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| The Grass Is Singing | |
|---|---|
| Name | The Grass Is Singing |
| Author | Doris Lessing |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape, Harper & Brothers |
| Pub date | 1950 |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 272 |
| Isbn | 0-00-651-010-3 |
The Grass Is Singing
Doris Lessing's 1950 debut novel situates a concentrated tragedy within the settler society of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), exploring racial, social, and psychological tensions through the disintegration of a white woman and her relationship with an African servant. Framed by a partly retrospective narrator and a cold, documentary tone, the work intersects with issues raised by contemporaries such as George Orwell, E. M. Forster, Alan Paton, and Rudolf Carnap-era debates on colonial ethics. The novel established Lessing among prominent postwar writers alongside Graham Greene, V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, and Iris Murdoch.
The narrative opens with the discovery of Mary Turner's death on a farm outside Salisbury; the story then moves backward into Mary’s life, using investigative accounts from local settlers, police, and neighbors such as Tom Hill and John Herbert to reconstruct events. Mary marries the farmer Dick Turner and relocates from Southern Rhodesia town life to an isolated homestead, confronting social ostracism from families like the Bryants and the Marstons and economic pressures influenced by regional commodity cycles similar to those affecting Cecil Rhodes-era landholders. The Turners’ farm economy collapses amid drought and debt, and tensions escalate between Mary and Moses, her African houseboy, culminating in a fatal confrontation that is investigated by the local police and judged in conversations referencing colonial law and settler custom. The plot interweaves episodes set in the homestead kitchen, the servants' quarters, and the wider settler community such as the Colonial Service-connected clubs, charting psychological decline toward a violent denouement.
Mary Turner: A complex protagonist whose inner life is traced from town debutante aspirations linked to families like the Ashtons to a breakdown on the farm; critics compare her to figures in works by Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. Dick Turner: A marginal farmer whose marriage to Mary collapses under economic strain and social impotence, evoking rural portrayals found in Thomas Hardy and Emile Zola. Moses: The African servant whose relationship with Mary is central to the novel’s ethical and psychological tensions, engaging with themes discussed in writings by Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon. Supporting figures include local settlers and officials—Mrs. Marston, Dr. Swain, and a magistrate echoing colonial legal archetypes such as those in Rudyard Kipling’s milieu. The ensemble reflects networks seen in works by Joseph Conrad and E. M. Forster.
Colonialism and Race: The book examines settler-colonial power dynamics against the backdrop of Southern Rhodesia’s land tenure and labor relations, invoking debates present in Apartheid-era and anti-colonial literature by Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Gender and Isolation: Mary’s psychological collapse resonates with feminist readings alongside Simone de Beauvoir and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and with modernist examinations in works by Katherine Mansfield. Violence and Moral Responsibility: The novel stages an inevitable collision between personal repression and structural violence, thematically adjacent to the existential inquiries pursued by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Landscape and Environment: The Rhodesian veld functions like the elemental settings in Thomas Hardy’s fiction or Emily Brontë’s moors, a motif that frames human psychology. Class and Economy: Agrarian decline, indebtedness, and social humiliation link the narrative to socialist and realist explorations in the tradition of George Eliot and John Steinbeck.
First published in 1950 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom and by Harper & Brothers in the United States, the novel went through multiple British and American reprints and translations into languages including French and Spanish. Lessing’s early reputation was shaped by this work alongside later collections and novels published by houses such as Macmillan Publishers and Harvill Secker. The book’s availability in paperback editions from Penguin Books and later academic reissues ensured its inclusion in university curricula focused on postcolonial studies and 20th-century literature, situated with canonical texts from Modernism and Postmodernism debates.
Contemporary reviews hailed the novel for its moral clarity and sharp prose, comparing Lessing to Graham Greene and George Orwell. Critics such as Lionel Trilling and commentators in periodicals like The Times Literary Supplement praised the psychological realism, while others challenged its portrayal of race, aligning critiques with discussions by scholars like Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha. Academic analysis has ranged from psychoanalytic readings influenced by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to Marxist approaches drawing on Karl Marx’s theories of class and labor. The novel has been the subject of dissertations and articles in journals associated with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and independent literary criticism outlets.
The novel was adapted into a 1981 film produced by Goldcrest Films and directed by Michael Raeburn, featuring actors such as Karen Black and John Thaw. Radio and stage adaptations have been mounted by institutions including the BBC and university theatre groups at University of Cape Town and University of Oxford, reflecting sustained interest from dramatists and scholars. Film festival screenings and academic panels at events like the Edinburgh International Film Festival and The London Film Festival have continued to keep the novel in public and scholarly conversation.
Category:1950 novels Category:Novels by Doris Lessing Category:Novels set in Zimbabwe