The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook

About this episode

David explores Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, discussing its themes of female emancipation and political disillusionment.

In today’s episode David explores Doris Lessing’s bold and brilliant The Golden Notebook (1962), a book about female emancipation, political disillusionment and much, much more. Why did Lessing insist that the novel’s original critics misunderstood what the book was about? What makes her description of joining and then leaving the Communist Party in 1950s London different from any other account? How did a book about mental disintegration capture the essence of the age? Out now on PPF+: a bonus episode about George Orwell’s 1984. Why does a book that is out of date and out of time still haunt everyone who reads it today? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Join us at the Cheltenham Science Festival this Wednesday 3rd June for a live recording of the podcast with David in conversation with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, to talk about trust, democracy and knowledge in a divided world. There are a few tickets still available: book now https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/the-politics-of-trust-lessons-from-wikipedia You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we…

People in this episode

Host: David Runciman

Guest: Jimmy Wales

Topics covered

• female emancipation
• political disillusionment
• literature
• mental health
• communism
• history

Keywords

• Doris Lessing
• The Golden Notebook
• political disillusionment
• female emancipation
• communism
• 1984
• mental health

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wikipedia

Books & works: The Golden Notebook, 1984

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