I Remember Doris Lessing and Her Illimitable Novel

Abstract

Writing about The Golden Notebook (1962) feels, more often than not, like venturing into sacred territory reserved for members of a global priesthood. To borrow a cliché: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. For fifty years, Lessing’s best-known work of fiction has been the subject of essays, lectures, and even sermons, including my own, and I wonder now about the wisdom of resurrecting yet again an intensely analyzed classic of twentieth-century British fiction. I know that I’ve often treated The Golden Notebook as a Bible of sorts myself, beginning in 1968 when I first assigned it to undergraduates at the State University of New York where I taught in the English Department and where, in 1969, I met Doris Lessing herself, who was on the cusp of her fiftieth birthday.