Leader: Rachel
Book: The Grass is Singing You can find the plot summary and three good websites from our blog http://kiwcebdgroup.blogspot.com/ .
Date: 1:00pm - 4:00pm, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009
Place: Gondola Italian Restaurant 剛朵拉義大利餐廳 - No. 157, Zi-you 1st Road, San Min District , Kaohsiung City 高雄市自由一路 157號 (across the street from Kaohsiung Medical University 高雄醫學大學) - Tel: 311-8889 - free parking available
Looking forwad to seeing you.
RSVP kiwc.ebdgroup@gmail.com
From Wikipedia,
The Grass Is Singing is the first novel, published in 1950, by British Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing. It takes place in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in southern Africa, during the late 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country (which was then a British Colony). The novel created a sensation when it was first published and became an instant success in Europe and the United States.
Plot summary
Mary has a happy and satisfied life as a single white Rhodesian woman. She has a nice job, numerous friends, and values her independence. Nevertheless, after overhearing an insulting remark at a party about her spinsterhood, she resolves to marry.
The man she marries, after a brief courtship, Dick Turner, is a white farmer struggling to make his farm profitable. She moves with him to his farm and supports the house, while Dick manages the labor of the farm. Dick and Mary are somewhat cold and distant from each other, but are committed to their marriage. Dick and Mary live together an apolitical life mired by poverty and lack of money. When Dick gets sick Mary takes over the management of the farm and rages at the incompetence of her husband's farm practice. To Mary, the farm exists only to make money, while Dick goes about farming in a more idealistic way.
Mary and Dick live a solitary life together. Because of their poverty Dick refuses to bear Mary a child. They do not attend social events, yet are a great topic of interest among their neighbors. Mary feels an intimate connection with the nature around her, though being in general rather unexplorative in nature.
Mary, like most Rhodesian women, is overtly racist, believing that whites should be masters over the native blacks. Dick and Mary both often complain about the lack of work ethic among the natives that work on their farm. While Dick is rarely cruel to the workers that work for them, Mary is quite cruel. She treats herself as their master and superior. She shows contempt for the natives, and finds them disgusting and animal-like. Mary is cross, queenly, and overtly hostile to the many house servants she has over the years. When Mary oversees the farm labor she is much more repressive than Dick had ever been. She works them harder, reduces their break time, and arbitrarily takes money from their pay. Her hatred of natives results in her whipping the face of a worker because he speaks to her in English, telling her he stopped work for a drink of water.
This worker, named Moses, comes to be a very important person in Mary's life, when he is taken to be a servant for the house. Mary does not feel fear of her servant Moses but rather a great deal of disgust, repugnance, and avoidance. Often Mary does all she can to avoid having any social proximity with him.
After many years living on the farm together, the Dick and Mary are seen to be in a condition of deterioration. Mary often goes through spells of depression, during which she is exhausted of energy and motivation. In her frailty, Mary ends up relying more and more on Moses. As Mary becomes weaker, she finds herself feeling endearment toward Moses.
On a rare visit from their neighbor, Slatter, Mary is seen being carelessly, thoughtlessly kind to Moses. This enrages Slatter. Slatter demands that Mary not live with that worker as a house servant. Slatter sees himself as defending the values and integrity of the white community.
Slatter uses his charisma and influence to convince Dick to give up ownership of his farm and go on a vacation with his wife. This vacation is to be a sort of convalescence for them. Dick spends his last month on his farm with Tony, who has been hired by Slatter to take over the running of the farm. Tony has good intentions and is very superficially cultured, but he finds himself having to adapt to the racism of the white community. One day Tony sees Moses dressing Mary and is surprised and somewhat amazed by Mary's breaking of the 'colour bar'.
The book closes with Mary's death at the hand of Moses. Mary is expecting his arrival and is aware of her imminent death. Moses does not run from the scene as he originally intends, but waits a short distance away for the arrival of the police.
Our Jan meeting was held on Jan 5, 2009. The attendees and conclusions are as follows,Attendees:
Sapvengi Zaidarhzauva
Joe Wu
Florence Cheng
Rachel Tsai
Ming-li Chu (by Skype)
Lydia Lai
Meilin Chang
Conclusions:
1. 2009 Organization -
Members: KIWC members (annual fee NT$ 1000).
Consultants: 
Sapvengi ZaidarhzauvaEvelyn Chang& Debbie Farrell
Chairperson: Rachel Tsai
Treasurer: Florence Cheng
Activity organizer: Julie Tseng
Secretary: Meilin Chang
Publicity Officer: All members
Discussion Leader: Feb. - Rachel Tsai Mar. - Lydia Lai
2. We all agreed to cancel the NT$500 annual dues.
3. We split Feb book reading into seven parts –
Chapter 1 & 11 - Rachel
Chapter 2 & 3 - Meilin
Chapter 4,5, &6 - Florence
Chapter 7 - Joe
Chapter 8 - Sapi
Chapter 9 - Mingli
Chapter 10 - Lydia
4. We suggested to send the new words what you look up to all members by e-mail to help each other. Meilin will post the new words on our new blog http://kiwcebdgroup.blogspot.com/.
5. Book selection
Feb book – The grass is singing
Mar book – The sea
New books –
The book thief by Tamela Mccann 552 pages and NT$420, 10% off
by Markus Zusak (not Tamela McCann) Barack Obama: Dreams from my father a. 430 pages and NT$600, 10% offb. Adobe, Availability: Download Price: US$17.95
http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/dreams-from-my-father-obama-ebooks.htm
The God of animals by Aryn Kyle 305 pages and NT$490, sold out
The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. not available
The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck not available
The Snowball by Alice Schroeder, the life of Warren Buffett 960 pages and NT$800, too many pages and too expensive
http://www.booksonboard.com/
http://www.ebooks.com/
http://www.ereader.com/
http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/
http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/
http://ebookstore.sony.com/
(Evelyn & Rachel will make final decision for choosing four or five books)
Our new e-mail address kiwc.ebdgroup@gmail.com and new blog http://kiwcebdgroup.blogspot.com/ . You are welcome to browse.
Leader: Rachel
