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 beginning of chapter one there is a brief news report of the murder of a white woman plus her assailant's arrest and the purported motive for the crime. The rest of the book details the events leading up to this, with Mary Turner, the victim, as the main character. It is many-layered, the characters being not only individuals in their own right, but also "types" indicating the strata of complex society in South Africa at that time in history. The local culture is not rich and the humiliating results of poverty are always apparent.Before the long flashback, however, we have chapter one, which is particularly hard to read. The attitudes by each character, whilst varying in degrees, display such incipient arrogance and complicit acceptance of both the corrupt regime and its hidden implications, that the reader is all too aware that these views are only the tip of the iceberg. It is a manipulative and exceptionally well crafted piece of writing. One character, Tony Marston, has recently come from England. He is portrayed as having the typical views of a newcomer to the country, with misguided views of equality. He will soon learn the ways of South Africa, the others think indulgently. And these ways vary from treating the "natives" (and yes, an even worse "n" word is also used) as less than human, the "masters" having an unwavering conviction of their entitlement to maltreat, bully and beat these workers with a "sjambok", even sometimes until death if they deem it necessary. Such a sorry event would be passed off with a shrug. White women were taught from a very early age to live in fear of the natives, that as a group they were untrustworthy. The shades of attitude vary, the other end of the spectrum being that the natives were alright if you knew how to handle them. They knew their place, and the master knew his.The repugnance felt by modern readers towards this whole spectrum of views is compounded by the fact that these are overt and explicit. This is the system of apartheid. This is the status quo. Far worse lies underneath, and this introductory chapter indicates with hints, veiled expressions, subterfuge and things left unsaid, that there are are additional ugly factors at work. The recently arrived English character is a useful hook for the reader to identify with, at this point. He knows something is badly amiss and hates the arrogance, intolerance and prejudice that he sees in neighbouring farmers such as Charlie Slatter. He also knows that plenty of people in his position give up trying to farm under such conditions, and are viewed by those who stay as not hard enough - not up to either the unforgiving land and weather, or the imposed social regime either.The novel itself does a thorough job of describing how each character has become what they are. Mary and Dick were two sad characters whom the reader sees very early on should never have married. For reasons that become clear on reading the novel, Mary should never have entered the farming community. Dick for his part, was a struggling farmer who wanted a family, but did not know how to choose one. The neighbours variously made successes of their lives, by their own terms. They all had a view of the "homeland" (England) even though some had never stepped foot in it, having been born in South Africa. And they all had a view of solidarity, of the way things should be, and that they had no connection with the "natives", who came from their "kraal", except as their servants or workers. They were only concerned with what the natives could do for them, viewing it as their inalienable right.The book is solidly set in its location. The natural strength and hostility of the South African landscape, the all-pervading poverty, the white townships, "ugly little houses stuck anyhow over the veld, that had no relationship with the hard brown African soil and the arching blue sky", the unbearable heat of the corrugated iron and brick houses aggravating the desperations and tensions of the characters, are all conveyed very well. It is a finely judged and balanced book with a good narrative flow, ahead of its time, written by an author who went on to write exemplary works. So why does it not get 5 stars. Have you perhaps deduced why from this description?There are no black viewpoint characters. Not one. Even Moses, who was arrested in the first chapter, is not fleshed out; his actions are merely reported without any comment, insight or indeed any given motivation. The reader has to infer a resentment against the corrupt system, and that Mary is his personal representative of it. We are told that he came from a mission school, just as we were told briefly where the original old servant Samson came from. The author describes as a group where the natives come from, and how far they travel in search of work. Doris Lessing allows them to vary in looks, in attitude to work and other superficial indications. But they are not filled out in anything like as much depth as the white characters.Dick Turner, one of the more sympathetic white main characters, feels aggrieved, thinking of of the South African government as being "under the influence of n------lovers from England." And the newcomer Tony Marston, "had the conventionally "progressive" ideas about the colour bar, the superficial progressiveness of the idealist that seldom survives a conflict with self-interest." The author repeatedly castigates her white characters by implication, for lumping all "natives" together. Yet she does precisely that herself in this novel. In addition to the lack of characterisation of non-whites, Doris Lessing talks about "the genus native". At another point she refers to, "a native... conveniently endowed by nature with the ability to walk long distances without feeling fatigue." Is it deliberate? Is it an attempt to make the point about one culture alienating another even stronger? If so I think it misfires.The ending of the book is beautifully written. Mary's gradual mental deterioration into a complete breakdown is very convincing, and the reader is unsure what is real and what is in her mind. There is an hypnotic and oppressive feeling in this final chapter. Clearly we are invited to feel that the ending was inevitable - that the characters of Moses and Mary are puppets, or victims of their own doom. Yet nothing earlier in the novel had indicated any feelings on Moses' part, except for a brief moment of surprise and pity, when Mary had begged him not to leave, back before her depression took hold. But at the end of the novel, Lessing says of Moses, "what thought of regret, or pity, or perhaps even wounded human affection were compounded with the satisfaction of his completed revenge, it is impossible to say." Why, exactly? This idea of an enigmatic native "type" is not only inaccurate but very distasteful.It is a brave book for its time. And it is extremely well written, by an author who went on to be a Nobel prize winner. But this is far from an exemplary work.My Personal Glossary of terms:Veld - wide open rural spaces of Southern Africa. It is used in particular to refer to flatter areas or districts covered in grass or low scrub, especially in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. Vlei - a shallow minor lake of an intermittent nature. Seasonal ponds or marshy patches where frogs and similar marsh dwellers breed. Kopje - a small isolated hill. Kraal - a homestead and usually included a simple fenced in enclosure for animals, fields for growing crops and one or more thatched huts. Afrikaans and Dutch word (also used in South African English) for an enclosure for cattle or other livestock.Kitchen Kaffir (dated - now offensive) - Fanagalo, a Zulu-based pidgin language.Compound - Closed labour camp of migrant male workers from rural homes in Bantustans or Homelands to the mines and jobs in urban settings generally. One of the major cogs in the apartheid state. Flash points for unrest in the last years of apartheid.Sjambok - official heavy leather whip of South Africa, sometimes seen as synonymous with apartheid.Mashonaland - a region in northern Zimbabwe.Lobengula - the second and last king of the Ndebele people, usually called Matabele in English. Migrant workers from there.
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 is one threshold she will not cross, and it is into the minds of black characters, usually referred to in author-voice and by white characters as 'natives'.I think Lessing has adopted this position, and drawn attention to it, and made an exception to it, to emphasise white supremacist arrogance and ignorance in general, and to acknowledge her own limited perspective as a white writer. In the opening chapter, we find this about the black man, Moses, who will be executed for murdering the white woman, Mary:"People did ask, cursorily, why the murderer had given himself up. There was not much chance of escape. But he did have a sporting chance. He could have run to the hills and hidden for a while. Or he could have slipped over the border into Portuguese territory. Then the District Native Commissioner, at a sundowner party, said that it was perfectly understandable. If one knew anything about the history of the country, or had read any of the memoirs or letters of the old missionaries and explorers, one would have come across accounts of the society Lobengula ruled. The laws were strict: everyone knew what they could or could not do. If someone did an unforgivable thing, like touching one of the King's women, he would submit fatalistically to punishment, which was likely to be impalement over an ant-heap on a stake, or something equally unpleasant. 'I have done wrong, and I know it,' he might say 'therefore let me be punished.' Well, it was the tradition to face punishment, and really there was something rather fine about it. Remarks like these are forgiven from native commissioners, who have to study languages, customs, and so on; although it is not done to say things natives do are 'fine'. (Yet the fashion is changing: it is permissible to glorify the old ways sometimes, providing one says how depraved the natives have become since.)"So that aspect of the affair was dropped, yet it is not in the least interesting, for Moses might not have been a Matabele at all. He was in Mashonaland; though of course natives do wander all over Africa. He might have come from anywhere: Portuguese territory, Nyasaland, the Union of South Africa. And it is a long time since the days of the great king Lobengula. But then native commissioners tend to think in terms of the past"Here we have the assumption of white authority and expertise, exotification of 'native tradition', followed by a confession of ignorance that must be diffused with assertions of indifference and contempt.Having opened with the aftermath of the murder, Lessing rewinds to unravel the tableau, telling the story of Mary from her childhood. This section of the story has feminist interest, because the naive young woman from an unhappy, unsupportive background is happy, independent, successful and a good friend to those around her until the pressure of heteronormative expectations and patriarchal constructions of women's roles breaks upon her and pushes her into marriage to a young farmer, Dick, who is similarly directed by convention and vague desires. Knowing little of each other they are both disappointed in their expectations and sink into a mutually damaging marriage. Mary, struggling to adapt herself to her new situation, driven by a mixture of complex personal shame and the culture of white supremacy, abuses her servants and alienates her neighbours, mismanaging the little portion of her life she can control.If Mary's redeeming feature is her former happiness, Dick's is his respect and love for the land of his farm. Unlike his neighbour Charlie Slatter, who grows tobacco, grazes cattle and makes no effort to maintain the fertility of his soil, Dick plants trees and rotates crops, growing them in small batches. Due to his lack of business sense and short attention span with his misguided investments, he never makes money, and both he and Mary are harrowed and embittered by their poverty.Like all of the white South Africans, Dick is an ardent bigot, and Lessing-as-author cannot restrain herself from direct criticism of him: "'Listen to me,' said Dick curtly. 'I work hard enough don't I? All day I am down on the lands with these lazy black savages, fighting them to get some work out of them[...] you should learn sense. If you want to get work out of them you have to know how to manage them. You shouldn't expect too much. They are nothing but savages after all.' Thus Dick, who had never stopped to reflect that these same savages had cooked for him better than his wife did, had run his house, had given him a comfortable existence, as far has his pinched life could be comfortable, for years"At other points in the book, she is more subtle, allowing white injustice to indict itself:"Like most South Africans, Dick did not like mission boys, they 'knew too much'. And in any case they should not be taught to read and write: they should be taught the dignity of labour and general usefulness to the white man.""She said again sharply, her voice rising: 'I said, get back to work.'At this he stopped still, looked at her squarely and said in his own dialect which she did not understand, 'I want to drink.''Don't talk that gibberish to me,' she snapped. She looked around for the bossboy who was not in sight.The man said, a halting ludicrous manner, 'I... want... water.' He spoke in English, and suddenly smiled and opened his mouth and pointed his finger down his throat. She could hear the other natives laughing a little from where they stood on the mealie-dump. Their laughter, which was good-humoured, drove her suddenly mad with anger[...] most white people think it is 'cheek' if a native speaks English. She said, breathless with anger, 'Don't speak English to me,' and then stopped. This man was shrugging and smiling and turning his eyes up to heaven as if protesting that she had forbidden him to speak his own language, and then hers - so what was he to speak? That lazy insolence stung her into inarticulate rage[...] involuntarily she lifted her whip and brought it down across his face in a vicious swinging blow."Mary's steadily disintegrating mental health is the dynamic moving the plot throughout. Lessing keeps the focus on her and most often takes her perspective. She carefully and cleverly marks this foregrounding, for example by suddenly giving Moses a name for the first time when Mary is shaken out of her lassitude by the sudden, deeply uncomfortable awareness of his humanity, when he waits for her to be out of sight before completing the task of washing himself. Mary is unable to process this pivotal revelation. Although she is deeply unsympathetic, the reader is able to empathise with her and see her as a damaged personality locked into a situation that is hostile to her fragile, confused sense of herself.In my opinion this book is a passionate, humble and self-aware response to the virulent injustice of white supremacy and the social structure in South Africa.Just as I finished reading it, I came across the website of an exhibition of Margaret Bourke-White's photography from South Africa that is contemporary to Lessing's book. This section is on farm workers and this one on exotification is particularly interesting. he photograph at the top of this page could be Mary and Dick: 'poor whites'
What do You think about The Grass Is Singing (2000)?
I liked this book a lot, even more so realising it was Lessing's first novel written back in 1950. I found her writing very evocative, being able to picture the African landscapes and detailed characters in my head. I flew through this short book in little over a day, as I was captivated by the story and wanted to find out what happened. Yet somewhere towards the end, the story ran out of steam for me and kind of drifted off from all the detail that I'd previously loved. While this book won't become a favourite, it has certainly inspired me to read more from Doris Lessing and to expand on the little I know about her life.
—Pink
De nuevo, retomaré mi pleito con las cuartas de forros, con los reseñadores complacientes y con los críticos a los que el hecho de que una persona haya ganado, en algún momento de su vida, un premio de los grandes —en este caso, el Príncipe de Asturias y el Nobel—, les lleva a sacralizar la totalidad de su obra, lo que, por decir lo menos, tiende a situar en un mismo plano los trabajos excepcionales y los medianos.Canta la hierba es un trabajo mediano de Doris Lessing. Una novela bien ambientada en la extensa y monótona pradera sudafricana —el veld— pero que, a pesar de todo, adolece de un defecto notable: su repetitividad. Si bien es cierto que los dos personajes principales —Mary y Dick— están magistralmente construidos —lo mismo que el vecino Charles Slatter, con todo y que solo aparece brevemente—, y que la autora se las compuso para llevar a buen término un argumento interesante —centrado en la descripción del lento enloquecimiento de Mary— en su primera novela, también es cierto —y muy notorio— que la trama termina por dar vueltas y más vueltas alrededor de un solo punto. En este sentido, la ciclotimia de Mary no termina por ser el motor adecuado para una trama que se repite y se repite y a la que, por esto mismo, le sobran unas cincuenta páginas. Cuando menos. La reiteración de las escenas, sumada a un final un tanto sacado de la manga y, sobre todo, pobremente explicado —en el que no se entiende, primero, si el último criado negro es el amante de Mary, lo que parecería improbable aunque queda sugerido; segundo, tampoco se ve muy claro el porqué de la reacción del hombre, dramática y definitiva, ante lo que no sería sino un desaire menor—, le resta mérito a una novela que, por otra parte, tiene lo suyo de emoción y, más aún, de emotividad. Una buena muestra de lo que llegaría a ser la narrativa de Doris Lessing, aun cuando sería necesario revisar lo dicho por los críticos y ubicar en su justa medida este esfuerzo primigenio.
—Alfredo
The Grass is Singing is a pretty grim book but for all its soul-destroying intensity it is surprisingly gripping and - dare I say it - an easy read. That says a lot about Doris Lessing's abilities as a writer. This is not a murder mystery – despite what the first chapter would have us believe. The murder is a tool to display wider white supremacist attitudes. The story of Mary provides a backdrop against which Lessing provides a subtle but powerful social scrutiny of society under Apartheid. All characters are a product of their social situation – far from offering us a stereotyped approach, Lessing sets before us the horrors that are created out of common attitudes perpetuated unthinkingly from generation to generation. She shows us why things need to change.The ideas expressed within the story are extremely interesting. Lessing explores the complexities of the race relations in Southern Rhodesia, the interplay between extreme poverty, class and race together with the conspiratorial closed society of the white South African's. I particularly liked the way Lessing weaved this oppression together with the oppression of the intense heat of the African plains. In fact, the descriptions of the African landscape are the most evocative part of the book for me.I'm not sure I liked the flashback telling (I almost gave up only a few pages in but I decided to skip the first chapter and moved directly to chapter 2) - reading chapter 1 last was a must for me as it explained so much. Moses was a puzzle - curiously I liked him as a character - but it is what Lessing does not say in these scenes that is most interesting - the novel is curiously devoid of sex and yet the novel oozes repressed sexuality - perhaps the natural consequence of the power-play within all relationships depicted here. - Did Moses act with dignity and kindness in his protection of Mary? or was it always a malicious and educated attempt to gain an upper hand? - a convincing argument could be made either way. ...and yet - a lot of what I was reading simply didn't ring true for me. Would a character like Mary marry for such paltry reasons? would she do so that quickly and without even visiting the farm that would become the depth and breadth of her life? Once there, would she really have left the running of the farm to Dick, when she was clearly the more business minded of the two - surely the self-contained Mary of the city could have engineered her life at the farm to both make money and satisfy Dick's love of farming for its own sake? and why would a socially active person like Mary suddenly refuse offers of friendship when she most needed them? Pride simply doesn't cut it for me as an answer - such pride is often broken down by prolonged years of poverty is it not? Finally - there was a disconcerting genre change - it seemed to me to go from an instrumental political/social fiction into something akin to melodramatic horror (from the scene where Mary, with the support of Marston, tells Moses to go away) - I'm not sure this was necessary. For me, this book isn’t perfect which explains the 3 star rating. But it is very interesting and really worth reading and pondering a little further.
—Ally
