2 - Novels of the 50s

Summary

When she arrived in England, Lessing had already completed The Grass is Singing; she had worked through many drafts. Originally, she tells us, she had as protagonist an idealistic young man, fresh out from England, and the novel was heavily satirical, very long. But the final version is subtler, irony taking the place of satire. The novel tells the story of a white woman, Mary, who leaves the poor family farm on the veld to live a happy single life in the town until she feels pushed by her friends into seeking a husband. Disastrously, she marries Dick Turner, a poor, unsuccessful farmer, and, in the frustration of a life mirroring her mother's, gradually deteriorates into breakdown. At this point, she crosses a taboo line: from despising and hating ‘natives’, following the conventions within her own cultural context, she comes to rely physically and emotionally on Moses, her black servant. When Tony, a young man fresh from England, arrives on the farm, she sees him as her saviour, and sends Moses away, only to have him return and kill her.

A bald summary of the plot gives no indication of the skill Lessing demonstrates in weaving together the languages of her novel. Strikingly, the book starts with the anodyne newspaper announcement of Mary's murder by her houseboy, stating only that it was thought ‘he was in search of valuables’. There is nothing personal in such a motive; so white newspaper readers in Southern Africa would see it, we are told, ‘as if some belief had been confirmed’. But then we hear that those who knew the family would read the paragraph differently, ‘perhaps as an omen or warning’, reading it ‘with closed secretive faces’ (GS 1). So in two paragraphs, Lessing establishes a socially acceptable version and a darker, different interpretation, where ‘the murder was simply not discussed’, where ‘everyone behaved like a flock of birds who communicate – or so it seems – by means of a kind of telepathy’ (GS 2). Lessing shows here how society can work as an organism, a theme that will haunt many future novels. Gradually we learn that the Turners have always been seen as misfits, as they did not join in, lived secluded lives and were very poor.