Reading 1001 discussion

It took me a little while, but once this book started clicking for me (thanks largely to Juliet Stevenson’s narration of the audiobook), I couldn’t get enough of it.

This is not an easy book, but keeping track of the different notebooks and storylines is so worth it. Beautiful and very quotable. It deal with a lot: feminism, communism, Africa, mental health, marriage, friendship, and more. The format of the book can be a bit challenging, but I really connected with it.

This quote speaks to me, as a 40-year-old reader who probably wouldn’t have appreciated this book nearly as much when I was younger:

‘Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty.’

I gave the book 4 stars.

Was this your TBR pick? I'm impressed you got it done in time. I have tried to read this a few times and stalled.

Jen wrote: "Was this your TBR pick? I'm impressed you got it done in time. I have tried to read this a few times and stalled."

No, my TBR book for March was Mrs. Dalloway. I had this one picked for the 'Feminist Classic' prompt on the #Booked2018 challenge on Litsy.

My review: This is a complicated novel, in which a character is reading through her writing notebooks as her own life is going on in the background. Names, places and events from her real life get worked into the stories in her notebooks, so that it takes some concentration to keep from getting lost. Anna, a homophobic, self-righteous communist with a daughter and a divorce, goes through a string of bad relationships, always with married men, and seems incapable of recognizing even by the end of the novel that they are all dishonest skunks almost by definition, by the very fact that they are having affairs with her behind their wives' backs. She keeps being surprised when these relationships collapse, and eventually she hooks up with a male lodger who is actually single, but a player who has several other women he strings along as well. He is psychotic, the sort that one sees on Criminal Minds, actually, though this character had not incorporated murder into his obligatory fantasies yet. Not surprisingly, this relationship also fails, though not because Anna works out that the dude is creepy and a poor choice for her.
Anna's notebooks reveal a fragmentation which runs deeper than just what one might expect from an author, and Anna is in fact struggling to reconcile bits of her real life into some sort of coherent whole. She has peculiar, rather misogynist and sexist ideas about female sexuality that certainly don't help, and the people she gathers around her are all variously unwholesome, so that she can easily blame them for her problems.
Obviously I disliked Anna, but I did like this book. It's a long, convoluted story, and has few characters I could really relate to, but Lessing does a good job of exploring the characters and situations and how real life and fiction writing relate for some authors. I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.

Well, I finished the book and loved it. I enjoyed every part of the story as well as notebooks within. Definitely, a must read. I loved multi-layer approach, mixture of personalities and their histories. Almost every story is revolving on women and I loved how Lessing blended many of them. She approached many social issues, racial issues, parenthood, sex, work etc. While reading, I had to put down book and think. It made me think even on my own life and goals, which didn't happen to me for a long time. Somehow, I felt that I also could distinguish different „myself“ in relation to different aspects of my life: personal, professional etc.
Overall, my rating would be 4+ stars.

3.5 stars
I enjoyed the introduction by the author, my copy had two from different time periods. After finishing the book, I read Q&A with the author and the About the Book which brought me more insight into what I had just finished.

This book has a unique storytelling style, one of which I have not read before. I think Doris is a very intelligent writer and I am amazed at how she pulled off interweaving so many storylines. I think it was a bit jarring at times when a section ended, I don't think there were real chapters, with a bang and then that storyline would be lost for a while but maybe that is what the author was going for.

I didn't really like Anna. She fought many demons and I didn't really like reading about how she treated men and her ineptitude at relationships. Overall, I did appreciate this book and the author but I think it was probably a bit too smart for my brain at this time.

“What makes you decide that the madness and the cruelty isn't just as strong as the -getting on with living?”

“It's because I keep trying to write the truth and realising it's not true.”

“...and it was as if I, Anna, were nailing Anna to the page.”

“..that I remain Anna because of a certain kind of intelligence. This intelligence is dissolving and I am very frightened.”

“I was a woman terribly vulnerable, critical, using femaleness as a sort of standard or yardstick to measure and discard men.”

I appreciated the many voices and layers in this book with its still current themes including women's voices, women's sexuality, colonialism in Africa, mental health and political commitment. Lessing's writing is at times a wonderful tapestry. However, although I connected in various sections with Anna, our main character, overall, I simply was not interested in her retelling of her story yet again. I gave the book 4 stars however for Lessing's construct and her actual writing style.

This is a complicated look at a women's life and how it is compartmentalised by her circumstances and interests. The structure is intriguing, the glimpses of London circa 1955 are fascinating and it speaks to men and women both about integrating the diverse facets of a life. Lessing has trenchant comments about trans-Atlantic differences, disillusion with communism, gender roles, parenting, friendship and relationships with lovers amongst many other things!

Rating: 4 stars


Anna is a novelist who suffers from writer's block. She write's her thoughts in a set of notebooks. I enjoyed this book and it's method of storytelling. I often found Anna frustrating, but I appreciated how she lived her life in opposition of prevailing social norms.

Reason read: Nobel prize winning African authors. Reading 1001.
I enjoyed this book mostly. I liked the parts that were about communism and my least favorite parts were the love affairs. Major themes are; African history, leftist politics, psychoanalysis, war, male/female relations, madness. It really is about fragmentation and though not mentioned it is about the process of writing. the four notebooks symbolize the fragmentation but also the way the author tried to organize thoughts in order to write.

As I said my favorite parts were the analysis of communism 1930 to 1950 and not because it was compelling but all the reasons why communism is just not the answer and will never be any better than any other form of government. It was interesting to read both The First Circle and The Golden Notebook in the same month.

Quotes
pg 41, "...how many of the things we say are just echoes? That remark you've just made is an echo from the communist party criticism--"

pg 88,89. "Thomas Mann, the last of the writers in the old sensewho used the novel for philosophical statements about life. The point is that he function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an oupost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don't know....."
"The novel has become a function of the fragmented society, the fragmented consciousness. Human beings are so divided, are becoming more and more divided."

pg 72 "..at Oxford these three had been homosexuals. ---"But at the word homosexual, written--well, I have to combat dislike and disquiet. Extraordinary, I qualify the word by saying that already, only eighteen months later, they were making jokes about "our homosexual phase" and jibing at themselves for doing something simply because it had been fashionable."

pg 428 ..."corrupted by years of work in the Stalinist atmosphere. You know they will do anything to maintain their position. Your know, because you have given a hundred examples of it here this evening, that they suppress resolutions, rig ballots, pack meetings, lie and twist. There is no way of getting them out of office by democratic means partly because they are unscrupulous, and partly because half of the Party members re too innocent to believe their leaders are capable of such trickery."

I was going to rate this 4.5 but there is so much that was also miserable to read that I think I will just keep it at 4. I am glad to have finally gotten this one read. It has been on the shelf since 2013