Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.
Reason read: October is Lessing’s birth month. Read in her memory.
At the center of The Golden Notebook is Anna. To understand The Golden Notebook is to understand the four sides of Anna. Author of four colored notebooks, Anna is a reviewer of her experiences and travels in Africa (black covered), a questioner of communism and her role in politics (appropriately red covered), an author writing a descriptive autobiographical novel (yellow covered), and a diarist expressing her undying love for an American author (blue covered). In an attempt to organize all aspects of her life, Anna strives to combine all four notebooks into one golden book called “Free Women.”
Drawing from her own life, Lessing knew she had to change some details in the Golden Notebook, but to this day, readers are left asking themselves, exactly how much of Golden Notebook was still the autobiographical truth?
I knew this to be an important piece of literature by just how many times other authors made mention of it by name. I likened it to hearing about a person long before meeting them face to face. Hello Golden Notebook! I’ve heard so much about you from so many other authors. “Good things, I hope” replies the notebook.
Author fact: I am reading a bunch of Lessing’s work. Six books in all (I have read two already). I think Pearl likes her a great deal and yet there isn’t a Book Lust chapter called “Doris Lessing: Too Good To Miss.” I wonder why?
Book trivia: Mashopi is the real town of Macheke. Lessing said she once wanted to walk around Macheke so that she might tease out what was real and what was of her own creation. Another good piece of trivia: Lessing wrote two introductions to the Golden Notebook.
Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about The Golden Notebook.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1960s” (p 175). for all the times other authors have referred to The Golden Notebook I would have thought Pearl would mention it more than once.