Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook After Fifty

225 Pages·2015·1.38 MB·English

by  Alice Ridout

Doris Lessing’s
The Golden Notebook
After Fifty
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Doris Lessing’s
The Golden Notebook
After Fifty
Editedby
AliceRidout,RobertaRubenstein,andSandraSinger
dorislessing’sTHEGOLDENNOTEBOOKafterfifty
Copyright©AliceRidout,RobertaRubenstein,andSandraSinger,2015.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-48837-4
Allrightsreserved.
Firstpublishedin2015by
PALGRAVEMACMILLAN®
intheUnitedStates—adivisionofSt.Martin’sPressLLC,
175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010.
WherethisbookisdistributedintheUK,EuropeandtherestoftheWorld,
thisisbyPalgraveMacmillan,adivisionofMacmillanPublishersLimited,
registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,
Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS.
PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabove
companiesandhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld.
Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnited
States,theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries.
ISBN 978-1-349-50406-0 ISBN 978-1-137-47742-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-44742-2
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
DorisLessing’sThegoldennotebookafterfifty/editedbyAliceRidout,
RobertaRubenstein,andSandraSinger.
pages cm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1. Lessing,Doris,1919–2013.Goldennotebook. I. Ridout,Alice,
editor. II. Rubenstein,Roberta,1944–editor.
III. Singer,Sandra,1957–editor.
PR6023.E833G6342015
823(cid:2).914—dc23 2014045793
AcataloguerecordofthebookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
DesignbyIntegraSoftwareServices
Firstedition:May2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
InMemoriam
DorisMayLessing
1919–2013
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
NotesonContributors xi
Introduction 1
AliceRidout,RobertaRubenstein,andSandraSinger
Part I PoliticsandGeopolitics
1 “AcrosstheFrontiers”:ReadingAfricainTheGolden
Notebook 13
JulieCairnie
2 DorisLessingandtheMadnessofNuclearDeterrence 33
MarkPedretti
3 “ThroughThatGaptheFutureMightPour”:Dreamingthe
Post-ColdWarWorldinTheGoldenNotebook 55
CorneliusCollins
4 FeministCommitmenttoLeft-WingRealisminTheGolden
Notebook 73
SandraSinger
Part II Autobiographical,Aesthetic,andTheoretical
Reconsiderations
5 TheGoldenNotebook,DisguisedAutobiography,andRoman
àClef 99
RobertaRubenstein
viii ● Contents
6 BetweenModernismandPostmodernism:Positioning
TheGoldenNotebookintheTwentieth-CenturyCanon 115
TonyaKrouse
7 “SoWhyWriteNovels?”TheGoldenNotebook,Mikhail
Bakhtin,andthePoliticsofAuthorship 135
SophiaBarnes
8 RereadingTheGoldenNotebookAfterChickLit 153
AliceRidout
Part III “TimingIsAll”:PersonalReminiscences
9 TheGoldenNotebook,Serendipity,andMe 173
PaulSchlueter
10 IRememberDorisLessingandHerIllimitableNovel 181
JonahRaskin
11 TimingIsAll:TheGoldenNotebookThenandNow 195
FlorenceHowe
12 TheGoldenNotebook:FirstImpactandRevisionaryReading 209
GillianBeer
Index 213
Acknowledgments
The co-editors of this volume especially thank our contributors for their
work,theirprofessionalisminrespondingtoourfeedback,andtheirpatience.
ThanksalsogotooureditorsatPalgrave,BrigitteShullandRyanJenkins,for
their enthusiasm for this project and their helpful guidance along the way;
and to Susan Watkins for her perceptive reading of the manuscript and her
valuablerecommendations.
We are grateful to Clancy Sigal and the Harry Ransom Center, Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin, for permission to quote from unpublished materials
in the Clancy Sigal Archive and to Palgrave Macmillan for permission to
publishRobertaRubenstein’schapter,adaptedfromherbookLiteraryHalf-
Lives: Doris Lessing, Clancy Sigal, and Roman à Clef (2014). We gratefully
acknowledgepermissionfromGillianBeerandTaylorandFrancistorepub-
lish“GillianBeeronDorisLessing’sTheGoldenNotebook,”whichappeared
first in Women: A Cultural Review 21.1 (2010): 26–27. We thank Alice
Jackson Wright for permission to quote from her poem cited in Florence
Howe’schapterinthisvolume.
Finally,wewishtoexpressourdeepestgratitudetoPaulGregory,Charles
R.Larson,andDanielSingerfortheirlovingsupport.