Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook

This is my first read-through of The Golden Notebook. I’ve been told it is a classic feminist text, a book about a woman artist’s disillusionment with Communist Party, a book about neocolonialism, madness and more. For better or for worse, I want to try to ignore everything I’ve been told about the text and to receive it, at face value, independent of whatever political movements/ academic fields have claimed it. I’m not sure if this impulse I have to “read without an agenda” is rebellious, silly, impossible or simply coming from my stubborn sense of fairness. Mind you, as a feminist, I often enjoy looking at things through a feminist lens so setting those particular spectacles aside will be challenging!

It feels strange to be pouring over Lessing’s text so publicly! Reading is usually a very private activity for me. I often read a novel in bed, at night, with a flashlight, when everyone but my partying frat boy neighbors are asleep and quiet. I don’t usually publicly share my thoughts about a book until I’m done with it. Here, online, I find that shyness sweeps over me every time I am about to hit “send.” Especially since, as of now, we are not able to privately edit our comments once we have made them.

So far, I prefer to read my physical copy of the book. I highlight and underline phrases and jot down my two cents/visceral responses in the margins of the UK paperback. I then flesh out my ideas into full paragraphs online. I do reread sections of the novel on my computer screen to see if I can identify what my fellow readers are pointing out about a page. I’m trying not to sound too formal in my online responses. I hope my responses don’t sound like a study guide. I’m interested in sharing my reading process. I expect my ideas to evolve as I dive deeper into the book.

I wish every reader was assigned their own color and we could underline parts of the text in our signature red or blue or green. It’s all so neat online. So black and white with blue links. When I am reading a book, its physical margins become a sort of journal for me. I learn new things about myself in all the check marks, exclamation points and double underscores I add to the text. I draw little smiley or frowning faces when I am pleased or annoyed with a character. I summarize whole paragraphs with words in all caps. For example, beside one of Richard’s monologues, I wrote: GIVE ME A BREAK. That’s what’s missing for me commenting online: the rawness, the color.

That said, I’m still having fun.