The Golden Notebook (Contemporary Fiction)

Lessing, Doris

ISBN 10: 9626341580 ISBN 13: 9789626341582

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks, 2010

Synopsis

Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer's block by writing a "golden notebook," drawing together the preoccupations of her life; and Anna's struggle to unify the various strands of her life amasses into a fascinating encyclopedia of female experience in the 50s. Read by Juliet Stevenson.

About this title

Review

British stage, film and television actress Juliet Stevenson ... gives a masterful performance, especially considering the wide range of characters in this book... --Joanna Theiss

First published in 1962, Doris Lessing's brilliant work defined a generation of women disillusioned by a world that relegated them to second-class citizenship. Lessing's book became a 'feminist bible' for women of the '60s, taking on the ideas of female sexuality, professional responsibility, friendship, political disenchantment and personal betrayal. Juliet Stevenson gives a no-nonsense yet deeply sensitive portrayal of writer Anna Wulf, who is trying to keep herself from falling apart by keeping four notebooks: black for her writing experiences, red for her politics, yellow for her relationships and emotions and blue for her daily accounts. As Anna explores her life, Stevenson's sharp, intelligent narration clarifies each thoughtful comment, each personal failure and each triumph. --AudioFile

From the Back Cover

Anna Wulf is a young novelist with writer’s block. Divorced, with a young child, and disillusioned by unsatisfactory relationships, she feels her life is falling apart. In fear of madness, she records her experiences in four coloured notebooks. The black notebook addresses her problems as a writer; the red her political life; the yellow her relationships and emotions; and the blue becomes a diary of everyday events. But it is the fifth notebook – the Golden Notebook – which is the key to her recovery and renaissance.

Bold and illuminating, fusing sex, politics, madness and motherhood, The Golden Notebook is at once a wry and perceptive portrait of the intellectual and moral climate of the 1950s – a society on the brink of feminism – and a powerful and revealing account of a woman searching for her own personal and political identity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9626341580
• ISBN 13: 9789626341582
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 21