Friday 23 April 2010

The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing

Ta-da! The first book of the blog - I was determined to beat Madrigal Boy to it - is by Nov(b)elist Doris Lessing and was her first novel. I enjoyed it very much. The heat, the dust, the conflicting emotions of the characters were all evocatively described and it was a great read. By chance I was reading it at the time of Pierre Terreblanche's murder, and it was interesting to see how racial tensions were portrayed in fiction compared to the stark reporting of the recent killing.

The miscommunication in the book was heartbreaking, and I couldn't help but feel for the main characters who seemed to sink deeper into inevitable disaster when a simple word of comfort from the other could potentially have saved them. Background characters were also interesting, and by the end the social and institutional divides were so blurred a tragic ending seemed inevitable. It was certainly a great read, even better would be to read it in the scorching sunshine, and I look forward to reading more of her work soon (considering we have about 6 of her novels, unread, on the shelves I'm sure they'll be mentioned in this blog).

Au revoir ma petite bibliophiles TAC x

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