This novel was published in 1950. As a picture of white society in Rhodesia just before/during World War II, its narrow codes of behavior and its fearful, hateful treatment of the natives, it was enlightening. As a description of a relationship between naive, flawed people and how their marriage slowly went wrong, it was absorbing. As a description of something that developed between the wife and a houseboy, though, in the last 40 pages it wasn't sufficiently clear for me to grasp exactly what occurred. I couldn't understand how far the relationship developed, why she knew what was going to happen, or why the houseboy changed the way he did. Were there limits in those days on what it was possible to write about a relationship that crossed the "color bar"?

Toward the novel's end, having brought these two characters together, the author must've intended to shift to a style that expressed the wife's breakdown, leaving things vague enough so that readers could project their own interpretations. But after the nuanced realism up to then, which showed so meticulously the main characters' expectations, weaknesses and frustrations, the stylistic change near the end felt jarring.

The author hinted that the wife's problems with men and intimacy could be traced to her relations with her parents, especially her father. And that she understood finally it was her mistake to rely on others to help her escape her problems, that she should've taken responsibility for her own life. It was interesting that the author, having given her some degree of self-awareness -- which put her far ahead of the book's other characters -- then had her break down and die. Instead of, say, escaping from her marriage and Rhodesia.
This novel was published in 1950. As a picture of white society in Rhodesia just before/during World War II, its narrow codes of behavior and its fearful, hateful treatment of the natives, it was enlightening. As a description of a relationship between naive, flawed people and how their marriage slowly went wrong, it was absorbing. As a description of something that developed between the wife and a houseboy, though, in the last 40 pages it wasn't sufficiently clear for me to grasp exactly what occurred. I couldn't understand how far the relationship developed, why she knew what was going to happen, or why the houseboy changed the way he did. Were there limits in those days on what it was possible to write about a relationship that crossed the "color bar"? Toward the novel's end, having brought these two characters together, the author must've intended to shift to a style that expressed the wife's breakdown, leaving things vague enough so that readers could project their own interpretations. But after the nuanced realism up to then, which showed so meticulously the main characters' expectations, weaknesses and frustrations, the stylistic change near the end felt jarring. The author hinted that the wife's problems with men and intimacy could be traced to her relations with her parents, especially her father. And that she understood finally it was her mistake to rely on others to help her escape her problems, that she should've taken responsibility for her own life. It was interesting that the author, having given her some degree of self-awareness -- which put her far ahead of the book's other characters -- then had her break down and die. Instead of, say, escaping from her marriage and Rhodesia.