The Grass is Singing

Title: The Grass is Singing
Author: Doris Lessing
Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994 (1950)

When talking about this year's Nobel Prize Winner, I kind of got the feeling that she was a bit boring. Stuffy. Well, if she is now, she wasn't when she started out. This is her debut and it's brilliant: if you haven't read it: do, if you have: do it again!

This South African novel starts in the middle of nowhere, with the murder of a poor farmer's wife. The killer is her servant - a black man. As we go back in time and get the full story of this woman, who turns out to be almost a freak of humany - someone who has abdicated from her emotional life altogether - the nature of the unforgiving landscape haunts us as it does her. This is a chilling tale; it made me dream of water snakes, circling me.