Product Description

Set in Rhodesia, this is the story of Dick, a failed white farmer and his wife, Mary, dependent and disappointed. Both are trapped by poverty, and in the heat of the brick and tin house, hemmed in by the bush, Mary finds herself seeking solace in the arms of the houseboy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41624 in Books
• Published on: 1989-09-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
'Original and striking... full of those terrifying touches of truth, seldom mentioned but instantly recognized.' New Statesman 'Doris Lessing responds more passionately than most writers to people or situations: often she responds with hate or rancour, but always with passion. In The Grass is Singing, you can feel the dynamo-like throb of a formidable talent: by its side, most novels of 1950 look like crochet-work.' The Times 'The Grass is Singing focuses on the blighted life of a woman whose spirit is destroyed by a disastrous marriage and by an environment to which she couldn't respond. More than any other white African writer of her generation, Doris Lessing is aware of the seductive cruelty of colonialism, and is one of our strongest, fiercest voices against injustice, racism and sexual hypocrisy.' Independent on Sunday

In monotones, this is a tragic story of emotional immaturity as it retreats to the borderline of madness, effectively projected against the sultry, faded, bleak country of the South African farming country. Its focus is Mary Turner, whose early upbringing by a drink-fuddled father and a bitter mother scarred her with many distastes, left her with many fastidiously unnatural responses. Pretty, girlish, and emotionally untouched at thirty, Mary marries Dick Turner, a farmer, is transposed to a life of bare necessities, loses her early restlessness to a later apathy, is only occasionally stirred by her hatred of the black boys who work for her. In the years that follow Mary loses what little respect she had for Dick when she realizes that incompetence underlies his many failures; she tries to leave him but is forced to return; and in the last years she is shadowed by the fear of Moses, the Negro whom she had once whipped but who now assumes an increasingly familiar power over her which attains its full revenge in her murder... ??The deadening atmosphere here, the external pressures which combine with inner weaknesses, all blend into a saddening and often compelling portrayal of deterioration. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Doris Lessing is widely recognized as one of the greatest writers of the second half of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews

Black, White - and the Greyness of human existence
A almost uncomfortably raw story of the inevitable tragic and shocking consequences when Mary is taken from small town Rhodesia in the late 1940s to live on a remote farm with a husband she despises. Alone all day listening to the screaming of the cicadas, feeling the sun baking her through the tin roof, enduring stultifying aloneness and ground down by the fight against poverty, Mary is trapped and helpless. For the first time she encounters the black work force and their close proximity has a profound effect on her sensibilities.

The house servant Moses in particular exerts a powerful influence over her as her mind begins to disintegrate in the claustrophobic atmosphere. Past a certain point their developing, unwholesome relationship is left to our imaginations; but it consists more of mutual fascinated loathing than love.

Published in 1950, this is Doris Lessing's first novel. It took until 2007 for her to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Brought up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), she witnessed at first hand the racial tensions and entrenched attitudes of the era she depicts.

Original and striking
Doris Lessing's "The Grass is Singing" opens with the death of Mary Turner. How could Mary's life have ended with such a tragic fate? As the reader progresses through the novel, he discovers Mary's insufferable existence, her life destroyed by a disastrous marriage to a farmer, Dick Turner. Mary is forced to live in a rural environment in South Africa for which she is ill-suited. Furthermore, Mary's relationship with her husband rapidly deteriorates as she realises that Dick is unable to manage the farm successfully and they are constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. A truly superb novel, tragic and moving to the very last line. Mrs Lessing's wonderfully captures Africa's majestic beauty, the difficult relationship between the whites and the Natives. The psychological portrait of her heroine is exceptionally intense.

Powerful novel of poor whites in 1950's Rhodesia
From the opening pages this novel grabs and holds your interest - much like the opening pages of 'Enduring Love' (Ian McEwan).You are told the end at the beginning. Later the book takes you through the steps leading to the awful conclusion. The tension is held superbly right through the novel, added to this the descriptions of the sunbaked, barely fertile ground, on the poor white farm and the relationship of the couple who own it to each other and their black native servants are graphically very strong. The relentless heat intensity is truly unbearable. All this set in the rigid insular white farming society of 1950's Rhodesia. Chosen by our Book Club - I will certainly be reading more Doris Lessing.