The Grass Is Singing

Posted on 12 April 2018 by Doris Lessing

Set in South Africa under white rule, Doris Lessing s first novel is both a riveting chronicle of human disintegration and a beautifully understated social critique Mary Turner is a self confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer Little by little the ennui of years on the farm work their slow poison, and Mary s despair progresses until the fateful arrival of an enigmatic and virile black servant, Moses Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses master and slave are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion Their psychic tension explodes in an electrifying scene that ends this disturbing tale of racial strife in colonial South Africa The Grass Is Singing blends Lessing s imaginative vision with her own vividly remembered early childhood to recreate the quiet horror of a woman s struggle against a ruthless fate. Best Read The Grass Is Singing [ by ] Doris Lessing [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr This book is a stunning expos of why Zimbabwe has Mugabe and why he, evil as he is, is certainly no worse than that great white hope, Sir Cecil Rhodes The whites in this book, with one exception, are all devotees of Rhodes and his brand of racism Rhodesia for the whites, the blacks are suitable for being farm animals as they are all simpleminded thieves, liars and hate the white man It s the same mindset as slavery really The grass is singing cicada songs, songs of blood, songs of freedom This book is a stunning expos of why Zimbabwe has Mugabe and why he, evil as he is, is certainly no worse than that great white hope, Sir Cecil Rhodes The whites in this book, with one exception, are all devotees of Rhodes and his brand of racism Rhodesia for the whites, the blacks are suitable for being farm animals as they are all simpleminded thieves, liars and hate the white man It s the same mindset as slavery really The grass is singing cicada songs, song...Doris Lessing s first novel has the precision of a fine short story and the depth of a longer novel This portrait of the psychological disintegration of a farmer s wife saddled with an ineffectual husband on a luckless South African farm is precisely realized and and completely convincing The last quarter of the novel, however, is weaker than the rest The character of the black house servant Moses isof a symbol than a human being, and the ending meant to be tragic descends to Doris Lessing s first novel has the precision of a fine short story and the depth of a longer novel This portrait of the psychological disintegration of a farmer s wife saddled with an ineffectual husband o...If this novel impresses from the very beginning it is because of the openness in which Lessing plays her cards in the first chapter The voice of the omniscient narrator glows with the clarity of objective facts that is missing in the rest of the novel, replaced by an increasingly suffocating account of two doomed lives that slowly disintegrate in polarized madness.The tragic end of Mary Turner, a white woman, in the hands of Moses, her black servant, in a remote, hostile South African hell is If this novel impresses from the very beginning it is because of the openness in which Lessing plays her cards in the first chapter The voice of the omniscient narrator glows with the clarity of objective facts that is missing in the ...The Grass is Singing is Doris Lessing s first novel, published in 1950 It is a savage and stark indictment of South Africa s apartheid system It is set in what was formerly Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and concentrates on Rhodesian white culture with its racist and prejudiced attitudes The system of gross racial injustice dominates both the society and this story.The novel is told in flashback At the b...In her first novel, The Grass is Singing first published 1950 , Doris Lessing begins with a short description of a crime on a farm in Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe MURDER MYSTERYBy Special CorrespondentMary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yesterday morning The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime No motive has been discovered It is thought he was in search of valuables.For Lessing, the In her first novel, The Grass is Singing first published 1950 , Doris Lessing begins with a short description of a crime on a farm in Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe MURDER MYSTERYBy Special CorrespondentMary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yesterday morning The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime No motive has b...It is by the failures and misfits of a civilization that one can best judge its weaknesses Author Unknown 4.5 Stars I was shattered with the outcome of this novel Disturbing Unflinching Compulsively readable It is b...The Grass is Singing is a novel of colonialism, human degradation, and an uncomfortable view of the prevailing attitude of a time and place, and yet, to me it wasso a powerful portrait of a crumbling mind Mary Turner is a hideous woman bitter, cruel, entitled What started out as a woman s resentment over a boring farm life and a distant marriage soon turned into something deeper and muchunsettling Sometimes people are broken so early in their life that it s impossible to ever be The Grass is Singing is a novel of colonialism, human degradation, and an uncomfortable view of the prevailing attitude of a time and place, and yet, to me it wasso a powerful portrait of a crumbling mind Mary Turner is a hideous woman bitter, cruel, entitled What started out as a woman s resentment over a boring farm life and a distant marriage soon turned into something deeper and muchunsettling Sometimes people are broken so early in their life that it s impossible to ever be whole, and at her core, Mary Turner was ruined long before adulthood and her neurosis was merely the lid on a simmering pot of rage and hurt The book opens with her murder we know she s doomed We watch as she flai...Colonialism in southern Africa both sides left in destruction Doris Lessing, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature, tells the incredibly haunting story of the disintegration and descent into madness of Mary and her husband Dick Turner, simultaneously revealing the scathing truths of apartheid ruled life in Rhodesia This was her first book, published in 1950 What a debut I m stunned, I have goosebumps I m unfit to do this book justice, to conv...Re read after about 7 year s break.One of the unusual things about this, Lessing s first published book, is the extreme omniscient author position she takes She describes a character s appearance to others, then swoops into her psyche to reveal her thoughts She describes someone s response to another person s expression and then jumps to his companion s view of him To emphasise her power even further, she shifts from objective descriptions of the landscape to characters experiences of it Re read after about 7 year s break.One of the unusual things about this, Lessing s first published book, is the extreme omniscient author position she takes She describes a character s appearance to others, then swoops into her psyche to reveal her thoughts She describes someone s response to another person s expression and then jumps to his companion s view of him To emphasise her power even further, she shifts from objective descriptions of the landscape to characters experiences of it However, there...2.5 Stars The Grass is singing by Dorris Lessing was a bookclub read.I found the book an ok read, I liked the setting of the novel and thought the author conveyed an excellent sense of time and place The story at the core of this novel is about race and the racist attitudes of society at this time in Southern Rhodesia.The book is a challenging read and I found the characters quite dislikable and a relentless air of doom and gloom about the plot The novel opens with the announcement...

English
12 April 2018

Doris Lessing