I am reading “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing now. It’s basically all that I do. It has taken me over completely.
I started reading it last summer. It is a thick book, so I thought summer is a good time to get into it. But I couldn’t focus last summer, I just didn’t get into it and then other books came along. It was put aside.
When I told someone that I had decided that I would give it another try when I went to Burkina Faso, she asked: “But if you’ve put it aside once, is it really good then? Wouldn’t you have continued reading it if you’d liked it?”. But, you see, I don’t agree with that. It’s a very flat, simplistic understanding of literature and what it can offer us and how. It’s not like chocolate, possible to eat and make you happy at any time. Books can be complex. Sometimes you just need to be in the right place both mentally and physically.
That was definitely the case with “The Golden Notebook”. Here, I’m drinking it like the baobab trees drink the rain in the Sahel. It is political, psychological, philosophical, structurally fascinating and complex, such an excellent example of literary craftsmanship. It is a masterpiece. Lessing was a true author. She really deserved her Nobel prize in literature.
And I think that there’s especially one theme in the book that speaks to me right now. It’s the woman in crisis, trying to understand who she is, what her relationships should be, on the verge of what will hopefully be catharsis. I’m completely hooked.
Katja Malmborg 