A Blade of Grass

by Lewis DeSoto

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A Blade of Grass is a graceful and stunning epic set in 1970s South Africa, on a remote farm owned by a newly married couple. The mistress of the house, Marit, is young, recently orphaned, easily intimidated, and unaccustomed to rural life. With no close neighbors or friends, Marit feels isolated in the house while her husband works in the fields all day. Marit's displacement is soon echoed in the character of Tembi, the daughter of Marit's household maid, who assumes her mother's responsibilities in the farmhouse after she is hit by a car.

An encroaching civil war soon threatens the tranquility of the farm, and before long a plague of violence descends. Abandoned by the other farm workers, the care of the farm is now left to Marit and Tembi, who begin this new struggle for survival as equals, but whose unity is put to a devastating test.

DeSoto paints an unforgettable portrait of South Africa with tensions, both political and sexual, simmering underneath. Recalling J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace in his portrayal of Apartheid, DeSoto explodes onto the literary scene with a first novel of tremendous power and literary skill. His description of a terrifying world gone awry holds at its center a deep understanding of the patience of the land, and the enduring hope for renewal.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Historical Fiction, South Africa, Book Club, Contemporary, Womens

416 pages, Paperback

First published August 18, 2003

About the author

Lewis DeSoto is a writer and artist. His new novel The Restoration Artist, is available now. His previous novel A Blade of Grass, published by HarperCollins, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2004. He is also the author of the short biography, Emily Carr, published by Penguin Books Canada.

Reviews

[Jo-Ann Murphy]

This was a violent long walk to nowhere. It had possibilities but they remain unrealized. Marit was weak and long suffering who never grew into her power. Tembi had strength but did not use it wisely. the relationship between the two was not fully developed and not as complex as it should have been. None of the male characters had redeeming qualities. It did not live up to the promises on the book jacket. I don't feel I learned anything from reading it and don't think much will stick with me. It took a long time to engage me in the story. However, when it did we just seemed to move from tragedy to tragedywithout the joy that could have made it a richer story. It certainly was not an uplifting read, in my opinion. It seems there could have been a whole lot more to this story in this setting during this era.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes when I finish a really good book I just can’t wait to dash off to the computer and write my review – I want to tell everyone about it. That’s the way I feel about A Blade of Grass by South African/Canadian author Lewis Desoto, which was longlisted for the Booker in 2004. It’s a story of an inter-racial friendship set on the contested South African frontier in the 1970s during the apartheid era. I found it to be a remarkable debut novel that was engaging from the very beginning yet managed to raise complex issues about entitlement to land; about power and gender; and about the destructive effects of fear of The Other.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered from some outraged comments at GoodReads that some readers are very cross about this book. For some, there is too much lyrical description, for others too much symbolism. One who thought that DeSoto also has absolutely no place in writing from a female perspective took issue with the way that the peace and harmony of the relationship between two female protagonists, one Black, one White, is disrupted by jealousy over a man. Someone else is peeved about the stereotyping of entrenched racist Afrikaaners; ambivalent, hopeful Britishers; and resentful, disenfranchised Africans. (There was also a reader who thought it was set during the Boer War. The less said about that the better, eh?) The novel copped a very negative review at 'Culture Wars' too.

I don’t think that I read this novel uncritically, so I was relieved to see not only some positive views amongst the others at GR, but also this one from Quill and Quire. I felt that this novel rendered the complexities of living in a racist society with the respect it deserves. The two central characters, Marït and Tembi, are creatures of the society in which they grew up and their identities are forged by the black/white divide. Even when they transcend this divide, as Desoto renders it, they inevitably retain some habits of thought and behaviour, and in moments of crisis they revert to old habits even if intellectually and emotionally they reject them. This seems entirely realistic to me.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/01/25/a-...

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend loaned me this book, saying she thought I'd enjoy it. I read up on its reviews and wasn't too impressed. Apparently the critics weren't fans.

I read all 389 pages in 24 hours. It was incredible and I could not put it down. Not perfect, but incredible. Having grown up in Africa (although not South Africa), the race relations aspect in this book fascinated me because I've never seen it put so well into words.

The story was a great balance of depth without pointlessness and action without making your head spin. I felt as if instead of reading this book, I absorbed it.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most literary book I have read in some time--it is a work of real craftsmanship. Lovely imagery, gorgeous use of language--this author could be studied as easily as any in our canon. The story is set on a small farm in South Africa during apartheid. The main characters are a young white woman named Marit, the owner of the farm, and a young black woman named Tembi. After a tragic occurrence, the two become friends and partners in running the farm. The book explores their sincere affection for one another, along with thier distrust. It also describes the violence and desolation of the period. The story is overwhelmingly sad, but very beautiful.

[Niki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book is incredible. I won't give out any spoilers, but this story is about two women - one European, one native South African - whose lives intersect and become connected .. during the last throes of the rule of apartheid. Their relationship is not straight-forward, but complicated, and the author explores each women's prejudices and fears in a manner that feels very honest and realistic. While these women need each other, love each other and depend on each other for their very survival, nonetheless their fears constantly threaten to break their relationship apart and shatter any hope that they will survive the many struggles that arise.
The story moves very quickly and is full of exciting drama, but it never feels melodramatic or false. The writing style is simple and straight-forward in terms of vocabulary, and yet touching and personal.
Can't say enough good things about it. Enjoyed it even more than Little Bee, which I read pretty recently and found to be a great read, also.

[Caleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

What an incredibly depressing book! Beautifully written and yet almost painful to read, especially the last part where the heroine is literally dragging herself around half dead. I didn't particularly like any of the characters which didn't help motivate me to finish, but I did so for the sake of book club. I hope they appreciate it.

[MrsPL · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the writing in this book was beautiful, I didn't enjoy the story itself very much. I found the main character annoying, and by the end I felt like the inevitable was just being dragged out with twists and turns that seemed somewhat contrived.

[Carrie]

This was given to me from a friend of mine with a note written inside. I will have to move this up on the priority list.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book very much. It was a very descriptive story about apartheid and had wonderful descriptive scenes of South Africa. I found the story to be gripping and I had a lot of respect for the strength of the two women characters. I would have given it a 5 but I found some of the writing to be repetitive like I wanted to hand the author a Thesaurus. Words were often repeated several times in a few sentences. Overall though the book is an excellent read and I had a hard time putting it down. Although the ending is sad I think it relayed a truth about apartheid in that era in Africa.

[Pamela Pickering · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think the book's synopsis leads the reader to believe there is a little more "action" in the book than there really is. However don't let that deter you. The story is mainly one of a relationship between two women of two cultures. They are both dealing with the loss of a loved one and begin to work together to accomplish a shared goal. Not knowing much about South Africa (especially in the 1970's)I really appreciated the cultural and sociological aspects of this novel. The writing flows easily. I have loaned it to five women and all have made statements such as "I couldn't tear myslef away from it". We all agreed that we did not care for the ending but also agreed that it probably could not have ended any other way (again, don't let this deter you from reading it). I should say that I loaned it to a male friend and he did not care for it or finish it (too much estrogen?).

[Annalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to understand why this book was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, although I must admit literature is not my area of expertise.
It's a bleak story, lurching from one disaster to the next with minimal respite. DeSoto writes in a strangely passionless tone of voice. The frequent Afrikaans phrases are at times so wrong that they hardly make sense (of course, that would only bother a person who speaks the language). Would it have been so hard to find somebody to edit?
It also annoyed me that the author didn't bother to check his facts, for instance the way in which a cicada makes its noise and how a baboon would attack a person. Usually I try to ignore such minor mistakes, but in this book there were just too many!

[CynthiaA · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was so much to admire in this novel, I enjoyed it very much. Desoto uses language like a painter uses colour. Sparingly in some places, vibrantly in others, resulting in an image that shows us more than people, more than a place. Desoto creates beauty and violence, home and isolation, hope and despair, love and hatred, loyalty and abandonment, freedom and imprisonment. This story is set during the apartheid years of South Africa's history, and I admire the way Desoto avoids stereotypical depictions of both whites and blacks.

The fact that this is Desotos first novel makes it all the more admirable.

[Teresa Mills-Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself speed reading over paragraphs if not chapters, initially to reach the point where I felt engaged with the story. For that reason I rated the book 2 instead of 3. Even at the end, I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to rate the book any higher. If you wish to read about S. Africa as it carried itself into apartheid this story is written by a S African white male who was a young boy in that era, prior to emigrating to Canada and leaving it all behind. So, in that sense, the author was better able to put voice to some of the white characters.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set on a farm at the border of South Africa and an unnamed country, this was a surprisingly powerful, evocative story of the relationship between two women, one white and one black, in a tense war-torn land.
High recommend as a book that will capture you and provide a profound perspective on what it means to be black and white in a country that can exact a tragic price for freedom.

[Viajando entre páginas · Rating 4 out of 5]

7,5/10

[Doris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving it a 4.5, it wasn't a 5, but it wasn't a 4. It was good it kept me reading, it is a hard topic to write about I think. I don't know a lot about the situation in time for that country but I do have a small understanding and from my basic knowledge I think the author did a good job of showing the racial struggle of that time. In the book it portrayed both sides in a no win situation at the hands of the government but then..... there is Tembi and Marit.

[Amy Ballinger-Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book felt a little like taking a psychological test in a diversity workshop or college class on race. It is set in South Africa sometime in the 1970s on a farm owned by a young couple, Ben and Marit (British and Boer). Another central character in the book is Tembi, an African girl that eventually ends up as the "meid" in Ben and Marit's house.

Throughout the novel, you are put in situations as a reader where your instinctive feelings that may arise while reading this book may come in conflict with what you thought your feelings were (or would/should be) on the situation as a non-racist and good person. The book does this by taking Marit and Tembi and placing them into very similar situations. The question is, do your feelings and reactions change when it is Marit versus Tembi in any given situation?

For instance, a theme throughout the book is who rightly owns this land in South Africa. Is it the farmers that have bought the land, perhaps even family owned for generations? Is it the workers that actually toil so that the farm can produce? Is it the African people that have been removed from the land and placed instead in unhospitable land where nothing grows (forcing them to work in the mines, away from their families)? Are the animals really the only rightful owners of the land?

So, when you read the book and the white characters, Ben and Marit, own the land, do you feel all is right with the world, and cheer for them and their success on the farm? Do you instead hope that the understandably bitter, angry and sneaky African that manages the farm ends up with it? When at one point, Tembi the maid temporarily becomes the mistress of the house and Marit is locked out and sent to live in the staff huts, are you happy about this or bothered by it? When the war starts and white soliders show up, are you less scared for Marit and Tembi than when the black soldiers later show up? Do you have a feeling of relief for Marit when the white soldiers show up and a feeling of relief for Tembi when the black ones arrive? Does the color of a soldier's skin make any difference in the amount of havoc they will bring to females alone on a farm, whether black or white?

I appreciated A Blade of Grass: A Novel for the debate that it brought about in my own mind. There is a way you think you would behave had you been a part of history in South Africa. Then there are the feelings that come up while reading this book that make you wonder if you are being honest with yourself in imagining how upright and moral you would actually react to the situation if you were in it during that time and place. If you were a child born into a Boer or English family, would you really be able to understand this land is not yours and behave accordingly?

This isn't a book I would tell you to go out and get. However, if you find yourself in a used bookstore and it catches your eye, I would say pick it up and buy it, just like I did. It's worth a read. I must warn you, the dialogue is horrible in some parts -- not at all what I would imagine someone would really say in given situations!

[Allan Zimmerman]

The author portrayed the tragic situation of South Africa through the eyes of the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, it is not a happy ending. While conciliation may have been possible between the women and maybe mutual benefit occurring for the two the world around them conspires to prevent this from happening. While most of the violence is perpetuated by males, I noticed that most of the Boer women weren't portrayed any more accommodating the the men. I prefer stories of fixable situations. However, stepping outside what I like does me good and helps me view the world as it is.

[Ekar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book too 'cinematic' for my liking. It was almost like the author was hoping to get a movie deal because there were so many movie cliche's in it. But I also didn't really like the characters so I didn't enjoy it.

[Apollonia · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was great until the very end. Then I threw the book across the room in frustration.

[Alicia A · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But first, she must wash the seeds”….. what a beautiful metaphor for building interracial tolerance & harmony in years leading to the end of apartheid in South Africa; indeed in our world today.

Tembi, plants 5 seeds & tends her little Garden, in the hidden hill of Kudufontein. This is the very beginning of Lewis’ story… the washing, tending & nurturing the seeds Tembi finds, & plants in a ‘secret’ garden. She builds walls to protect her garden from the ‘wild things’ and takes time every day to check on, or water it. The farm where Tembi & her mother, Grace live, was recently bought & renamed, by a young couple Ben, & Marit Laurens. Ben has hopes of farming & dreams of turning the land into a productive, fruitful operation, while Marit is still settling into her new married life, having recently lost her parents. Grace’s & Tembi’s lives revolve around their work for the Laurenses, and their fellow African workers-living in the huts around the Kraal.

Tragedy strikes, & Marit & Tembi come together less & less as employer/employee & begin to forge a friendship filled with pity, understanding, suspicion, jealousy, forgiveness, & ultimately, a shared belief in each other’s goodness. The story is told from both Marit’s & Tembi’s perspectives, with each section having an ‘echo’ from the other’s life. The way Lewis braids these two story threads together truly exemplifies the strength in the interconnected, & the weakness in singularity.

This is a beautiful book of two women’s shared life stories- rife with lyrical descriptions of the land, pitted with violence, and sustained by resilience. It gives the reader no easy way-no road forward, without looking backward-& thereby a choice. Essentially, readers are faced with a lot to think about as they go further into Tembi’s & Marit’s histories (apartheid, interracial relations, justice, entitlement, privilege, power, empire, authority, revenge, just to name a few) …

it is more than the ownership or land rights to, “a blade of grass,” it ultimately is about who we are, where we find home, how we grow, what stunts & what sustains, what seeds we nurture & plant, when we hide & when we blossom, & why
we first
must
wash the seeds
- of belief - with empathy, respect, love, & time.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book. In A Blade of Grass, Lewis DeSoto took a place and a time, a complicated, beautiful place at a complicated, horrible time and threw it repeatedly in the reader's face. And for all of that (and there is a lot of that), it is primarily a story of a tenuous friendship between two women who should have never become friends, except that they were both lonely and alone.

Tembi grew up in the place her people had always lived, until the man came and told them they would all have to go somewhere else. And when they had been moved, they found the land they had been moved to, a land they had no connection to, could not support them. And so they left; first the men, to work in the mines and then the women, to work as domestic servants. Tembi goes with her mother to live on a farm, where her mother takes care of the house. Tembi, now a young woman, works in the dairy and while she doesn't feel a part of the life of the Kral, she is happy to be with her mother. And then her mother is killed. Tembi is asked to work in the house, but she's not sure she can work for the woman there.

Marit has married an Englishman who wants to be a farmer. They find a farm on good land that they can afford because it is near the border and there has been some unrest, but Ben is both optimistic and determined and he is willing to work hard. Marit's a bit unmoored in this strange place inhabited by stolid Boers and the silent Blacks working for them, but she is willing to support her husband with his dream; it's what she's been raised to do. And then her husband is killed and she is adrift, with only the housekeeper to speak to.

There is an immediacy and a force to DeSoto's writing. The reader is never given a specific time or place to hang the story on, but his descriptions are vivid and kept close by the use of the present tense throughout. This has the effect of making the events in the story carry far more weight as there is no sense of an "afterwards". Both Tembi and Marit were complex characters, which was important in this book of great wrongs and disasters.

[Sue Fleming · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was first published in 2003 inSouth Africa’s early post-apartheid era. The writer was brought up in a privileged environment in apartheid South Africa but moved to Canada as a teenager and had not returned when he wrote this book. All of the above give the book its strengths and weaknesses.

The book is set in 1970s when apartheid was firmly established in S Africa. Reading it now, it seems dated but for the 1970s much of it seems improbable but not impossible. In a country where there was such strict racial separation in all aspects - physical, social, economic, political and emotional there must have been many stories, mostly untold, of individuals who broke through these barriers, fully or partially. Often these stories would have had unhappy endings as does A Blade of Grass.
I read the book in one sitting, while travelling, and was drawn into the story but at the same time irritated.There was too much tragedy, and so little relief that the tragedies became diminished. There was too much (symbolic) emphasis on items of clothing. There were petty irritations - the generator that ran without being refueled each day; the stupid idea about going into the town on the tractor and breaking it within minutes; still having tinned milk, cigarettes, paraffin, candles, gin etc without doing any shopping. The writer, a man, did do a good job with the too female characters even if the emotional side of both was overplayed and the practical side underplayed.
The interview with the author and the author’s description of his memories of the S Africa he lived in gave depth to his story. Most poignant was his tribute to Grace, who worked for the family when deSoto was growing up. A women on whom they depended so much but knew so little about. Grace: Surname Unknown.

[Gemma Wiseman · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A Blade of Grass' by Lewis DeSoto is an extraordinary novel set in the 1970's Boer white v. black conflicts of Africa. The novel is a sensitive insight into the lives of those trapped in the vague chaos of war; those whose lives really do not want to be branded black or white and those who revel in the branding, perhaps out of fear. This conflict fringes an attempt to maintain a semblance of farm life in the veldt lands; a semblance ultimately driven by 2 very different women - Marit and Tembi -from 2 very different worlds. And DeSoto's writing, his expression, has a particular appeal. Characters' thoughts are mulled over, explored, compared, remembered. The 3 parts of the novel - farm, land and river - each symbolise a time frame, getting closer to what really matters in life. Even a tiny blade of grass has a character role. By the close of the novel, the reader not only learns more about a troubled Africa, but hopefully feels more too.

MY POETIC REVIEW: Songlines on the Winds

[Manuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy, muy duro. Un libro sobre la adaptación a condiciones durísimas, a la violencia, la inestabilidad, el odio, el racismo, la desconfianza, el aislamiento y el machismo en una granja en Sudáfrica, gracias a l empoderamiento, la amistad y la superación de las dos protagonistas, la blanca Marit y la negra Tembi. La peor situación posible en uno de los países más peligrosos y explosivos del mundo. Eso es: básicamente, dos mujeres con todas las de perder que se unen para sobrevivir con dignidad contra el mundo. Y no digo más para no reventarle el argumento al lector en potencia.

¿Me costó terminarlo? Sí, y no. No, porque lo leí en 24 horas. Pero sí, porque la violencia que rezuma es brutal: es para estómagos fuertes. Exige mucho aguante para poder leer algunas escenas, pero merece la pena, y mucho. Porque, además, está maravillosamente escrito, entre la poesía y el minimalismo.

Recomendadísimo.

[Virginia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main character was stupid, annoying, frustrating and totally unrealistic. Married to a young farmer who works hard she lies about complaining about wishing she had never moved to this farm and had stayed in the city of Johannesburg. She doesn't drive and not interested in driving but would rather just have someone do that and every thing else for her. So how is it possible that a year later when there develops a change in her circumstances she now will work the farm and prepare to die there. Not really likely
While the story led from one tragedy to the next and the ending sad, how could it have been any other way during this time on the border of South Africa.

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to the end. I truly wanted to know what happened in the end so this can't have been all bad. There were hugely enjoyable sections but some parts where the writing of the female characters was truly cringe-worthy. Male novelists can write women but, in this case, a female editor might have helped (for all I know DeSoto had one). There are wonderful descriptions of farm life and of the flora and fauna of the South African veldt but the nature metaphors sometimes felt forced. The author might have done better to leave more to the reader's imagination and taken a more restrained tone. There were some really pot-boilerish sections. Ah. Next...

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The simple question—Where is home?—drives all the characters in the novel A Blade of Grass. Set in South Africa during apartheid, the story follows two women: Marit, who is white, and Tembi, who is black. As they struggle not only to survive but also to forge a home and a friendship, they must navigate the political upheaval of the time. The civil war brewing beyond the farm raises profound questions of identity—both racial and personal—for the women. The novel contrasts the beauty of South Africa’s landscape with the brutality of both sides engaged in the conflict. Through the emotions of those involved, the book offers insight into the political turmoil of the era."

[Aza · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro nos cuenta como pudieron sufrir las familias blancas y las negras la ocupacion de Sudáfrica. Lo que fue la vida en las granjas, y el nuevo retorno de muchos autóctonos a los territorios anteriormente ocupados. A través de la vida de una familia blanca, se entremezclan los personajes de color y van surgiendo distintos momentos que transforman totalmente la vida de los personajes.
El libro tiene un lenguaje estupendo, que te atrapa y te sumerge en la historia. Es quizá está forma de narrar lo que más me ha gustado.

[Marlene · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a bit of promise, however the story just couldn't reach the depth required. Women are better at writing about women's relationships. Märit knew the dangers a being on her own on the farm there is no way she would have answered the door without the gun loaded them in her hand. This is just one of the shortcomings of this novel. Taking two strong independent females and making them appear stupid and incapable. I thought of abandoning this book numerous times, I didn't, so I can write on honest review.