The Golden Notebook

"Vanessa's copy of The Golden Notebook lay on the chipped white nightstand of the attic bedroom where she still slept alone."  (Cunningham 98).

The Golden Notebook  is a book by Doris Lessing about a young woman living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).  The young woman keeps four different notebooks, each about a different aspect of her life, and they are used for the narrative structure of the book.  This is much like Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, with different stories, different points of view, all coming together to form a cohesive novel.  The book is about the woman's struggle to find herself and to live authentically, which is what many of the characters in the two novel are also struggling to do; to enjoy life and time the way they should be enjoyed.  

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