ferris_mx's review
4.0
One "quick" read - I feel like I just got the lay of the land a bit. There's a lot here, it would take more and more careful reads to really understand. I did get one of the author's points - the book illustrates the challenges of channeling the richer complexities of real life into the novel. Names and events in the internal novel Free Women have echoes in the internal author Anna's life. I can see why the author was surprised the novel was considered feminist, but I do agree that it is a feminist novel. The female characters just want more and better. They want equality. The men are absolutely atrocious - I can't say we've come that far since, unfortunately. They sound like they fell out of a Henry Miller novel.
ichirofakename's review
5.0
Some books I can tell are important by the way in which I don't understand them. This is one.
Tries to be reality vs. fiction, but is largely men vs. women. Only towards the end gets more focussed on turning of history into fiction.
Be sure to read the introduction and make a cheat sheet about which notebook contains what. Maybe along with the characters. Note that Anna is Ella.
Rather dated, concerning English communists in the 50's, but that's ok.
Tries to be reality vs. fiction, but is largely men vs. women. Only towards the end gets more focussed on turning of history into fiction.
Be sure to read the introduction and make a cheat sheet about which notebook contains what. Maybe along with the characters. Note that Anna is Ella.
Rather dated, concerning English communists in the 50's, but that's ok.
clara_lotte's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
eyeseyed's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
bibliotequeish's review
4.0
Anna Wulf has filled 4 notebooks compartmentalizing the different aspects of her life. The 5th notebook, the golden notebook, is Wulf's attempt to weave these stories together.
I wanted to read this book in the mindset in which it was written.
In the 60s I think many young people flirted with the idea of communism and could relate to the general feeling of this book.
At the time it was regarded as a progressive and ambitious book which I can appreciate.
I found the general writing style a tad preachy and at times heavy handed, but in a way that made sense to the story being told and the overall messages.
Lessing created strong female characters who refused to be defined by their marital status.
Women who had political opinions and spoke out for their freedom and sexuality.
Who strived to make real changes in the world through their ambition and politics.
This is the kind of book that no matter when you read it, you can find a way to make it relate to the current political climate.
rhaines46's review
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Very interesting writing style, pretty psychoanalytical but in (I guess) a 50s way where emotional states get diagnosed as things like "frozen", "fragmented", and yes, also "depressed". It's not really a book about being a women (as the preface clarified) but it's easy to read that way because it makes a lot of comprehensible points about gender whereas the larger point it's supposed to make about having a fragmented self is really pretty confusing.
alicias_books's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
dllh's review
2.0
I really struggled with this one, which I suppose makes me a philistine. I've certainly read more difficult books, but the payoff in the difficult books I've liked is a lot bigger than any payoff this book had for me.
My tepid response to it has actually led me to begin to inspect my attitudes toward literature by women. I like a whole lot of literature by women, and some of my favorite books I've read in the last few years have been by women (some of my best friends are X). I don't think I have a chip on my shoulder about literature by women in general. But this book made me think at times of work by male authors whose work feels similar in places but has resonated more with me. For example, although Lessing's style here is very very different from Gaddis's, I feel like there's a kinship between this book and J R. I count J R among my favorite books in spite of its being annoying in some places and uninteresting or melodramatic in others. The books surely deal in similar material -- art and madness and the insufficiency of language and fragmentation of the psyche and of ideologies and of relationships. But Gaddis's book, which treats these topics from a generally male perspective resonates with me, while Lessing's, which treats them from a generally female perspective, does not. Am I just a pig?
None of this is to say that there weren't things to like in the book. There was humor and occasional profundity. There were scenes or ideas that made a lot of sense to me and that worked for me as written.
But there was also just so very much interaction between men and women that simply did not compute for me. I'm capable of imagining relationships and interactions that don't square with my own particular experience of the world. I enjoy it, even. But so much of what transpires between men and women in this book just seems written by someone who has never observed men and women interacting together. Some of this I realize is because of the period in which the book is written. I thought from time to time of work by Ayn Rand (yuck, I know) or of some of the detective novels I've been reading, in which people behave in ways that I know are dated and stilted and not really the ways most people interact anymore. Maybe literary fiction (by men and women) of the 30s through the early 60s is shot through with this sort of writing and I've just missed it all because most of the fiction I've read from the period is postmodern work that's just doing different things that have caught more of my attention than the relationship dynamics. Or perhaps, internet hermit that I am, I'm the weirdo who doesn't know how people interact.
At any rate, for the struggle this book represented for me, I'd really want there to be a lot bigger payoff, and it just didn't float my boat.
My tepid response to it has actually led me to begin to inspect my attitudes toward literature by women. I like a whole lot of literature by women, and some of my favorite books I've read in the last few years have been by women (some of my best friends are X). I don't think I have a chip on my shoulder about literature by women in general. But this book made me think at times of work by male authors whose work feels similar in places but has resonated more with me. For example, although Lessing's style here is very very different from Gaddis's, I feel like there's a kinship between this book and J R. I count J R among my favorite books in spite of its being annoying in some places and uninteresting or melodramatic in others. The books surely deal in similar material -- art and madness and the insufficiency of language and fragmentation of the psyche and of ideologies and of relationships. But Gaddis's book, which treats these topics from a generally male perspective resonates with me, while Lessing's, which treats them from a generally female perspective, does not. Am I just a pig?
None of this is to say that there weren't things to like in the book. There was humor and occasional profundity. There were scenes or ideas that made a lot of sense to me and that worked for me as written.
But there was also just so very much interaction between men and women that simply did not compute for me. I'm capable of imagining relationships and interactions that don't square with my own particular experience of the world. I enjoy it, even. But so much of what transpires between men and women in this book just seems written by someone who has never observed men and women interacting together. Some of this I realize is because of the period in which the book is written. I thought from time to time of work by Ayn Rand (yuck, I know) or of some of the detective novels I've been reading, in which people behave in ways that I know are dated and stilted and not really the ways most people interact anymore. Maybe literary fiction (by men and women) of the 30s through the early 60s is shot through with this sort of writing and I've just missed it all because most of the fiction I've read from the period is postmodern work that's just doing different things that have caught more of my attention than the relationship dynamics. Or perhaps, internet hermit that I am, I'm the weirdo who doesn't know how people interact.
At any rate, for the struggle this book represented for me, I'd really want there to be a lot bigger payoff, and it just didn't float my boat.