At first I couldn't understand why Doris Lessing's first novel The Grass is Singing has brought her such fame because the book didn't seem all that special, since there are a lot of books about Africa and the way blacks were treated. But after giving it some thought I realized that Lessing's success is in writing a book one can't stop reading despite having no likable characters the reader can sympathize with and despite revealing such a revolting, hateful side of human beings.
Mary grew up in South Africa as a self-confident, independent woman. After reaching the age of 30, and still being husband-less, people started talking behind her back. Out of despair she married Dick Turner, a poor, unsuccessful farmer. The book is partly about her years living on the farm, the way she changes into a frustrated and depressed woman, and after that, her slow descent into madness. This was quite painful to read because Lessing depicts a real woman, not just a character, and it is a reminder to all of us who know similar pathetic, depressed women that we feel sorry for, in our environment, that they perhaps used to be vivacious and ambitious before life delivered them harsh punches.Furthermore, Lessing offers insight into the racial struggles in the colonial South Africa: the way the "natives" were treated, the way they were spoken to and thought of, which she picked from her own memory since she grew up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The thing that struck me most was how Lessing depicts Rhodesia as an evil machine which makes people horrible and doesn't give the natives even the slightest chance for progress. This is because even though people who come from England to South Africa,"were brought up with vague ideas of equality", and , "were prepared to treat [the natives] as human beings", they "could not stand out against the society they were joining" and it didn't take long before they too started treating the natives like cattle. But beside all this, Lessing makes their characters admit their fear of blacks, which she saw as underlying the white colonial experience of the country she grew up in.
However, in contrast to the pathetic sad characters, descriptions of the African nature are beautiful and one can sense her pride and feel her love for that country.
I highly recommend the book because apart from being well-written and interesting, one can also learn so much from it.
For the end, here is a little something about Doris Lessing, an amazing woman:
Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). She did not graduate from high-school but made herself into a self-educated intellectual.
In flight from her mother, Lessing left home when she was fifteen and took a job as a nursemaid. Her employer gave her books on politics and sociology to read, while his brother-in-law crept into her bed at night and gave her inept kisses.
In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer. She received a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
