is probably Doris Lessing’s most famous novel. Published in 1962, it was acclaimed for its use of an involuted structure which interrogates the novel form. The novel was also prescient in its exploration of therapeutic journeys into madness. Other dominant themes are the shaping pressure of language within social groups, and the acknowledgement of areas of female sexuality which were previously largely taboo.

also convincingly presents the ideological climate of London during the 1950s, a decade in which the British Communist Party strongly influenced Socialism and Left Wing politics before the party’s inexorable decline, fuelled by recrimination and revelations after the death of Stalin in 1953. The decade of the fifties was extraordinarily…

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Citation: Scullion, Val. "The Golden Notebook". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=722, accessed 21 November 2024.]