After reading Phoebe Connelly's moving analysis of Doris Lessing at TAP, I knew that she was just the gal to give us the straight dope on The Golden Notebook. Here she is, in all her glory. -CEM

Guest Post by Phoebe Connelly

Let's get this out of the way right now--you probably haven't read The Golden Notebook because it was:

• a) Tarred by the fact that you heard Doris Lessing said it wasn't feminist (I've already addressed those concerns here.)
• b) Dense, from the '70s and had had this cover image:

  

• c) No one ever told you it existed.

But Doris Lessing won the Nobel a few weeks ago, she offered a suitably flippant reply to the reporter who informed her of that fact, and now, you're newly excited by the idea of her. Well good. Welcome to a "classic feminist text" that's readable, relevant, and engrossing.

Lessing's novel is, as she her self puts it in the introduction, "a novel of ideas," which is to say that she's grappling with what it means to be a woman, to have plans and talent and desire, and then struggle to fit those pieces together into a life.

The novel is centered around the relationship between Anna and Molly. The two old friends, who are "for a lot of people … practically interchangeable," are raising children as single parents in London in the 1960s. The novel follows Anna's struggle to integrate the parts of herself that she feels she should keep divided. This division is mirrored in the notebooks that she keeps, different colors reflecting the fractured parts of herself, "as if Anna had, almost automatically, divided herself into four, and then, from the nature of what she had written, named these divisions." Lessing intersperses her narrative of the two women with sections of Anna's notebooks.

The two have lovers and ex-husbands, jobs they hate, and unrequited passion--not so much as changed in four decades. Through their experiences, Lessing explores the expectations and pitfalls around femininity. She confronts the imposition of romantic relationships upon friendship: "I went to supper with Molly. We neither of us mentioned Saul in relation to me, from which I understood that I was already in love with Saul, and that the man-woman loyalty, stronger than the loyalty of friendship had already imposed itself," as easily as she does the taboos around menstruation: "so I shut the thoughts of my period out of my mind; making, however, a mental note that as soon as I get to the office I must go to the washroom to make sure there is no smell."

This is not to say that I always agreed with Lessing's take on the divided reality of women. What kept me reading was that while I often disagreed, or failed to identify with her women, the women themselves are vibrantly alive. The Golden Notebook is a true portrait of the struggles to be yourself, because of and in spite of the pressures and expectations of your gender.

But gender is not the only reason to read the novel. Lessing has an eye for political realities and the stark unchanging ways of violence. Consider this passage of Anna in the midst of a dark depression:

I felt bored and stale; knowing that, without having read the newspapers at all I could have made a pretty good guess, from the political experience, at what happened in that week.

Lessing is a brilliant mind, unafraid to explore to the hilt everything around her. I could go on--but I'll leave you instead with Lessing's sage advice from her 1971 preface to the book:

Everywhere, if you keep your mind open, you will find the truth in words not written down. So never let the printed page be your master. … you should have been taught to read your way from one sympathy to another, you should be learning to follow your own intuitive feeling bout what you need: that is what you should have been developing, not the way to quote from other people.

Lessing will make you a braver reader, and a fiercer defender of your own explorations.

Next week: Court's back with a round up on the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival.

3 Comments

November 1, 2007 2:08 PM

[0+]  ccchild said:

I have loved and read this book (probably because the version I bought had a different color...).

One part that sticks with me: one of the women (I'm doing this by memory, so bear with me) is obsessing about a man, saying she shouldn't be, but she is. Lessing then defines insanity as "knowing something is illogical, but then going ahead and doing it anyway." How many of us have felt that before?

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November 1, 2007 4:09 PM

[0+]  EG said:

Hmm. I think Lessing is wrong about that, then. That's not an accurate definition of insanity. That's a definition of the human condition.

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August 23, 2009 9:43 PM

[0+]  Carmen Govani said:

An Old Parlor with an Old Tree

Located near the Japan Sea, Kanazawa is an old castle town that was well known during the Edo Period (1600-1867) for its flourishing economy as well as a culture that was quite distinct from Kyoto. The town's traditions have been well preserved, making it one of the favorite destinations for people who are interested in Japanese arts and culture. One building that is reminiscent of its gracious history is the Nakamura parlor, which shares its grounds with two modern buildings and a magnificent 400-year-old Japanese white pine tree.
The fusuma doors of this one-room parlor lead into a simple and serene interior, This eight-mat formal room with an engovvo was built in the Sukiya style in 1933, and serves as both a drawing room and a tearoom. The late Baizan Nakamura, who built this room in his 20s. was a potter well known for making tea-ceremony utensils with beautiful and novel designs. The touch of the artist's ingenuity is evident in this simple room, achieved here without gorgeous materials or expensive features such as wooden posts and ceiling boards of precious wood, sculptured ranma, fusuma with gold detailing and other decorative elements. Severe discipline, with a spirit of playfulness is the quintessence of the Sukiya style ("tea style") in Japan, and the Nakamura parlor is a good example of that. An example of Sukiya-style playfulness is found in the sliding doors on a row of low closets, which are made of wood that was selected for its apparently moth-eaten texture. The room also has a fireplace (ro) sunk into the floor for tea-ceremony events. When not in use, it is covered with a board made by boldly contrast­ing rough weather-worn wood with smooth, fine-grained pine wood. A similar spirit is seen in the design of the door handles (hikite). The outside hikite have an image of an iron club representative of the devil, while those on the inside are engraved with a Chinese character for good luck. These door handles are a reference to the Japanese Bean-throwing festival in spring, during which people scatter soybeans throughout the house, shouting, "Out with the devil, in with good fortune." However. these details do not detract from the simple beauty of this room, which is in complete harmony with the natural elements of the garden outside, including the ancient pine tree.

Architect Hiroshi Naito helped reconstruct the Nakamura parlor in 1996, after it had been dismantled at the suggestion of Baizan himself. This parlor, along with the old family house, was taken down to make space for the new homes that Nakamura's sons were planning to build (one of these is featured on pages 214-223). Fortunately, the Nakamura family later decided to reconstruct this parlor in its original form exactly where it had been before, because it had a special place in their lives, and also because this exquisite room would be irreplaceable in the future. Baizan's three sons, Kinpei, Takuo and Kohei, are all potters and display their father's originality in their contemporary ceramics. Takuo says, "In my youth, I felt put off by this parlor because I thought it was ostentatious, but now I admit that growing up with it has helped develop my creativity".

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