''The Golden Notebook'' is a 1962 novel by the British writer

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

. Like her two books that followed, it enters the realm of what Margaret Drabble in ''

The Oxford Companion to English Literature ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'' first published in 1932, edited by the retired diplomat Sir Paul Harvey (1869–1948), was the earliest of the Oxford Companions to appear. It is currently in its seventh edition (2009), edited by ...

'' called Lessing's "inner space fiction"; her work that explores mental and societal breakdown. The novel contains anti-

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

and anti-

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messages, an extended analysis of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

and the

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from the 1930s to the 1950s, and an examination of the budding

sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...

and women's liberation movements. In 2005, ''

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'' magazine called ''The Golden Notebook'' one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.100 Books of 2005. The Complete List
''Time'' It has been translated into a number of other languages, including French,

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, Hungarian, and

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Plot summary

''The Golden Notebook'' is the story of writer Anna Wulf, the four notebooks in which she records her life, and her attempt to tie them together in a fifth, gold-coloured notebook. The book intersperses segments of an ostensibly realistic narrative of the lives of Anna and her friend Molly Jacobs as well as their children, ex-husbands and lovers—entitled ''Free Women''—with excerpts from Anna's four notebooks, coloured black (of Anna's experience in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

, before and during World War II, which inspired her own best-selling novel), red (of her experience as a member of the Communist Party), yellow (an ongoing novel that is being written based on the painful ending of Anna's own love affair), and blue (Anna's personal journal where she records her memories, dreams, and emotional life). Each notebook is returned to four times, interspersed with episodes from ''Free Women'', creating non-chronological, overlapping sections that interact with one another. This post-modern styling, with its space for "play" engaging the characters and readers, is among the most famous features of the book, although Lessing insisted that readers and reviewers pay attention to the serious themes in the novel.

Major themes

Lessing, in her preface, claimed that the most important theme in the novel is fragmentation; the mental breakdown that Anna suffers, perhaps from the compartmentalization of her life reflected in the division of the four notebooks but also reflecting the fragmentation of society. Anna's relationship and attempt to draw everything together in the golden notebook at the end of the novel are both the final stage of her intolerable mental breakdown, and her attempt to overcome the fragmentation and madness.

Characters

*Anna (Freeman) Wulf: Writer. Main character of Free Women and writer of the Notebooks. *Max Wulf: Anna's ex-husband *Janet Wulf: Anna and Max's daughter *Molly Jacobs: Actress, Anna's friend. *Richard Portmain: Molly's ex-husband *Tommy Portmain: Molly's -- and Richard's -- son *Marion Portmain: Richard's second wife *Michael: Anna's former lover *Willi (Wilhelm) Rodde (Black Notebook): Anna's boyfriend, refugee from Germany, based on Max Wulf. *Paul Blackenhurst (Black Notebook): Royal Air Force Pilot *Ted Brown (Black Notebook): Royal Air Force pilot, socialist. *Jimmy McGrath (Black Notebook): Royal Air Force pilot. Homosexual. *George Hounslow (Black Notebook): Worked on roads. *Maryrose (Black Notebook): Paul and George's love interest, born in Southern Rhodesia *Mr Boothby (Black Notebook): Proprietor of the Mashopi Hotel *Mrs Boothby (Black Notebook): Proprietor of the Mashopi Hotel *June Boothby (Black Notebook): Daughter of Mr & Mrs Boothby *Jackson (Black Notebook): Cook at the Mashopi Hotel. Friend of Jimmy. *Marie (Black Notebook): Jackson's wife. Has an affair with George. *Ella (Yellow Notebook): Based on Anna Wulf. Writes for a women's magazine. *Julia (Yellow Notebook): Based on Molly Jacobs *Dr West (Yellow Notebook): Writes a medical column under the name Dr Allsop for the women's magazine. *Patricia Brent (Yellow Notebook): Editor *George (Yellow Notebook): Based on Max Wulf *Paul Tanner (Yellow Notebook): Ella's lover *Michael (Yellow Notebook): Ella's son *Saul Green (Blue and Golden Notebooks): American writer *Milt (Free Women 5): American writer (= Saul Green from the Blue and Golden Notebooks) *Mother Sugar (Mrs Marks): Anna and Molly's psychoanalyst *Tom Mathlong (Free Women): African political activist *Charlie Themba (Free Women 4): Trade union leader, friend of Tom Mathlong

Translations

Translations include: * ''Le Carnet d'or'' (

éditions Albin Michel Éditions Albin Michel is a French publisher. In January 2022, the new director is Anna Pavlowitch, the daughter of Paul Pavlowitch. History It was founded in 1900 by Albin Michel. They published, first, Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Roland Do ...

, 1976)

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* ''Il taccuino d'oro'' (Feltrinelli, 1989)

talian Talian may refer to: *Talian dialect, a dialect spoken in Brazil *Talian, Iran Talian ( fa, طاليان, also Romanized as Tālīān and Ţālīān) is a village in Baraghan Rural District, Chendar District, Savojbolagh County, Alborz Province, ...

* ''Den femte sanningen'', trans. by Mårten Edlund (1964) wedish * ''Az arany jegyzetfüzet'', trans. by Tábori Zoltán (Ulpius-ház, 2008), ungarian * מחברת הזהב (

Am Oved Am Oved ("A Working People") is an Israeli publishing house. History Am Oved was founded in 1942 by Berl Katznelson, who was its first Editor in Chief. It was created as an organ of the Histadrut, Israel's federation of Labor, with a goal of publi ...

, 1978), , ebrew * "Złoty notes", trans. by Bohdan Maliborski (2014) olish

References

External links

"Full text of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, with annotations for an internet reading group"
– website created as an experiment in online collaborative reading

– an article by

Fragmentation and Integration. A Critical Study of Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook by Nan Bentzen Skille, Universitetet i Bergen 1977
LAS, THIS LINK DOESNOT WORK ANYMORE! {{DEFAULTSORT:Golden Notebook, The 1962 British novels Feminist novels Novels by Doris Lessing Metafictional novels Novels about writers Michael Joseph books