The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

I only managed to finish this big, dense, complex novel on my 3rd attempt (although my 2nd can perhaps be discounted, as I found it difficult to concentrate on even simple books while pregnant...). It demands a high level of concentration because it deliberately plays with different ways of viewing the same events & situations, as the same characters and scenarios are presented three times: as simplified snapshots in the frame novel, from a different perspective in the central character Anna's blue notebook, and through the distorting lens of fiction (with the main characters appearing recognisably under different names) in her yellow notebook.

In the introduction to the edition I read, Lessing says that one of her main aims in the book was to capture "the intellectual and moral climate" of 1950s Britain, which I think the novel does beautifully. The political atmosphere - in which communism dominated the agenda and the only available options were membership of a dogmatic but disintegrating party or total rejection of the programme - pervades the book, and the difficulties faced by the "free women" who are trying to engage honestly with men without taking refuge in marriages of compromise are equally forcefully presented.

The central theme is the relationship between madness and a divided self (& it's only in writing this that I notice the obvious connection with R. D. Laing's ideas) - Anna is restored to herself when she allows all of her barriers to break down during her relationship with fellow-writer Saul, and ultimately discards her compartmentalised notebooks in favour of the single Golden Notebook of the title. Lessing's introduction states that the "essence of the book [...] says [...] that we must not divide things off, must not compartmentalize", picking out as an announcement of this cenral motif the comment early in the book where Anna laughingly dismisses the categories that divide people: "Men. Women. Bound. Free. Good. Bad. Yes. No. Capitalism. Socialism. Sex. Love . . .". Despite my initial struggle to get through the book without losing concentration, and occasional moments where I found it hard to engage emotionally with the characters or to relate to their inner worlds (since they put so much emphasis on Freudian & Marxist ideas & language), I found this a convincing and satisfying read.