Martha Quest

"For the majority of women everything, including the greatest of sorrow, resolves itself into a question of trying on." This Proust quote opens the third part of Martha Quest, and while its really insulting, it describes Martha to a tee. She doesn't really know who she is so she tries on different personas. I normally can't stand coming-of-age novels (hated Portrait of a Young Man, This Side of Paradise, Look Homeward Angel) but this is a wonderful book. In the background there are issues of race and culture - the arrogance and insensitivity of the colonialists. Martha can be a frustrating character, but she is fascinating and the readers have the edge because we can see her missteps. Her worst trait, perhaps, is she takes ideas and views for granted. When someone asks her if she agrees with equal rights for the native people, she nonchalantly says "Of Course," and doesn't think of it anymore. I disagree with the reviewers who say this book can stand on its own. I would be upset if it ended so abruptly and didn't have a sequel (or in this case, four.)

This is one of my favorite novels. If it came out now, it would probably be called "chick lit" but it's better than most young women's contemporary fiction. Klass has a strong voice, a perceiving eye, and a sense for real life that makes this novel a pleasure to read. And anyone who's ever had an office crush and idly speculated about what "could" happen....you'll enjoy it.

it's been so long since i read this, i'm ready to read it again! the incredible vulnerability of someone like martha, who has no self through which to really make sense of her emotions or her options in life - is really quite heart rending and astounding... Martha's story really helped me to find compassion and understanding for my own younger self, not to mention other young people in my life... it's darned difficult to manage without much of a self. that is for sure. poor martha. But! even with all that, it's still fun to read, believe it or not! the whole series is amazing...though not perfect, a really really great, somewhat sudsy read...hey, when are they going to make this a miniseries anyway?

The greatest purchase I ever made in my life was when I picked up a copy of 'African Stories' for $1.75 at a used bookstore in Hollywood. The 30 short stories in that book represented some of the most ecstatic writing I had read since Nabokov and Stendhal. To this day it remains my favorite book. The first two parts of 'Children of Violence'--'Martha Quest' and 'A Proper Marriage'--are like an expansion of some of those stories and a comprehensive analysis of everything that can possibly happen within and without the psyche of a young girl becoming a woman in Southern Africa. I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost every page of these two books is a revelation. They're works of genius pure and simple. In fact, no psychologist could've dug this far. Read them or suffer a permanent lack.

Doris Lessing writes an absorbing story of a young, naive woman learning to be accepted for who she is. It's a struggle between resisting what she is expected to be and figuring out what she wants to be. Very good descriptions of mixed emotions in coping with a fascist environment.