Martha Quest : A Novel (Perennial Classics) (original 1952; edition 2001)

Other people commented on the plot, so I will leave that out.
Whenever I read Lessing's work, I am amazed with how she manages to write about one thing, and say another. I like that she constructs her own language to reveal old issues in a new light; To me, she illuminates that moral positions are rarely taken because people agree or disagree with them. People may think one or another thing, but they make certain morally charged acts because of other things that happen in their lives. It's so easy to allow the rhythm of the everyday life to take you here or there, and so difficult to break from it, because when you do, there is a serious possibility you'll be left alone.

I think what I like best is that she portrays how being with people - having a family, and a social circle - does not lead to a fulfilled life but serves as a tampon against overwhelming loneliness. You take what you can get, and do what you can with it...
Dark and caring, that's how I would describe the guiding point of view in this, and other Lessing's books.

I have decided to re-read Doris Lessing's Children of Violence series which begins with Martha Quest and ends with the Four Gated City. I read these in my early twenties and was impressed. So far I have just read Martha Quest, so I have four or five more volumes to go.

Lessing was writing about a time in the late thirties when she was between the ages of 14 to 19. I was that age in the late sixties, but I remember how much her somewhat autobiographical writing about the mother and daughter in the novel resonated with my experience. She is the daughter in this book. And, when I've read books (by her) that are from the point of view of a mother those have also resonated with my experience of being a mother, although she describes that relationship quite differently.

In Martha Quest, people seemed locked in roles which cause them to act in ways that have nothing to do with their real feelings or their real selves. At the beginning of the novel she is on a farm in South Africa with her parents. There is a brother, little mentioned, because he was sent away to a good school though she is a reader and he is not. She is in a battle with her mother who tries to control her life, and also has all the typical English attitudes about native Africans. Her father simply wants to avoid conflict. Her only real relationships are with the two sons of a Jewish shop keeper, who is fairly isolated in the area because of his Jewishness. They lend Martha books and her association with them seems to be what allowed her to form opinions about the equality of people that are different from those of all the others around her. Her opinions are intellectual, however, and don't prevent her from feeling prejudice, and, in this book, she does not act on her ideals.

What she does do is to finally break away from her parents, at the age of 17 or 18, helped to do so by Josh who arranges a job interview with his uncle, and moves to town and a job as a secretary. In the middle of discovering she is not really qualified as a secretary, and beginning to take classes to improve, she becomes part of a crowd that spends a lot of time at the sports club. Again there is the disjoint between who she really is, and the roles she plays in this group. In a short period of time, she drifts into three or four different relationship with people whom she doesn't really like. At the end of it at age 18 she is getting married. A few days before her fiance has asked if she really wants to go through with it, and she feels a sense that there is no stopping it, she knows she will get married. At the same time, a small voice inside her is telling her that she will not stay married.

The point of view of the novel. It is third person, and, but though it stays in Martha's head, it seems to be of someone reflecting back on Martha rather than in the moment. Sometimes you see the current Martha and this other person's thoughts side by side, with the other person commenting on Matha's actions Martha, herself, has an inner voice, the real Martha, so in a sense there are three voices: Martha in her role; the real Martha; the future (also real) Martha - I'm guessing on the last. ( )

The first of Doris Lessing's Children of Violence series the book charts the coming of age of the eponymous heroine. Doris Lessing's writing is never less than excellent. We follow Martha from her early rural life under the stultifying care of her colonial parents to her struggles to come to terms with her own beliefs in a society that expects more acceptable conservative morals. The book, set in a fictional South African republic of Zambesi but heavily based on what was then Rhodesia, is always socially and politically aware. ( )

Martha is an irritating yet endearing character. She is desperate to escape the stultifying, violently prejudiced culture of apartheid Rhodesia, yet in her adolescent confusion makes choices that trap her further. This is the first of the five volumes of Lessing's Children of Violence series. ( )

This is the first book in the “Children of Violence” series.
The reader gets to follow Martha during her later teen-age years growing up on a farm in a British colony somewhere in Africa. Martha is a typical teenager who despises her parents (especially her mother) and wants to get as far away from home as possible.
A good friend of hers helps her get employment as an office clerk in the city. Here she gets drawn into the party scene, which sometimes bores Martha. Once sucked in, it’s hard to leave. You really feel for Martha and her struggles trying to find herself. It must have been a rather chocking book to some when it was written in the 50’s. It deals with racism, social injustice, politics and sexuality. Sometimes it even feels a little like today’s chick lit. ( )