A review by tildahlia
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

3.0

There was a lot to like about this book. It had been sitting on the bedside table for years and I finally decided to tackle the almost-600 page beast on holidays when I knew I’d have time. I found the structure (of the various notebooks) interesting and found myself engrossed in a lot of the subplots/fictionalised accounts. The themes around grappling with individual vs collective responsibility and moral quandaries associated with participating in big (and sometimes corrupted) social movements felt timely for my own thinking about my own activism. That said, for a feminist book there was A LOT of agonising over, and pining for, the affections of some very mediocre and undeserving men, which may be grounded in reality (and is not inconsistent with feminism) but still felt pretty tiresome after a while. A solid 3.5 though.