Martha Quest by Dorris lessing

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Publicado por Julian juliparti@hotmail.com

MARTHA�S QUEST

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Part One

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Martha Quest (15 years old) lived with his parents in Africa, 7 miles to Dumfair Hills, in the African mountains. At the beginning of the book we find Martha suffering adolescence like a disease. She is reading as always, while her mother(May Quest) and a friend, Mrs. Van Rensberg are talking at the veranda of her home. She is reading a book of Henclock Elllis on sex, just to bother her mother.

Martha�s family are British people (mother, father(adolhph) ,Martha and a son living in the city), and the Van Rensberg are dutch, they have 5 daughters and a son.

Martha thinks that adolescents are bound to be unhappy. She passes most of the days reading the books she borrows to the Cohen boys (Joss and Solly) at the station of the town. Joss prefers sociologic books and Solly psychology ones.

We are at the fourth decade of the twentieth century, she was born to a rather old mother (first child) She reads a lot Her mother is racist (against jews, greeks and Afrikaans: kaffirs, the natives) She is bitter and dissatisfied woman

Mrs Van Rensberg is a fat house keeping Dutch woman., very nationalist.

Martha was against all kind of racism, she looks rather like a child of eleven, since she dresses with plain dresses, instead of Marnie Van Rensberg who uses high heels and wears lipstick. Mrs Quest wanted her daughter to make a career, she didn't want her to marry young like the Van Rensberg�s daughters. Martha also didn�t like to tie herself to babies and housekeeping.

Marnie thought Martha liked Joss Cohen and she tells her and she feels embarrassed.

The Quest�s house was built native style, with mud walls and thatched roof and was long oval. They had come to the colony after seeing an exhibition in London which promised new settlers to became rich on maize-growing in a year. Her father was a handsome and middle aged man but he had a somewhat virtual illness: he had diabetes, in fact, but he ceased working and passed his days only dreaming and waiting ... anything, since he wanted to be ill, he liked being ill, and she accused Mrs, Quest in her private thoughts, of being responsible. So mother and daughter were continuously quarrelling and Mr. Quest only wanted peace and quietness.

Once, the Cohen boys had rejected her, so she felt the most desolated creature in the world, since they were her only friends. Martha thought that "friends are whom you choose, not the people forced on you by circumstances"

The city: there the Cohens, the Greek family and the farmers. The Quests went to town scarcely one time a month. Their car was old and very badly maintained. Mr. Quest thought that war would come in a near future.

In those times, when a black man raped a white girl, he was dead, but if a white man raped a black girl he was only fined 5 pounds. It was discrimination and Martha was totally against it.

Martha was sixteen and could not pass her exam because of an eye problem, so she left her studies. She was atheist and socialist.

In that region lived people of several origins: English, Scottish, welsh and Irish.

Scottish families were hard working and sociable people

English: eccentrics and riches

Dutch: close colons

Kaffirs: the natives.

�Once she went to town with a neighbor: Mr. Mc Farline (79) who tried to rape her, but nothing happened since she managed the situation very well. So she visited the Cohens, and returned home with their books, walking alone for the first time. When she was at home she told her parents about Mr. Mc Farline , at their surprise. She was confused, she was growing up fast.

She was always quarrelling with her mother, his father trying to stop their quarrels.

Then, Marnie Van Rensberg came to invite her to a ball (her first ball!) She was very upset. She made herself a white dress with a piece of cotton she purchased at the Cohens�s store. When she was dressed for the party, she wanted their parents� approval, but once again, when she must be kissed and approved, she did not have it at all.

She danced all night wit Billy Van Rensberg she realized she was the only girl in the party with a formal dress, others wore casual clothes.

As she believed in equal rights for all people, regardless of race and language, he discussed it with Mr. Van Rensberg.

At the end of the party, they went out side and he kissed her and tried to touch her, but she stopped him and returned to the party. Everybody was seeing her skirt stained with mud and they thought something has happened between them. Mrs. Van Rensberg comforted her and she stayed the night with Marnie.

Two weeds after, Joss Cohen send her a note for an application to a job in town. Martha accepted and felt as if she were consciously saying farewell to her childhood: she was 17 by the time. She went to town, interviewed Mr. Cohen, the uncle, got the job and found herself a room before nightfall.

She was a new person and a new life was beginning.

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PART TWO

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The offices of Robinson, Daniel and Cohen were in the top floor of a building on founders street. Mr. Jasper Cohen was very ugly but very nice and tender person, who at her first day in the office gave her some money in advance. Then she met the other, Mr. Max Cohen. She dislike him as much as she like his brother; smart person but ill-humored.

There was Mrs. Buzz who was the chief of secretaries, a strong person whom Martha didn't also like very much, she was a racist woman also. The first night at home Martha received the visit of her parents and she was angry because her mother moved all her things in her room and she was continuously saying that she had to eat more and sleep early. When they have gone Martha rearranged all her clothes and went to sleep late. Next day at the office she couldn't do her work well and when Mrs. Buzz asked if she had any certificates Martha said that she had learn to type at home. So Mr. jasper Cohen suggest her to study at the polytechnics in the evenings, she did so. So she enroll herself for classes. So next day she help Mrs. With the filing and a flow of sympathy growth between them. When she return that night she found a young man waiting for her, he was Donovan Anderson. He was there because Martha's mother had called his mother to contact her. He was very tall and handsome young man but he seem week. They began going out every night, she also knew his house, his mother and father. They were new riches. Mrs. Anderson went out every night while her husband stayed at home, pretending to be in a way as Martha's father. Mr. Anderson claimed to have ulcers.

Martha began to go out every night with Donny and knew all the people of the town, went to the to have cocktails at the hotel, went to the cinema, etc. So Martha made her debut at the social circles in the town. Martha smoked a lot, drank a lot, and ate badly and rested little. She was so exhausted. Six weeks after she had come to town Joss walked into the office and they have a reunion. Joss thought that Donovan was her boyfriend and she wanted to be married but she didn't want at all. Joss tall her that she was coming back to the university and then he wanted to go to overseas. Joss tall her that her uncle Jasper had a san called Abraham who went to Spain for the civil war. Joss also gave her a list of people to look up for discussion group, the left book club. So Martha contacted that people. They were in fact people between 40 and 30 years. But she went a couple of reunions with them but she didn't felt at ease as her political ideas were. One day her mother appear saying that his father was in the hospital for a test, and she went to have tea with Mr. Anderson, her mother tall Mrs. Anderson that Martha and Donovan wanted to married, but it was not true. So they kept on dating out in a platonic way. She felt safe with Donovan. She didn't loose her virginity.

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PART 3

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There was in town another institution called the sport club. It was founded by Binkie Maynard, son of a magistrate and other boys of the governing class. Binkie was a young boy of twenty who thought that club for anyone who could pay twenty shillings a year and although at first it was established for sport purposes. In fact it was a club where wolves (boys and girls) drunk, danced and make parties all the time. In 1935 the sport club site marked the division between of the old part of the society and the people at the sport club. There was an exception, a room where Mrs. Maynard most of the people in the city where members all of them very young. Other place to eat and to dance was McGrass hotel but it wasn't so nice. There the girls (like mother) were responsible for men.

�In fact this club had come into existent as a protest against Europe stood for, there were no division, no barriers. Everybody mixed easily at the sport club. Donovan treated to Martha as her assessor about dresses, food, etc. He supervise all her acts. She like and dislike that at the same time. Because she didn't look her really as a woman but as an object to change all the time. Then they went every evening to the sport club where she knew Ruth manners. A close friend to Donovan and also where she began dating a boy called Perry. Ruth was a very elegant girl who had lived in England, Donovan talked about his travel with his parents to England the year before. There he only bought cloth for her mother and wait her eighteen cream cake per day. He wanted to learn a career as a dress designer, but his parent didn't let him to do. Martha behaved madly because does the way the things were done at the sport club, like idiots. One night a couple appeared: Stella and Andrew Mathews who where married and where also closed friends to Donovan. So that night Donovan and Ruth, Perry and Martha began to visit the Mathews flat. There the leather was Stella and there they continue drinking and talking and laughing all the time. As if they couldn't sleep at all. Generally at five or six in the morning Martha return home with no time to sleep. She had been in town only a few weeks and already she was bored and wanted something difficult because she felt week, sick and restlessness. She didn't know what to do. Nobody read or spoke of something important, however war was always present but it was unpolite to say something about it. On the Christmas of 1938 there were dancing's every night but at the sport club the wolves began fighting for the same time for a new girl just arrived in time, Marny Van resberg and three couples suddenly wanted to get married. Nigth after night they were up till the son rose, they work again and met again at five of the evening. During those days Stella and Andrew, Donovan a Ruth and Martha and Perry went out everywhere. They always met in the Stella flat immediately after work, in a sexless friendship. Sometimes they changed the partners, but nothing happens. On the Christmas time they met Adolph, a musician of the band, a Jude. The group didn't like him except from Stella (Jude) and Martha. That night Perry escorted Martha to her room, they where in bed and she kiss her but she didn't wont to make love. So he went out and slammed the door. Mrs Gun, the proprietary heard noises and brought her some tea. She slept a little and went to work. That afternoon Adolph telephoned her and invited her to go out that evening so they began to went out just because she thought he was ashamed to be Jude and he considered nobody would love him for being a Jude. He felt sorrow for him. They went out to dance, to the knave of clubs which was the only night club in the town (he taught her to dance and also was he first sex glover). They spent new year date in his room, lying in the bed and eating chocolates. He was a very jealous person. They stop going to the Mathews flat and they went out alone. Two weeks after they first make love he carried her to a horse race and she was very bored. She was very tired and thought that Adolph was with her because he wanted to prove that also he was a Jude she could date a nice girl like Martha. When she return home Donovan appeared in his car and carried her to the Mathews club. Donovan toll her that every night when she went to sleep, sits in his car, watching if anyone appeared in the room. She didn't believe it. And then she went to see Stella and Andrew. Stella told her that Adolph have a bad reputation and has been talking about Martha public everywhere. Martha didn't see Adolph anymore. She continued with her work where Mr Haspeer had gone to Spain because his son Abraham had been killed and his wife wanted the divorce .She applied as a window dresser, also as chofer and for babysitter and as last as a writer to, but she didn't success. In January she met a young man called Douglas knowell, a member of the group. He appeared to be a new and reared person very different to the sport club men. Martha could be natural with him because he like to read and discuss important things. Suddenly the world was beautiful and future full of promises, they made love and decided to married that evening. Next morning she wasn't sure to married him but everybody at the office were celebrating the news and were happy for her. So she couldn't change her mind. So they went to see her parents at the farm. At first her parents thought that they could married because she was pregnant but that was no true. Her father, Mr quest told Martha that she was sociable and atheist. Her mother gave her a diamond ring but she didn't wanted neither she wanted a ceremony or party at all. They were married by Mr Maynard (binkys father) and they went off to a honey moon with Stella and Andrews. Martha and Douglas moved to new flag.

Martha Quest by Dorris lessing

MARTHA�S QUEST

Part One

PART TWO

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