Book Review: Martha Quest by Doris Lessing

“I am so tired of it, and also tired of the future before it comes.” -Olive Schreiner

This quote, by South African author and activist Schreiner, opens Doris Lessing’s 1952 novel Martha Quest. These words are appropriate in capturing the mind and heart of the book’s eponymous heroine, who, in this first installment of Lessing’s Children of Violence series, we see in the early years of her burgeoning womanhood. Sensitive and wise beyond her age, the young Martha is a tangled spirit struggling with her own contradictions, sense of self, and the inhumanity of humanity.

Like much of Lessing’s early work, this book takes place in a changing Africa, between the World Wars, populated with British arrogance and Native displacement. Martha, 15 and tomboyish at the novel’s outset, is a passionate force of repression and emotion, which she attempts to identify and put meaning to throughout the story’s unfolding.

She observes the world around her with a ferocious intensity. She notes the complete disillusionment of the white settlers — two of whom are her detached, uninvolved parents, who have no trouble telling their only daughter that she was unwanted and therefore not as wholly lovable as her older brother. She witnesses the brutal victimization of the native population by nearly everyone around her, baffled by both the disgusting prejudice of the whites and the resigned acquiescence of the natives. She sees this discrimination at work in her friendship with the Cohen brothers, Jewish and independent and intellectual, for which she is ostracized by her parents and community in a monstrous subtlety that is ever-so-”British”. As Martha makes her way to the big city to forge her own autonomous existence, she is confronted again with people at home, work, and play, who are equally adrift in a sea of discord, detachment, and incomprehension.

Is it any wonder, then, that Martha Quest is not only exhausted, but is utterly lost in trying to reconcile her own identity and ideals with a world that is equally lost?

The beauty of Martha Quest is in her courageous examination of this world: an examination that, ultimately, does not turn up much in the way of satisfying answers. Young Martha has no identity, no sense of who she is, and thus her experience has no gauge with which to compare itself. Is this frustrating as a reader of Martha’s story? Yes. But remember: we all started out this way. None of us came into the world having all the answers.

She makes no apologies for her mass of contradictions, understanding, it seems, that this may well be the one universal element we all share. This is precisely the reason I love Doris Lessing. She takes a character to whom a reader may have no outward similarities and, through fearless investigation of the character’s existence, makes her story both timeless and universal.

And of course, there is the language. The dazzling passages are simply beyond anything in modern literature. Lessing’s descriptions of the landscapes - both internal and external - are riveting and lush with the tiniest pinpoints of detail and lucidity. Feeling an author’s scenery and characters is one thing (and challenging enough). Being right there with them is something much more powerful, beautiful, and, in the end, rewarding. Grade: B+

Book Title Martha Quest: A Novel

Series Children of Violence, Book One

Author Doris Lessing

Publisher Michael Joseph (original); Harper Perennial Modern Classics (the edition I read)

Year Published 1952, with numerous reissues over the years; my copy was a 2001 reissue

ISBN 006095969X

Snarkbytes From the New York Times Book Review: “There are many notable descriptions of adolescent boys and young men in our fiction. There are very few, in the same deep and radical sense, of young women. Mrs. Lessing’s study of Martha Quest is one of them.”

August 22, 2008 | Filed Under General Fiction | 1 Comment 

The Book Snark Makes His Debut

Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Benvenuto, Merhaba, Huan yin, Irashaimasu…however you say it, I welcome you to booksnark.net. I am The Book Snark, your gracious and slightly-furry host to all of this literary fun. I’ve had the idea for this website for awhile now, but I’d been hibernating under a pile of books for the last few years and never quite got around to sitting at my snarkputer long enough to build this thing. But thanks to the Snark Doctor, who put me on a high dosage of Provigil, I was finally able to give my idea a solid shape. I was also able to clean my snark-den to within an inch of its life, rethatch the roof, and rotate the tires on my AMC Pacer. Thanks, Dr. Snark!

Though I realize it’s unclear how this site will evolve, I do have some specific goals for what I’d like it to be. Basically, I love books, and I want to share that love. Through news, reviews, commentary, and, of course, snarkage of the highest caliber. I am anticipating an interesting ride.

Please take a peek around booksnark.net and make yourself at home. I look forward to taking this journey with each and every one of you. The BS wishes you a lifetime of snarktastic reading.

August 22, 2008 | Filed Under Random Acts of Snarkness | Leave a Comment 

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