با افتخار امروز قصد دارم رمان جذاب و ماندگار " The Grass Is Singing " که به فارسی "چمن ها آواز می خواند" ترجمه شده است را برایتان معرفی می کنم. به باور بسیاری از خوانندگان رمان ، بیش از سبک و شیوه نگارش یک کتاب رمان ، فضا سازی از یک داستان و به تصویر کشیدن داستان در ذهن خواننده بیشتر موجب ماندگاری و شاید جاودانگی یک رمان می شود. به تجربه خودم دوست دارم به دو نمونه کتاب رمان اشاره کنم. من بیش از بیست و پنج سال است که رمان " کِلیدَر " آقای دولت آبادی را خوانده ام و جملات آغازین کتاب و تصویری که آقای دولت آبادی از حرکت مارال به سمت نظمیه برای ملاقات با نامزدش میدهد هنوز در ذهن من است. همچنین حدود بیست سال پیش کتاب "پرنده من" از خانم فریبا وفی را خوانده ام و جملات آغازین رمان "پرنده من" که می گوید کوچه ما شبیه محله چینی ها است برای من همچنان زنده هست که انگار کمتر از یک سال پیش خوانده ام …

Doris Lessing هم در این کتاب " The Grass Is Singing " از همان صفحه اول کتاب ما را به وسط داستانی پرت می کند که هیچ چیزی از آن نمی دانیم و باید منتظر کشف حقایق باشیم.

صفحه اول کتاب این گونه شروع می شود.

راز قتل

توسط خبرنگار ویژه

ماری ترنر، همسر ریچارد ترنر، کشاورز در Ngesi صبح دیروز به قتل رسید. جسد خونی زن در جلوی ایوان خانه‌اش پیدا شد. مستخدم خانه به قتل اعتراف کرده است اما انگیزه قتل هنوز مشخص نشده. احتمالاً دزدی اشیای با ارزش خانه انگیزه این قتل بوده است. روزنامه چیز زیادی نگفته بود. مردم سرتاسر کشور حتماً نگاهی به این پاراگراف با عنوان هیجان‌انگیز آن انداخته‌اند و احساس می‌کنند که خشم کمی با چیزی تقریباً رضایت آمیخته شده است، گویی برخی معتقدند که تأیید شده است، گویی اتفاقی افتاده است که فقط می‌توان انتظار داشت. وقتی بومیان دزدی می کنند، قتل یا تجاوز می کنند، این احساسی است که سفیدپوستان دارند.

دوریس لیسینگ بعنوان برنده جایره نوبل ادبیات در سال 2007 , از پدر و مادری انگلیسی در سال 1919 و در شهر Kermanshah ایران بدنیا آمده, الفرد پدر دوریس در بانک شاهنشاهی مشغول بکار بوده و شش سال بعد از تولد دوریس به مستعمره بریتانیا در رودزیای جنوبی (که اکنون زیمبابوه نامیده می شود) نقل مکان می کنند. دوریس تحت تاثیر فضای آنجا اولین رمان خودش را با عنوان «علف‌ها آواز می‌خواند» در سال 1950 منتشر می کند.

"علف‌ها آواز می‌خواند» موضوع هایی چون تبعیض نژادی، ظلم در دوره استعماری بریتانیا بر زیمبابوه را بیان می کند. مسئله تنش‌های نژادی و هنجارهای رایج اجتماعی بین سفیدپوستان و آفریقایی ها بومی را در دهه 1940 به تصویر می کشد.

مهمتر از همه زندگی زنی مستقل و سرزنده شهری را به نمایش می گذارد که وارد دهه سی زندگی خود شده و بخاطر اظهار نظر و بد گویی دوستانش در مورد عدم ازدواج او , تن به ازدواج با مردی کشاورز روستایی بنام ریچارد ترنر می دهد که دوست داره دیک صداش کنند. موضوعات دیگر رمان مسئله روابط اجتماعی است که در ارتباط خانواده ترنر با همسایه خود چارلي اسلاتر وهمسرش, رابطه ماری و موزس خدمتکار خانه و کارگران بومی نمود پیدا می کند و همچنبن تنهایی ریچارد ترنر و همسرش ماری و ناتوانی آنها در برقراری ارتباط با یکدیگر با وجود در کنار هم بودن.

ماری احساس تنهایی می کند و دچار آشفتگي روحي مي‌شود بنابراین با ازدواج با ترنر به دنبال خوشبختی است . این جمله از کتاب در صفحه 143 شرحی دقیق از یاس و نا امیدی را بازتاب می دهد.

“when she saw him weak and goalless, and pitiful, she hated him, and the hate turned in on herself. She needed a man stronger than herself and she was trying to create one out of Dick.” page 143

«وقتی او را ضعیف و بی هدف و رقت‌انگیز دید، از او متنفر شد و این نفرت به نفرت از خودش تبدیل شد. او به مردی قوی‌تر از خودش نیاز داشت و سعی می‌کرد از دیک یک مردی دیگر بسازد.»

تحقیر, تحمیق و تهدید موزس توسط ماری با وجود علاقه پنهانی و ناگفته بینشان که در نهایت منجر به نفرت و قتل ماری ترنر می شود.

این کتاب هم مانند بسیاری از آثار دوریس لیسینگ در ایران چاپ و نشر شده و فیلمی هم با اقنباس از این کتاب ساخته شده که در You Tube قابل دیدن است.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nM6hYqewsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCD5g2ytYKs&t=65s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=j8Co5dqJDPAvJrgv&v=6iiEhNHdSMw&feature=youtu.be

The Grass is Singing

By Doris Lessing

“murder mystery

by special correspondent

Marie Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yesterday morning. The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered. It is thought he was in search of valuables.

The newspaper did not say much. People all over the country must have glanced at the paragraph with its sensational heading and felt a little spurt of anger mingled with what was almost satisfaction, as if some believe had been confirmed, as if something had happened which could only have been expected. When natives steal, murder or rape, that is the feeling white people have.” Page 1

“They, the geese that laid the golden eggs, were still in that state where they did not know there were other ways of living beside producing gold from other people.” Page7

sjambol. ( SHam'bak )(in South Africa) a long, stiff whip, originally made of rhinoceros hide.

“At the trail, which was as a Sergeant Denham had said it would be, a more formality, he said what was expected of him. It was suggested that the native had murdered Mary Turner while drunk, in search of money and Jewelry.” page 25

“Every woman in South Africa is brought up to be. In her childhood she had been forbidden to walk out alone, and when she had asked why, she had been told in the furtive, lowered, but matter-of-fact voice she associated with her mother, that they were nasty and might do horrible things to her.” page 60

“A few months after her marriage she found there was nothing more to do. Suddenly, from one day to the next, she found herself unoccupied. Instinctively staving off idleness as something dangerous, she returned to her underwear, and embroidered everything that could possibly be embroidered.” page 64

“Sometimes she would present the worn visage of an indomitable old woman who learned to expect the worst from life and sometimes the face of defenseless hysteria . But she was still able to walk from the room, silent in wordless criticism.” page 99

“Thinking of that holiday, that she was always planning, but which never seemed to become possible, turned Mary's thought in a new direction. Her life, for a while, had a new meaning.” page 106

“it was during these two hours of half- consciousness that she allowed herself to dream about that beautiful lost time when she walked in the office and lived as she pleased, before "people made her get married" That was how she put it to herself.” page 106-7

“For although their marriage was all wrong, and there was no real understanding between them, he had become accustomed to the double solitude that any marriage, even a bad one, becomes.” page 117

“The stinting poverty in which they lived was unbearable; it was destroying them. It did not mean that there was not enough to eat: it meant that every penny must be watched, new clothes foregone, amusements abandoned, holidays kept in the never-never-land of the future. A poverty that allows a tiny margin for spending, but which is shadowed always by a weight of debt that nags like a conscience, is worse than starvation itself. That was how she had come to feel. And it was bitter because it was a self imposed poverty.” Page138-9

“when she saw him weak and goalless, and pitiful, she hated him, and the hate turned in on herself. She needed a man stronger than herself and she was trying to create one out of Dick.” page 143

“for even daydreams need an element of hope to give satisfaction to the dreamer. she would stop herself in the middle of one of herself habitual fantasies about the old days, which she projected into her future, saying dully to herself that there would be no future.” page 150-1

“ It seemed that something had finally snapped inside of her, and she would gradually fade and sink into darkness.” page 151

“When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is his chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip.” page 164

“They were like two antagonists, silently sparking. only he was powerful and sure of himself, and she was undermined with fear, by her terrible dream-filled nights, her obsession.” page 191

“people who live to themselves, whether from necessity or choice, and who do not trouble themselves about their neighbors' affairs, are always disquieted and uneasy if by some chance they come to know that other people discuss them. It is as though a sleeping man should awake and find round his bed a circle of strangers staring at him.” page 192

“No one really believes in the malignancy of gossip, save those who know how they themselves have suffered from it.” Page 192

“She would walk out her road alone, she taught. That was the lesson she had to learn. If she had learned it, long ago, she would not be standing here now, having been betrayed for the second time by her weak reliance on a human being who should not be expected to take the responsibility of her.” page 231

“She was alone. She was defenseless. She was shut in a small black box, the walls closing in on her, the roof pressing down. she was in a trap, cornered and helpless. But She would have to go out and meet him.” page 234-5