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A review by bookpossum
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
5.0
For some reason I missed reading Doris Lessing before now. What an extraordinary first novel this is.
It is quite painful to read Lessing's description of the wretched marriage of two people who should never have met, let alone married. That pain is matched with the dull horror of her descriptions of the exploitation visited on the native population by the occupying Europeans. Their attitude is summarised in one brief statement: "A white person may look at a native, who is no better than a dog." (page 143) And of course behind all the harshness and despising of the Africans was fear of them.
A brilliant denunciation of the whole colonial system.
It is quite painful to read Lessing's description of the wretched marriage of two people who should never have met, let alone married. That pain is matched with the dull horror of her descriptions of the exploitation visited on the native population by the occupying Europeans. Their attitude is summarised in one brief statement: "A white person may look at a native, who is no better than a dog." (page 143) And of course behind all the harshness and despising of the Africans was fear of them.
A brilliant denunciation of the whole colonial system.