The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

1950's Zimbabwe. Racial question, and a subtle take for the fiction.

It's interesting to read this through a modern lens, and it might even be considered super tame, but it IS powerful in its own way.

The silence between the words is absolutely everything in this tale.

Why was Mary murdered? The question should really be: was she really alive? Between early sexual abuse, the casual racism of her surroundings and her sensitive nature, she was simply broken. And at least to me, Moses was a bit of a hero. I say only a bit, though. In a certain way.

Still, the fact remains that the real villain in this tale is the society that shaped them. It's all tragedy. Good and bad is almost superfluous to the nature of poverty and its dehumanization.



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