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A review by a_leos_bookgraph
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
2.0
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.