Finished: The Golden Notebook (Lessing) An intense book, on the top 100 list, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with ME that I just don't see the immeasurable greatness in some of these "top 100" books. Sigh. Anyway, The Golden Notebook is Anna Wulf's account of her life, or her grown life. She's a British author, born in the 1920's, living in the 1950's, and she belongs to the Communist Party. Much of her life revolves around being a member, or ex-member of that party. She has had writer's block since her last novel, so she takes to writing all about her life in four different notebooks: black, about her experiences in Africa before World War II with a group of young friends that shared her political ideals; red, all about her experiences as a member of the Communist Party, including clippings, world events, etc.; yellow, her attempt at another novel which closely mirrors her own unsuccessful, and heartbreaking 5-year relationship; and blue, her day to day personal journal, including bizarre dreams, failures, split personalities, you name it! In the mean time, the novel starts out to be about Anna's relationship with her best friend, Molly. Molly's got an ex-husband named Richard, and they share a 20-year old son, Tommy. In the middle of the book, Tommy, torn between being raised by his mother's socialist leanings, and his father's upper-middle class British, businessman's expectations, tries to kill himself by shooting himself in the head. He ends up living, but blind. Anna has her own 11 year old daughter, Janet, who seems to be the only person who can make Anna feel "normal" at times. Otherwise, Anna spends most of her time trying to fill the void of her failed five-year relationship with Michael by sleeping, and falling for, various men...all of whom are pretty weird. Anna's yellow diary tells more about her heartbreaking love story using characters Ella and Paul, and how the rest of her life is seemingly ruined by the very married Paul leaving her after such a long relationship. Anyway....towards the end of the book, Anna decides to face life more and ends each of her journals. However, she buys a beautiful, antique golden notebook and decides to combine all her thoughts into just that one journal. So....then she meets Saul. He comes to rent her extra room. Janet is away at girl's school. The Saul and Anna "relationship" is one of the most dysfunctional and distasteful, that I've read. It's like he's got several personalities and she seems to be able to see them all. She makes herself physically ill by falling for him, even though he can be quite abusive verbally at times. Most of the golden journal is taken up by this relationship with Saul, blech. Finally, she wises up and says he needs to go. He insists he won't go until she begins writing her next novel. He even writes the first line for her. She then writes the first line of what HIS novel will be, and they part ways. Of course, the first line that he wrote down becomes the first line of The Golden Notebook. So, the writer's block is cured? Anyway, that's about it...600 pages worth of being inside Anna's every thought, maniacal or depressed or sexual, during a few years of her life. I wanted so much to love this book, but I just didn't.