About this title: This novel is widely considered to be Lessing's masterpiece. Anna Wulf, a writer living in London, attempts to conquer the chaos of her life by using five notebooks as journals: the black one deals with her life in colonial Africa, the red is her Communist experiences, the yellow is a more or less fictionalized chronicle of Anna's alter ego Ella, and the blue is a diary of Anna's day to day life. The golden notebook involves Anna's integration of herself through analysis. The novel also contains Anna's own novel, called "Free Women." Complex, layered, psychological, "The Golden Notebook" was ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York, New York
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780553208504ISBN:0553208500
Description: Appears never read, tight binding, cover wear with a corner torn on back cover, does not affect photos or writings. Edges of pages are not clean. Inside pages are a little yellowed, clean, delivery confirmation. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. Synopsis: Two women talk, and what they say is explosive. One woman writes, and each part of her becomes a fragment set down in a different notebook. Torn apart by marriage, love affairs, children, and a neutrotic ... read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780553104257ISBN:055310425X
Description: Good. Good condition overall. Worn cover. Some underlining. Writing in margins. Pages tanned. Creased spine, tight binding. Good solid copy. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780060975906ISBN:0060975903
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very good clean trade paperback. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 623 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. May have wear or tear to spine, edges and or cover. Creases in spine. Bent/rounded corners. May have highlighting/notes. read more
"When Doris Lessing won the nobel prize for literature, my bookclub decided it was time to read one of her books. We choose The Golden Notebook. And we all started optimistically. 1 month later it turned out that of the 8 members of our bookclub, only 2 people finished the book. I wasn't among them. I started in the book and tried for a week to wrestle myself past the first pages, but i just couldn't do it. I found it very hard to relate to the main character. She's full of selfloathing and a in-and-in mean person now and then. It's not the first time a would read a book with a similar main character. But i also did not find the story all that appealing. I think that mainly the book is very dated. It's a real feministic read, and very much a sixtiesbook. The two members of our reading group that finished it, are a bit older, and told us they could relate to the story, or at least have fond memories of that period. The others, mostly between 25 and 35, could not. So, i am not saying it's a horrible book. But it is very dated!"
"Intelligent, unconventional, heavy (literally and figuratively!). The story revolves around Anna. A woman who once wrote a best selling book, but now struggles with writer's block- which seems to make her a little nuts. It is a book about disillusionment. Disillusionment of politics, humanity, history, love, sex, and self. A book about trying to make sense of the fractured pieces of self that come after great disappointments. At any rate, the book (like Anna) is split into so many pieces (5 separate diaries and another completely separate narrative) that at times it can be confusing trying to figure out the time frame and what, if anything, actually happened to Anna- or is it all just Anna's fiction?
Lessing does a brilliant job of creating enough tension in her writing and characters that the book is not too difficult to get through. Though there are several places where Anna goes into long diatribes about politics, freedom, the nature of sex etc. that at times can be hard to muddle through, overall The Golden Notebook is an intriguing piece of literature."
"While cemented as a Very Important Book with Lessing's Nobel win, it's clearly of a time and place that I don't necessarily relate to. I'm somewhat surprised that Lessing claims in her introduction that the book was received as a novel about the sex war, because it doesn't read that way to me - while there are strong elements of tension between men and women, it seemed to have far more to do with the inherent problems of the characters involved than society at large. Perhaps it's just a sign of the times she was writing in.
Overall it's well-written, but incredibly overlong with a substantial amount of theme repetition that verges on redundant. Ultimately what turns me off is the undertone of bitterness throughout - no one is happy with anything, and when placed against Lessing's introduction it's clear that a good portion of that tone comes from the author herself. I'm not necessarily a "happy book" person, but give me something I can take away as a positive. And no, cynicism that shows that the characters/author are so much more perceptive and in tune with reality than everyone else does not count."
"This book knocked the wind out of me. Don't believe people who tell you this is a hard book to get through. It can be challenging and it is long, but it moves. Once you've situated yourself in the first 150 pages or so, you will zoom right along. I am sad it is over. I miss the main character already. Doris Lessing really put her finger on something that I imagine was stronger a little while back, but I can still feel it in the air. Read this book!"
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
