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Go to the Beginning Blue Notebook (Anna's diary) (Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) Anna witnesses an argument between Molly and her son Tommy (then 17 years old) and catches herself wanting to write a short story about it. She notes her tendency to fictionalize everything in her life, and wonders if it means she is trying to hide something. She decides to start writing in a diary, and to go into psychoanalysis with Mrs. Marks. She describes her symbolic dreams in the next several entries along with her sessions with Mrs. Marks who irritates her by claiming that Anna's problems (sexual frigidity with Michael and a sense of detachment from her life) must stem from blocked creativity. Anna claims she doesn't care if she never writes another novel again. Mrs. Marks inquires whether Anna keeps a diary. Anna admits to the Blue notebook, but finds the question so intrusive that she stops writing personal entries. Instead, for the next three years that she is in psychoanalysis, she fills the pages of the Blue notebook with clipped newspaper headlines that detail the horrors of the early 1950s: the Korean War, the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, et cetera. Finally in 1954, she starts recording her dreams and psychoanalysis sessions again though she continues to insist to Mrs. Marks that she won't write anymore novels because it seems futile in the face of the world's horrors. She and Mrs. Marks part ways amicably in 1954 as Anna comes to the end of her psychoanalysis. Anna admits that Mrs. Marks has taught her how to cry which has made her simultaneously more vulnerable and stronger than she was before. Free Women 2. "Two visits, some telephone calls and a tragedy." Anna sits in her study with her notebooks, and the phone rings. It's Molly, and she's frightened for her son Tommy. Apparently Tommy has been studying a lot of psychology textbooks, and went to visit his father Richard at her request without putting up the expected fight. But Molly later heard from Richard that Tommy turned down his job offers. Molly is worried because Tommy hasn't come home yet. Molly hangs up, and then calls back within a few minutes. She just heard from Richard's current wife Marion that Tommy came to see her and acted all weird and quiet. Now Tommy's gone who knows where, and Molly wishes he would just come home. Oh, and Marion apparently really has it in for Anna. Molly gives Anna a heads-up: Marion thinks Anna is having an affair with her husband Richard. Molly has to go act in a play so the two friends hang up. Suddenly Tommy shows up on Anna's doorstep. She lets him in and he talks to her for several pages about how divided he feels between his mother's values and his father's values. He alternates between earnest questions and sneering contempt. He even stands at Anna's table and reads through several pages of her Blue Notebook. Though she can't stand the thought of anyone reading her notebooks, she lets him. He questions her mercilessly about why she feels the need for four notebooks. Why compartmentalize herself? Anna gropes for inadequate answers. Finally the phone rings, and she takes the call. Then she tells Tommy only that she's going to have a visitor. He leaves. Marion shows up, very drunk, just as she said she would over the phone. She's jealous of Anna being a "free woman" living on her own (though with an 11 year-old daughter) and able to have affairs. Anna tells Marion that she's not sleeping with Richard and that her lifestyle isn't ideal, that she wants to be married. Marion ignores this and continues to insinuate that Anna sleeps with everybody. Anna tries to talk Marion into staying the night. Suddenly the phone rings. It's Molly, hysterical because Tommy came home and shot himself with a revolver. Now Tommy is in the hospital, and the doctors don't know if he will live. Anna says she'll meet Molly at the hospital. She hangs up, wrestles the half-comatose Marion into bed, and then rushes into the street where a kindly police officer hails her a taxi. |
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