I just finished reading The Grass is Singing a few days ago, it’s one of those books that is haunting…as a writer/reader I read both to be entertained and to learn the craft of writing…I love finding such books that stick in my head long after they are done, Doris Lessing is one of those fantastic writers who I wished that I had read a very long time ago, but it is never too late to discover her, she’s quite an amazing lady. Being a writer is a brave process of practice, patience, and persistence, it isn’t for the faint of heart and once published and it’s out there in the world, the book falls into the hands of lovers and haters, a writer then must have a thick skin for it. When she received some guff about The Golden Notebook for being “unfeminine” in her depiction of female anger and aggression, Lessing responded, “Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise.” Indeed, women are such surprising creatures—a woman writer especially so, when she writes something that is unexpected or perhaps seen as “unbecoming”—or some such nonsense, apparently being honest, speaking her mind, and telling it like it is unlady-like. Even after all this time… Whatever—
The Grass is Singing is one of those books that can be painful to read because of its honesty—the true story of what was—the brutal spell of an unforgiving history. I truly love Doris Lessing’s writing—after reading The Golden Notebook a few months ago, I decided I needed to start from the beginning and read her very first novel. She’s consistent, gritty and grim—honest—isn’t it strange that such authenticity can emerge from fiction? Stories that are made up and full of a writer’s lies—veiled truths scratching an autobiographical itch, not necessarily about oneself, but from the vein of being a witness of such things—such things that you can’t make up because they really do happen. To write it down and put it out there is one way to tell the truth no matter how painful—the unfairness maddening. There’s a distinctive warmth that comes through in her work that makes it as unique as her DNA—this warmth is from her passion for writing, and there is patience in her prose. She insists that there is beauty in the ugliness of life and she wants to share it with her readers. The reality of women’s lives have not been glossed over here—not a man is left unsullied—the characters are flawed and true, no one is perfect (even the population who think they are the shit-don’t-stink cream-o’-the-crop, are far from perfect human beings.) Her stories about Africa fascinate me because it is so raw out there—the land and people have been so incredibly wounded by time, nature, conquerors, dictators, and ignorance. Doris Lessing packs so much power in words from page one to the last—this book is a rare beauty. (Shhh—listen, the grass is singing.)
