Hello Gentle Reader
In nineteen-sixty two Doris Lessing the then future Nobel Laureate in Literature of two-thousand and seven, had her first real breakthrough. Twelve years before hand she had already wrote her first book “The Grass is Singing.” Continuing in the nineteen-fifties Doris Lessing wrote the beginning of a series called the “Children of Violence,” or sometimes called the “Martha Quest,” series. Which tackled autobiographical themes and ended in the same way that “The Golden Notebook,” had ended; and started to move towards her next series and style “The Canopus in Argos: Archives series.”
“The Golden Notebook,” was a classic at the burgeoning feminist movement – which is why it is also expertly called a feminist classic. However Doris Lessing herself argues that the concept or idea of “The Golden Notebook,” being a feminist piece of work, is misguided. The work itself does deal with the battle of the sexes of men and women. During the sixties itself which was a time of beatnik experimentation and sexual liberation, as well as utopian ideas of man helping man and human beings living in harmony with one another. Of course this drug induced rock music, orgy of utopian ideas was futile, and came to pass without much of a notice. However the sixties went down in history for its pop culture references, Woodstock and its feminist movement; but not for the more progressive and utopian idea’s.
Doris Lessing however clinically writes about the time in different notebooks which tackles different themes and shows the inner workings of a woman. This is what is most important though. Doris Lessing’s breakthrough novel; shows the inner workings of a woman’s soul and also her mental breakdown. Her different facades; and her fragmented personality of being an individual. The political Anna; a mother but also a secret lover (she is a woman has needs); a writer and friend.
With this novel she frankly discusses sex, the bodily functions of a woman, what it means to be a mother, a woman with political convictions (and doubting those political convictions) as well as the creative process of writing. It tackles the concept of dreams. It uses psychoanalysis as a reference to the understanding the subconscious and the unconscious of the human being. The psychoanalyst part of the novel is very interesting and peculiar in many ways. For one it is a period piece. In the sixties authors were intrigued by the use of psychoanalysis. It is different than Virginia Woolf’s steam-of-consciousness style, where the thoughts of the characters were presented on the page; and therefore present a more subjective view point, than that of a first person narrator. Psychoanalysis as a literary technique was used more of an exploration of the inner self – as further attempt at truth-telling. Whereas the stream of consciousness style of such modernist authors like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust; seek to leave an impression like the faint dent of a finger print in dust; the use of psychoanalysis in fiction such as “The Golden Notebook,” it is to provide further elements of truth and exploration of the individual subconsciousness of people. It is in this vain that authors take up the mantel of such people like Freud and Jung – and provide their theories to the understanding of the shifting blank inky space, in which subconsciousness lurks and slumbers.
The dreams that Anna reveals to her confessor Mrs. Marks dubbed “Mother Sugar,” recount Anna’s fears. These dreams are recounted as well as analyzed; though subjectively. They are argued about as well. Anna continually sees Mother Sugar as an enemy or a tyrant of the dream. Someone who harvests the mist or the cloudy haze of the dreams and takes out the magic. The person who strips the dreams down to their symbolic bare essentials. All of this is written about in the Blue Notebook. A personal diary composed of emotional strength. It is here in the Blue Notebook that one truly see’s the plurality of Anna Wulf’s nature tied together loosely by a thin string. Each concept or part of Anna is like a balloon; held down to the physical Anna by a string. That string is the Blue Notebook.
“Then why write it down at all? Do you realize the whole of the notebook, the blue one, is either newspaper writings, or bits like the blood and brains bits, all bracketed off, or crossed out; and then entries like buying tomatoes or tea.”
Tommy (a character – the son of Molly and the wealthy Richard) is right. The Blue Notebook is full of domestic chores; but also written about the societal breakdown. The fears of falling down and crashing on the hard pavement below; where the drops of blood and bits of brain roll off and sprout into tomatoes or tea herbs. But Anna is quick to hypocritically scratch or cross them out. She is quick to exile or block them off in brackets. Continually trying to deny the break down that is happening within her.
The Black Notebook is a discussion of Africa where Anna had lived once. It is interesting as well because both the character of Anna and the author Doris Lessing both share the same connection to Africa and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It traces the time before and during World War II and the beginning traces of the communist idea’s that had slithered their way into the heads and minds of the bunch of wandering young people that Anna associated herself with. It is also the basis of the fictional debut novel of Anna; that was a great success. However this success leads her to a writer’s block in the then present. This part of the novel and the notebook discuss the racial tensions of Africa; and how the whites had become quite at home there, but treated the black people, the natives of the land as second class citizens. They were cooks and they were slaves; allowed to do the truly mind numbing jobs; as was expected of them. It is with the Boothby’s of this notebook that one begins to see how the racial tension is and how much racism was accepted back then. The rag tag group that Anna Wulf hangs around with, pride themselves on their goal to change the attitude towards the suffering black people and the restraining yokes that has been placed around their necks, and have subdued them into compliant house pets and servants. However their ideological musings and utopian ideas are nothing more than just that. Ideas of a better world that would remain as formless as clouds.
There is no denying that Doris Lessing was a communist at one point in her life. She has since distanced herself from communism and all ideologies now that she has grown older. Perhaps Ms. Lessing see’s the futility of organized ideologies. How they in the end only corrupt the utopian. Turning it to ash, much like the end of a cigarette when its bright red cherry has since begun to smolder. In the Red Notebook, Anna writes about the fall of the communist part in Britain. The realization of the crimes of Stalin and the scrambling attempts at finding a reason for them or a way to through glitter on it to try and change the perspective. In the end all attempts failed. In the end there was no denying the crimes. They are as much a fact of History just like other tyrants crimes. Some intellectuals fervently denied the crimes of Stalin; presenting him as more of one’s favourite uncle; rather than a paranoid old man. Previous Nobel Laureate (but declined the award) writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was a left leaning philosopher. There is no equal to him in the English speaking world, for his philosophical idea’s and concepts or his literary output and intellectual pursuits. Even in France his only adversary would be Voltaire. At his funeral in the eighties, Jean-Paul Sartre’s procession was followed by fifty thousand people all the way to Montparnasse cemetery where his and Simon de Beauvoir’s remains are held to this day. However, in the fifties Sartre turned to political action and his interest in Marx’s sociological and economic philosophies and idea’s took hold of the philosopher who had made such a contribution to the world of literature and philosophy. It is in this time that Sartre broke off with another French philosopher and writer Albert Camus, who would become a Nobel Laureate in Literature; over their views of Stalin and his totalitarian regime. Sartre famously stated about the Soviet forced labour camps:
“It was not our duty to write about the Soviet labor camps,”
It is the apologists of Communism like Jean-Paul Sartre, which Doris Lessing and Anna Wulf both despise; and are in need of running away. Doris Lessing has since abandoned communism all together and now looks back at it with a satirical and critical eye. Though in “The Golden Notebook,” especially the Red Notebook, Anna Wulf both despises the party but also uses as it as a shield. When she discusses the movie rights with someone interested in the film production of her book, she finally breaks the news that she is a red. The American producer at first is betrayed then questioningly confused. Perplexed at how could someone be so friendly like Ms. Wulf had been and then became a reluctant red. Using the concept of communism as a weapon or a shield, something that shocks and pushes people away.
My least favourite part of this entire door stop of a novel was the Yellow Notebook. What a waste of time it felt to me. It was basically the revision of “The Golden Notebook,” or rather Anna’s mental state placed in another fictional form. Personally for me it was an attempt at meta-fiction that did not work as it was supposed to. This of course happens throughout the novel. There are moments where the novel strives in its success, and falters into failure. The Yellow Notebook is one such failure. The novel “Free Women,” was doing quite well at the beginning but it as well, began to fall into melodramatics as the Notebooks begin to make and take center stage; pushing the short stand-alone novel aside to the point where in the end the lack of characterization had ended in a failure.
When I had watched the documentary on the Nobel website, that documented Doris Lessing, she talked briefly about “The Golden Notebook,” and even in her introduction of the book, she recognizes its impact on young people – and women; but also how it has left its mark on history. Now she means this modestly because she didn’t really think that she was doing something with this book; but in the end she had grasped something, and had achieved documenting the sexual liberation; the feeling of utopian idea’s that could take flight from socialism. In the end however the books style got lost in its verbosity. Then it was quickly tied together in the “Golden Notebook,” which felt contrived; and towards the end the overstatement of the entire work and the discussions between Molly and Anna, became more sporadic. Tommy became more radical, and eventually the actions felt scatted and without cause.
It was also with that documentary that I was under the impression that “The Golden Notebook,” was something of a domestic piece of work. When the excerpt from the book was read by Doris Lessing, it made me feel that the book itself was going to be full of such scenes:
“And now the cooking for Michael. I unroll the veal that I remembered to batter out flat this morning; and I roll the pieces in the yellow, and the crumbs. I baked crumbs yesterday, and they still smell fresh and dry, in spite of the dampness in the air. I slice mushrooms into ream. I have a pan full of bone jelly in the ice-box, which I melt and season. And the extra apples I cooled when doing Janet’s, I scoop out the still warm crackling skin, and slice the pulp and mix it with thin vanilla cream, and beat it until it goes thick; and I pile the mixture back into the apple skins and set them to brown in the oven. All the kitchen is full of good cooking smells; and all at once I am happy; so happy that I can feel the warmth of it through my whole body. Then there is a cold feeling in my stomach, and I think: Being happy is a lie, it’s a habit of happiness from moments like these during the last four years. And the happiness vanishes, and I am desperately tired. With the tiredness comes guilt. I know all the forms and variations of this guilt so well that they even bore me.”
One cannot blame the Swedish Academy or the Nobel website for this. I certainly cannot blame Doris Lessing either; for the impression that I originally had of the novel. That being, which the novel was going to be full of domestic chores, and the beauty of mundane activities, rich with lyrical descriptions, and feminine insights. This of course was partly true. There were plenty of feminine insights:
“I was filled with an emotion one has, women have, about children’s a feeling of fierce triumph: That against all odds, against the weight of death, this human being exists, there, a miracle of breathing flesh.”
But if you were looking for a prim and proper domestic house wife or goddess, look elsewhere. Doris Lessing writes about even the unbeautiful aspects of being a woman. I remember the frank discussion of a period with this novel. As a man who has (and will never) experience such an activity, it is difficult to relate on a emphatic level. The novel discusses sex and the problems of being a woman and sex; and it is in these passages that the cool first bit of reception had hacked the book down to it being a castrating experience. However the novel has its tender moments. Moments where Doris Lessing gets into the space where the fiction becomes meditative, and flows naturally rather than being contrived and artificial, where the formal experimentation is put more at ease and worked on less – there’s a sense of confidence.
“There are half a dozen pots of creeper on the window sill, a greenish-grey wandering plant that I don’t know the name of. I take the six earthenware pots to the kitchen and submerge them, one after another, in a basin of water, watching the bubbles rise as the water sinks down and drives up the air. The leaves sparkle with water. The dark earth smells of damp growth.”
Ms. Lessing is at her best when she gives the senses a sensational tickling. A gentle tug and release; it brings to mind fishing on a lazy weekend summer day, just allowing the time to pass. The day just passes by; and fishing becomes a sedative experience. Which is what the pieces like the above are like and reminiscent of.
“The Golden Notebook,” is also interesting because of the change in directions Doris Lessing’s fiction was beginning to take. After “The Golden Notebook,” Was written, the next piece of fiction she wrote was “Briefing for a Descent into Hell,” in nineteen-seventy one. This is her first piece of work that Doris Lessing had written in the style of “inner space fiction,” it was the beginning of the following novels that would deal with space and science fiction, and societal break down; ecological disasters and the weapons as a society can use for the destruction of the world. “The Golden Notebook,” briefly tackles this theme as the, confides of reality begin to sleep away, and the mystification of dreams begin to take hold on reality. Like ivy that begins to spread throughout the garden, and choke out everything.
“I was sitting on the floor this afternoon, watching the sky darken, on inhabitant of a world where one can say, the quality of light means it must be evening, instead of: in exactly on how I must put on the vegetables, and I suddenly went back into a state of mind I’d forgotten, something from childhood. I used at night to sit up in bed and play what I called “the game.” First I created the room I sat in, object by object, “naming,” everything, bed, chair, curtains, till it was whole in my mind, then move out of the room, creating the house, then out of the house, slowly creating the street, then rise into the air, looking down on the London, at the enormous sprawling wastes of London, but holding at the same time the room and the house and the street in my mind, and then England, the shape of England in Britain, then the little group of islands lying against the continent, then slowly, slowly, I would create the world, continent by continent, ocean by ocean (but the point of “the game,” was to create the vastness while holding the bedroom, the house, the street in their littleness in my mind at the same time), until the point was reached where I moved out into space, and watched the world, a sunlit ball in the sky, turning and rolling beneath me. Then, having reached that point, with the stars, around me and time, a drop of water, swarming with life, or a green leaf. Sometimes I could reach what I wanted, a simultaneous knowledge of vastness and of smallness. Or I would concentrate on a single creature, a small coloured fish in a pool, or a single flower, or a moth, and try to create, to “name,” the being of the flower, the moth, the fish, slowly creating around it the forest or the sea – pool, or the space of blowing night air that filled my wings. And then, out, sudden from the smallness into space.”
There is no doubt the significance of the novel of “The Golden Notebook,” where it fits into reality of history, but also being a landmark of the later part of the twentieth century literature, its adoption by the feminist movement as their bible, their reason for the sexual liberation, the need to be free; the desire to have equality. Though Doris Lessing herself would disagree with this charge that the book has anything to do with feminism as Ms. Lessing herself does not consider herself a feminist nor does she consider the book a work of feminist literature. However it is a book that has left its mark, and continues to inspire and help others to do this day. It had a rough beginning, with its early reception and though at times it fails, its confidence, its awkwardness and its desire to communicate lead it to be a great piece of work of literature. Tedious however at times, it is still something that as a reader I can admire.
Irving Howe who in nineteen-sixty three commented on the book and his words truly grasp with his observation he understands what the book really did for a generation of woman – who were old enough or rather who understood it enough, to take action:
“Anna Wulf and her old friend Molly understand perfectly well that modern women . . . face crippling difficulties when they choose one or another role of freedom. But they do not fall back upon their charm, wit, or headaches; they take their beatings, they ask no quarter, they spin and bear it. They are tough-minded, generous and battered-descriptives one is temped to apply to the author herself, formerly close to the English Communist movement, a woman whose youth in southern Africa had shaken her into a sense of how brutal human beings can become . . . one feels about Miss Lessing that she works from so complex and copious a fund of experience that among women writers her English predecessors seem pale and her American contemporaries parochial.”
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
**I just wanted to apologize for the lack of blog posts these two weeks Gentle Reader, work has been crazy and there was lack of internet, the week before. Again sorry for the inconvience.**
