This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

Buy on Amazon: The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics)

Navigate the Summary Parts: Part 1: Molly & Anna talk Part 2:  Rhodesia Part 3: Recruiting voters Part 4: Tommy's accident Part 5: The producers Part 6: Comrade Ted's excellent adventure Part 7:  Anna's detailed day Part 8:  Tommy recovers Part 9:  Pigeon pie Part 10: Psychoanalysis Part 11: Nightmare Part 12:  A toxic party Part 13: Anna talks to Tommy Part 14: Black, Red, and Yellow notebooks end. Part 15:  Saul Green arrives Part 16: Anna and Saul have sex Part 17:  Anna and Saul argue Part 18: Anna reads Saul's diary Part 19: Anna and Saul go nuts Part 20:  Blue Notebook ends. Part 21: the Golden Notebook Part 22: conclusion

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing: Pages 557 – 572

Go to the beginning
Go to the end

Blue Notebook: (Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) Anna thinks to herself that Janet will be home in a month's time, and she will have to pull herself together.  She tries her visualization game to impose some detachment upon herself. Saul announces he wants to take a walk, but never does it.  He adds that she makes him feel guilty about leaving even just long enough to take a walk. 

Anna remarks that Saul has been renting the flat from her for a week; she realizes that he had no idea the exact amount of time that had passed until she defined it for him.  He goes into a screaming frenzy, jealous that she has a normal perspective on time and he doesn't.  He says it makes him feel like her prisoner.  They have some really bad sex. 

She urges him to get some professional help. He goes into another screaming frenzy that she stops listening to.  He goes out on his walk.  Anna writes everything down in her diary, regretting that it's going to all sound horrible in the future because she can't accurately convey the good times along with the obvious bad.

Anna has some whiskey, thinking about Saul and his other women until she starts seething with jealousy.  She tries her visualization exercise but it puts her into a panic state: she sees the condition of being human as leading inevitably to war and destruction. Only the thought of her daughter Janet can pull her back from despair.

She and Saul go through three days of madness. At one point they talk about the collapse of various socialist movements worldwide, and he seems to turn into a boy, yelling insults at her for being of the middle-class.  He snaps out of it, and puts his head on her shoulder briefly.  Anna goes to the window and tries to think of Janet, but it no longer helps.  She reaches for more touch-stones of sanity, including her past in Africa and her friend African activist Mr. Mathlong.

Instead of Mr. Mathlong, though, she feels herself turning into a crazy activist named Charlie Themba who once wrote to her in a state of acute paranoia, convinced that his wife and friends were trying to poison him.  Standing in her room, Anna swings back and forth between madness and sanity.  She feels the floor heave and bulge beneath her as she walks to the bed to check on Saul who is now sleeping.  He's cold and inert.  She gets into bed and manages to warm him.

Then she falls asleep and has the joy-in-destruction nightmare with the spiteful energy embodied in both her and Saul who are capering around, a misshapen old man and woman who kiss each other. They have a friendly feeling between them, but they are also having a mutual celebration of the principle of destruction.  It's a terrible dream, but Anna wakes feeling refreshed and happy.  She wonders if maybe her analyst Mrs. Marks had been correct:  that she has found a way to dream the dream "positively."

Saul wakes up, and they have sex.  Then he runs upstairs to his own room to get ready for a walk, and she feels betrayed and abandoned.  He goes on his walk, and she sees him as a prisoner escaping.  Anna starts imagining political prisoners from various countries getting tortured or ground down by the machinery of war. She tries to imagine Mr. Mathlong's courteous and ironic presence as a counter-balance to all this but can't because he represents detachment. 

Later on that afternoon, Anna and Saul go through their usual routine of him declaring that he will go out, and her hating him because he will be unfaithful, and him hating her for making him feel guilty.  He stands in the doorway of her room, hands on the doorframe as if holding up the pillars of history. He asks her if she's going to write down his crimes in her diary.

She's writing in the Blue Notebook.  He asks why she has four notebooks on her table.  She admits that they are her journals and that she's had to splinter her personality into the four notebooks, but that now she's going to integrate herself back into a single notebook. She realizes that she hadn't known this until she just now said it. Saul goes out.

Anna telephones Molly to distract herself with some light conversation.  They talk about Tommy who is apparently married now. He's torn between touring England and lecturing on The Life of a Coal-Miner, or running off to join a revolution.  Any revolution will do. Molly adds that sometimes she feels like she's living a farce. She and Anna hang up.
Go to the next part of the synopsis for The Golden Notebook
Go to the beginning
Go to the end
Go to the Index of Summaries
What to Read Next!
Go to the Current Novel on Twenty-Pages-a-Day!

Zen, candles, herbs, bookshelves, bookcases, fine furniture, perfume, jewelry, New Age, mind body connection, cooking, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, handmade books, cooking, blank books, art, home decorating, carpets, furnishings, pottery, wine, Zen, gourmet foods, spirituality, tabletop fountains, wind chimes, terrariums, houseplants, Tao, handcrafts, handmade furnishings, artisans, shabby chic, meditation, incense, bells, angels, spirits, tribal arts, Tibetan, Zen, Asian art, India, nature, nature crafts, cooking, aromatherapy, music, folk art, dye, weavings, tapestry, Tao, calligraphy, Tibetan Buddhism, cooking, wind chimes, earth mother, earth goddess, gemstones, garden, talisman, labyrinth, maps, treasures, art objects, fine leather, serious readers, tools for serious readers, Buddha, Krishna, weavings, tapestry, calligraphy, Tibetan Buddhism, earth mother, earth goddess, home decorating, americana, carpets, cooking, library, cooking, gourmet food, wine, kitchen supplies, pasta maker, pens, pen set, stationery, book collecting, photography, sauté pans, baking goods, garlic press, cookbooks, cooking gadgets, cooking tools, chef, gourmet chef, pastry chef, coffee, tea, coffee press, teapots, teacups, coffee mugs, pie, baking supplies, grilling, grills, reading glasses, magnifying glasses, potting shed, gardening supplies, bird watching, bird feeders, birding, bird supplies, cooking, gourmet food, wine, kitchen supplies, pasta maker, pens, pen set, stationery, book collecting, photography, sauté pans, baking goods, garlic press, cookbooks, cooking gadgets, cooking tools, chef, gourmet chef, pastry chef, coffee, tea, coffee press, teapots, teacups, coffee mugs, pie, baking supplies, grilling, grills, reading glasses, magnifying glasses, potting shed, gardening supplies, bird watching, bird feeders, birding, bird supplies, cooking, gourmet food, wine, kitchen supplies, pasta maker, pens, pen set, stationery, book collecting, photography, sauté pans, baking goods, garlic press, cookbooks, cooking gadgets, cooking tools, chef, gourmet chef, pastry chef, coffee, tea, coffee press, teapots, teacups, coffee mugs, pie, baking supplies, grilling, grills, reading glasses, magnifying glasses, potting shed, gardening supplies, bird watching, bird feeders, birding, bird supplies, Valkovalin.com