The Grass Is Singing. Doris Lessing.
A story set in southern Africa. Apartheid. Portrayal of what life becomes in a social system where apartheid rules.
I found it disturbing. Mary Turner's loneliness in poverty is gruesome.
"Time passes quickly, rushing upwards, as it does in those periods when the various crises develop and ripen in each life show like hills at the end of a journey, setting a boundary to an era. As there is no limit to the amount of sleep to which the human body can be made to accustom itself, she slept hours everyday, so as to hasten time, so as to swallow great gulps of it, waking always with the satisfactory knowledge that she was another few hours nearer deliverance. Indeed she was hardly awake at all, moving about what she did in a dream of hope, a hope that grew so strong as the weeks passed that she would wake in the morning with a sensation of release and excitement, as if something wonderful were going to happen that very day."
The writing is unparalleled. The triumph of the black servant--gory, savage and hideous in the face of insanity and loneliness faced by his white masters sends shudders down one's spine. He is not ignorant. His eye towards detail and ability to understand the need without being told, makes him powerful and fierce. But somewhere deep down that superiority needs to be contained, because apartheid rules.
A story set in southern Africa. Apartheid. Portrayal of what life becomes in a social system where apartheid rules.
I found it disturbing. Mary Turner's loneliness in poverty is gruesome.
"Time passes quickly, rushing upwards, as it does in those periods when the various crises develop and ripen in each life show like hills at the end of a journey, setting a boundary to an era. As there is no limit to the amount of sleep to which the human body can be made to accustom itself, she slept hours everyday, so as to hasten time, so as to swallow great gulps of it, waking always with the satisfactory knowledge that she was another few hours nearer deliverance. Indeed she was hardly awake at all, moving about what she did in a dream of hope, a hope that grew so strong as the weeks passed that she would wake in the morning with a sensation of release and excitement, as if something wonderful were going to happen that very day."
The writing is unparalleled. The triumph of the black servant--gory, savage and hideous in the face of insanity and loneliness faced by his white masters sends shudders down one's spine. He is not ignorant. His eye towards detail and ability to understand the need without being told, makes him powerful and fierce. But somewhere deep down that superiority needs to be contained, because apartheid rules.
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