The Golden Notebook - Sept 2021 Book Group discussion thread

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McGoohan Aug 2021 11:38am, 30 Aug 2021 50,104 posts	0 McGoohan In 2005, TIME magazine called The Golden Notebook one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. This Amazon reviewer says: Lynda 1.0 out of 5 stars The missing book Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2010 I did not receive my order for The Golden Notebook and can only assume that it has gone missing since it was dispatched. I am impressed with the way this situation was handled with a refund being offererd without any quibble. I have always found Amazon to be a wonderful resource and believe them to be a highly professional organisation. Shame about the missing book but well done on the refund! Now YOU be the judge.
Serendippily Aug 2021 10:31pm, 30 Aug 2021 23,037 posts	0 Serendippily I recognised the title at once. I looked on Wikipedia and recognised the summary. But I can’t find it on my bookshelf so now I’m worried I just dreamt I read it. I loved the fifth child so it is likely I’ve read it. Um. Someone else review and then I can chime in.
Sharkie Aug 2021 10:35pm, 30 Aug 2021 18,463 posts	0 Sharkie I read this - but about 40 years ago when it was considered requisite reading for would be feminists. I liked it at the time but am senile now and can't remember much about it.
Diogenes Aug 2021 8:48am, 31 Aug 2021 62,441 posts	0 Diogenes I can remember exactly when I read this book: it was 2016 and it was the book I was reading when I was travelling up to London daily for treatment for a month or so. It took a little bit of effort to get into, but most good books do. As Sharkie says, it is (or was) an important work of feminist literature, but it is much more than that, covering many other themes and is ultimately the complex tale of a life led and told in fragments.
Diogenes Aug 2021 8:49am, 31 Aug 2021 62,442 posts	0 Diogenes [btw, I never expected Doris Lessing to look like that >>>>]
McGoohan Aug 2021 8:53am, 31 Aug 2021 50,109 posts	0 McGoohan Writer, revolutionary communist, anti-apartheid campaigner and glamourous star of Will and Grace. She had it all.
Columba Sep 2021 7:08pm, 26 Sep 2021 21,311 posts	0 Columba Finished the book this morning. Rather a relief, though I was interested to read it again (read it first soon after it came out). It's very much "of its time"; some of the issues the protagonist is concerned with just don't seem to be issues any more, the world having moved on. If it were offered for publication now, I doubt if a publisher would accept it without insisting the author change her attitude to what are now called gays but then, homosexuals. Huge chunks of print with never a paragraph in sight; it's a bit daunting to be faced with that, though I did persevere. I liked the descriptions of South Africa; very evocative; and the people she knew there. Entirely believable. Also quite liked the Mother Sugar bits. I didn't find Janet believable; even though Anna makes a point of providing her with a "normal" life, regular meals, regular bedtimes, I thought she would have been at least slightly disturbed by her mother's chaotic lifestyle.
westmoors Sep 2021 1:01pm, 27 Sep 2021 5,399 posts	0 westmoors Read this whilst on my hols. Didn't like the format; found it too disjointed and, at times, confusing. Can't say I warmed to any of the characters. Gave it a 5.
Hanneke Sep 2021 1:47pm, 27 Sep 2021 80,016 posts	0 Hanneke I have difficulties getting into it and retaining it. I bought it years ago off a rave review. Hmmmm...
Peregrinator Oct 2021 11:22pm, 17 Oct 2021 949 posts	0 Peregrinator The Golden Notebook And Saint Doris of Lessing spoke to the multitude saying: "There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping those that bore you, skipping parts that drag - and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty - and vice-versa." And one in the crowd spoke, saying: "I readeth the book that is chosen each month, but when can I readeth the multitude of books in the world, for I must worketh, and runneth and do mundaneth things". Saint Doris answered, saying "Consider the McGoohan, for he laboureth, and blogeth and runneth, yet he also readeth mightly". And the people saw that it was so. Not withstanding its 578 pages and being largely about a writer not-writing, I read the introduction twice and the whole book once. It feels the most politically themed book I've read - not just for the Red Journal and the Communist party bits, but its dialectical approach and analysis. Some of the characters don't feel organic, but rather a point of view. Much of it is set in terms of the conflicts of its day: the battle of the sexes, class war, Apartheid southern Africa, the conflict in Korea, which are inevitably now dated. Lessing though says the book is about breaking down and fusing, which becomes more evident later in the book, but what most remains are people in opposition to each other. I can appreciate that Lessing both reflects and analyses her world in an original way: a lot of the book is in its structure, which probably speaks to other writers, but I found difficult to get my head around. We are intended to construct things from the combination of all the layers and parts, which is hard work, but maybe that's the point. An interesting read, rather than a good read, and certainly not an easy read. Lessing also wrote "When a book's pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author - then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new". Looks like I failed that test by having to reading it all to the end: put me down as one of the lumpenproletariat.