The grass is singing amazon
![the grass is singing amazon the grass is singing amazon](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358325519i/130115._UY630_SR1200,630_.jpg)
![the grass is singing amazon the grass is singing amazon](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51sgeMwnSnL.jpg)
That, at least, is some cause for comfort. Dick, for example, enjoys a joke with his "boys" despite his remarks to Slatter. Moreover, what people may say amongst each other is not necessarily the way they'd actually act. Revenge? Why wait so long for it? Jealousy (of Turner)? Fury at being rejected? Who knows? Perhaps Lessing was telling us that a black Southern African servant may seem docile enough in attending to your needs, but in the end he (or she) will kill you? If so, I answer that there would be many black Southern African servants who would not approve of what Moses did, and many white Southern African employers who would not approve of the way Mary treated hers. Why did Moses murder Mary, who was a harmless and almost childlike person at the time he did it? And why did she expect him to do it? I read, with bated breath, to the very last word to find out. Whips were for use around cattle, and (occasionally, in the old old days) on the behind of the farmer's son. Let alone anyone carrying a whip on their lands. I might say that in the 23-odd years I lived there, in town and country, on farms and in industry, I never witnessed any white person strike a non-white person. Then there is the issue of the whip, which we are told Mary enjoyed carrying about with her on the lands, and used on Moses. So why didn't she? Because the author is trying to show that much of Mary's increasingly bleak situation, including her racism (exacerbated due to being irritable), was due to failings on the part of her husband perhaps? To me it is just a mystery. All of these Mary could have organised herself without having to bother her husband. Hessian or even sacking ceilings painted with whitewash. Trees around the house, such as gums, which they already had a stand of. Despite the Turner's house having a tin roof with no ceiling, several relatively cheap things could have been done to make it more bearable to live in. Here the temperature would hover in the early 30s at midday. The hottest month was usually October, just before the cooling rains.
![the grass is singing amazon the grass is singing amazon](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71R73FBDocL._SY355_.jpg)
This was due partly to its relativey high altitude, which was about 3000 feet in the area (Ngesi) where the Turner's farm was situated. Strangely enough, Southern Rhodesia was usually considered to have a moderate climate. There is the question of heat, for example, which forms an important part of the novel and is much referred to. But there are some things which just don't seem to square away.
#The grass is singing amazon plus
drought), plus the vivid descriptions of the African bushveld. The most interesting and readable parts of this book, for me, deal with the struggle of Southern African white farmers and their wives to make a go of it under variable conditions (e.g. The term South Africa is often employed in the novel when what is actually meant is Southern Africa. Two completely different countries with some shared themes but different systems. Rhodesia had racial segregation to a varying extent but not apartheid. South Africa is a country to the south, which formerly had an apartheid system. Thus they had a bigger stake in the country and thought of themselves as Rhodesians rather than as colonials or British. They were farmers, bankers, teachers, mechanics, and so on, and they were there for life. White people here weren't just tax collectors or administrators - people waiting for the end of their term so they could go back "home". People calling each other by their surnames, referring to "natives", waiting for letters from "home"? Southern Rhodesia was a colony of course, but it was a self-governing one. When I read the opening chapter I struggled to relate it to the country I grew up in. I was born in Southern Rhodesia myself, about the same time this novel was published.