A Proper Marriage

by Doris Lessing

Book Overview

An unconventional woman trapped in a conventional marriage, Martha Quest struggles to maintain her dignity and her sanity through the misunderstandings, frustrations, infidelities, and degrading... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451028937
• ISBN13: 9780451028938
• Release Date: January 1960
• Publisher: Signet Book

Customer Reviews

A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing

The second book in Lessing's famous Children of Violence series is, simply, deeper and better than its predecessor. Now Martha Quest is married and goes through the confusion of searching for herself in her husband and (unlikely) child. She leaves behind her life of sundowners and irresponsibility to make a happy home and remain a good and dutiful citizen as WWII is becoming an ever-greater presence in Southern Africa. However, she gradually has feelings of unfulfillment, and must make major decisions in order to keep her autonomy and sanity. We leave her as she starts a new life for herself, and begins to get more involved with the Communist Party. Lessing gives a great performance here. The book is slow-moving, but filled with startling moments of comprehension and understanding. She has been called a master of the "documentary novel," an odd phrase which seems just right with her, and she presents her characters and their problems in a direct and uncompromising way. Her perception and use of language, however, really separates her; you are able to put yourself in the middle of this world with its seemingly ordinary characters, and know them as you know anyone in real life. The CoV series is a must-read for any serious lit. fan, and it picks up steam here.

Wow.

Doris Lessing remains one of my favorite writers. I first fell in love with her work when I read The Golden Notebook in college, as you do. I'm still slowly working my way through her complete novels. I really enjoyed Martha Quest, the first book in the Children of Violence. But I was deeply moved by A Proper Marriage. Take the bright young things of a Fitzgerald novel, give them sweat, hangovers and physicality and put them in a troubled country on the eve of a World War. If you can imagine that, then you have a little bit of an idea about A Proper Marriage. There's something so smart and complicated about the way that Lessing develops Martha in this book. Her disaffection with the excesses of the left lead her into a middle class life, even as her sympathies lie elsewhere. Relationships, war, child-bearing and the colour bar are all woven together into a book that somehow manages to bear the weight of the themes while still givng the reader a very human tale. Lessing is a simply amazing writer. She works with complex ideas and communicates them without simplifying. Her writing is always lovely and human. A Proper Marriage is one of the best examples of her work. I think that it adds richness if you begin with Martha Quest, but the book can stand on its own right. Recommended both for fans of Lessing's work and people new to her work.

colonial stile

Doris Lessing is at her best showing the habits of the ruling classes in most african countries -- mainly during the times of Martha Quest's marriage, right before the beginning of the war. This is the second book of The Children of the Violence series and, as the others, is impossible to put down before the end.

Martha's Quest Continues

In Doris Lessing's second "Children of Violence" series *A Proper Marriage*, we discover that Martha, in marrying Douglas, becomes even more torn in her quest to attain full stature as a woman. Martha, in this story, not only has to reconcile her self to the causes she believes in, to her marriage with Douglas Knowell, and to motherhood, but also to the townspeople with whom she becomes entwined. Another delight of this novel for me is the way Lessing has Martha look at both individual and group dynamics throughout the story, providing seductively keen insight. Lessing's writing promises tension, suspense, and wonder for the engaged reader. *A Proper Marriage* sequels *Martha Quest* in which many of the delights in the first of the series continue on to the second, including the beautiful way Lessing mirrors Martha's interior life with the exotic and varied African natural and elemental landscape. I would recommed reading *Martha Quest* first in order to more fully appreciate *A Proper Marriage.*

Martha Quest grows up in Proper Marriage

This novel, the second in the Children of Violence series, will be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone who first met Martha Quest in Doris Lessing's first novel of the series of the same name. This is a story about a young woman about to create her own life with her own family and home, but Martha's self-absorbed indecisiveness make for a character who refuses to do what is expected from her by family and community. Yet Martha is always viewed with compassion and loved by her reader even in her darkest moments.A central theme of the novel, set during World War II, is Martha's determination not become her mother, or any of the domineering society mother figures of colonial South Africa, but as her own baby is born she sees that circle beginning to repeat itself and rebels with all her strength against the fear of a future filled with domesticity and garden parties. Martha's subsequent actions become the proverbial ripples in a pond as she fails to learn that now that she is adult her actions have long lasting consequences. Yet this is not a typical coming of age story.By the end of the novel, Martha's stakes out her own path after having become involved with a fledging communist party and its colorful comrades who begin to play an increasingly important role in her life to fill the gap she has created by her rejection of the society in which she was raised and the family she has created.Any fan of Doris Lessing or any student of history will thoroughly enjoy this novel. One of the richest features of this novel is Lessing's brilliance in the development of her characters whose personalities and idiosyncrasies will echo long after the reader has finished the novel. That said, I thoroughly recommend that the reader read Martha Quest before delving into this novel or other in the series. Only by reading the series in order can one truly understand the evolution of Martha's character and life path.