Women have an extraordinary ability fo withdraw from the sexual relationship, to immunize themselves against it, in such a way that their men can be left feeling let down and insulted without having anything tangible to complain of.”ĭick Turner is one of life’s failures, nicknamed “Jonah” by those who know him. She was able maternally to bestow the gift of herself on this humble stranger, and remain untouched. Expecting outrage and imposition, she was relieved to find she felt nothing. “It was not so bad, she thought, when it was all over: not as bad as that. Her experiences as a child, where she witnessed something unspecified, have given her an aversion to the physical, so that her wedding night is never going to be a success: However, Mary is temperamentally unsuited for marriage and becomes quite desperate to find a mate – so that when she encounters farmer Dick Turner, on one of his occasional visits to the city, and he is captivated by a false image he gains of her, she rushes into a partnership that is doomed. She is shocked out of her tranquillity when she overhears friends talking about her and is panicked into looking for a husband. “If she had been left alone she would have gone on, in her own way, enjoying herself thoroughly, until people found one day that she had turned imperceptibly into one of those women who have become old without ever having been middle-aged: a little withered, a little acid, hard as nails, sentimentally kindhearted, and addicted to religion or small dogs.” But Mary is a troubled, undeveloped woman – scarred by her childhood, disliking sex and attempting to maintain some kind of eternal youth. She builds herself a happy enough life, socialising, working as a secretary, living independently and enjoying her freedom. Mary grows up in the bush, hating the land and escaping from her family as soon as she can to work in the nearby city. We then flash back to the start of Mary’s life and it is clear this is not so much a whodunnit as an exploration of the whys of the case, and a psychological study of the effects of living in such conditions on sensitive people. Something unspeakable has been going on at the Turners’ farm and nobody wants to say what it was. It appears that nobody is particularly surprised that tragedy has struck the Turners as they did not fit in with the divided society which existed in South Africa and didn’t ‘play the game’. Slatter and Marston in particular respond strangely to the murder, seemingly angry with the victim. But it is immediately clear that all is not as straightforward as it seems.
#The grass is singing how many miles does slatter live from the turners plus
We meet Mary’s husband Dick, now completely mad (as a result of the murder maybe?) plus neighbouring farmer Charlie Slatter plus Tony Marston, a young man who has come from England to manage the Turners’ farm.
The novel opens with a newspaper report on the murder of white farmer’s wife Mary Turner, who has been killed by the black houseboy Moses, and goes on to explore the immediate aftermath of the murder. TGIS was published in 1950 and Lessing apparently brought it with her to England when she left South Africa. It’s at times when I’m faced with reviewing a book like this that I do wonder why I took up blogging! What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said? Can I do the book justice or will I end up just saying something silly? Mind you, I did feel the same when approaching classics like “Anna Karenina” and “Brothers Karamazov”, but then I reminded myself that in the end I’m simply recording my personal response to a book – and hoping the odd reader or two will find that interesting! So, time to approach “The Grass is Singing”.Īs I mentioned previously, Simon at SavidgeReads came up with the lovely idea of #DorisInDecember and I imagine a lot of tweeting has been going on about this! However, as a non-tweeter my comments are going to be here, and so on with the great Doris’s first novel.