by Doris Lessing as Reviewed by Dibbert Hubble
Still, it is most important to see how this information informs a feminist reading. 624 is a clear reference to book six of the bible (Joshua) chapter 2 verse 4. And I quote, “And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they WERE:” The stress on the word “were” is very interesting especially as it relates to Derrida’s interpretation, "L'écriture est ce qui ne revient pas au père". Notice the emphasis on the father imagery as it relates to the text. Where Freud would relate a “nothing” as the female genitalia Derrida seems to put in the image of father. This swapping of sex roles is an evident and underlying theme in The Golden Notebook. More interesting though is that this structure gives the reader a completely different text to work with. The new critical ideal of structure works surprisingly well with Lacan’s idea of phallus, "C'est en tant qu'il est là ou qu'il n'est là que s'instaure la différenciation symbolique des sexes, autrement que spécialement pour la femme, ce phallus elle n'a pas symboliquement, c'est participer à titre d'absence." Obviously, there is a connection here. Especially seeing as how the name “Anna” is merely the anglicised form of Electra. The Electra complex, of course, is Freud’s Oedipus counterpart in girls fueled by penis envy. A fact humorously reinforced by Anna’s use of the phrase “Not much” on page 111. Of course, Genesis (book 1) 11 contains the first biblical use of the word “nothing”, “and now NOTHING will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do”. Obviously Lessing is trying to connect the two. The feminist movement will have nothing restrained from them (pun intended) and they can do all they can imagine. This play in the word “nothing” ties together the ideas of creation and genitalia but as Lessing’s advocation leaves us with Anna’s ultimate “creation” it also leaves us, undeniably, with the phallus just as Lacan described. Of course, the assumption of which can easily be rendered in a few pages. Brevity being the soul of wit it can only be that Lessing does not merely want the reader to have in its hands a phallus but an engorged phallus (which in addition to being 624 pages long also measures a perfectly respectable 6 ½ inches in length and a positively massive 3 inches in thickness). Lessing’s portrayal of the act of reading as mutual masturbation is a bold step and is often copied (although, unfortunately, not often acknowledged by her male counterparts). However, the issue is whether this is of any use to feminism as a whole. Of course, the issue brought up in The Golden Notebook is one of power structures and sex but does this sacrifice more than is gained? Does The Golden Notebook truly not merely reinforce the patriarchy’s idea of what a woman is? Does it not, after all, merely draw more sharply the edges of woman as a sexual plaything? I do not know but I can quote Lessing herself, “The…great secret is…my… confusion”.
This may leave the reader wanting more but as Bakhtin says, “Heteroglossia is a place where centripetal and centrifugal forces collide". Indeed, The Golden Notebook features at its literal and physical core a many voiced literary entropy that cannot help but “collide” below the belt. However, regardless of Lessing’s view and the book’s rhedignant use of irony this new reading diffidently informs my original question. The Golden Notebook, like the phallus it tries so hard to represent, is both long and hard and often simply not worth the time it takes to make anything good come of it.