the white African houses encroaching on them. Finally, like many of the characters in this novel, Moses is more symbolic than flesh-and-blood, a figure in a morality play.
Lessing is most perceptive, in my view, when she is describing people in society. She has much to say about social structure and interaction. When it comes to describing the interactions of men and women, she slips into very basic terms--passive/dominant, kindness/pity. The characters' limited interactions and communication are either realistic depictions of people of that milieu, a deliberate indictment of her times, or just a sign of her own limited scope of interest.
"The Grass Is Singing" provides an evocative picture of southern Africa in the mid-20th century. It is also an interesting landmark of where Lessing came from as a woman and a writer.
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.
A string indictment of colonial society.