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 character of the black house servant Moses is more of a symbol than a human being, and the ending-meant to be tragic-descends to melodrama.more The last quarter of the novel, however, is weaker than the rest. 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 character of the black house servant Moses is more of a symbol than a human being, and the ending-meant to be tragic-descends to melodramĭoris Lessing's first novel has the precision of a fine short story and the depth of a longer novel. This is a good companion book to Nadime Gordima's July's People, which at a similar domestic, personal level deals with racism in South Africa.moreĭoris Lessing's first novel has the precision of a fine short story and the depth of a longer novel. And it isn't the inhumanity they suffered under Sir Cecil Rhodes. The Grass is Singing would make a great film but would be very difficult to do in this day and age of pc language, publicly reviling the awful Mugabe and talking of how it wasn't good for the blacks before Mugabe is one thing. Not light reading, but not at all dense, heavy literature. It begins with what happens at the end and works, in a slightly unusual way, back to the beginning and thence to that end. The characters are beautifully drawn, very strong and believable. Leaving aside the political inferences which are not heavily obvious in the story anyway, the book is a good read. The grass is singing cicada songs, songs of blood, songs of freedom whispering in this hellish place on earth. 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. The grass is singing cicada songs, songs of blood, songs of freedom This book is a stunning exposé of why Zimbabwe has Mugabe and why he, evil as he is, is certainly no worse than that great white hope, Sir Cecil Rhodes. This book is a stunning exposé 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 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.more Their psychic tension explodes in an electrifying scene that ends this disturbing tale of racial strife in colonial South Africa. Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses - master and slave - are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion. 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. 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 poiso 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. 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.
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