Scriptive consciousness and embodied empathy in the Golden notebook

pp. 165-187

in: Brook Miller, Self-consciousness in modern British fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

While the novels considered so far in this study fall squarely within conventional periodizations of British modernism, I will conclude by examining a work frequently associated with postmodernism. The dialectics of self-consciousness and embodied consciousness reach a new threshold of reflexivity in Doris Lessing's 1962 novel The Golden Notebook, when Anna Wulf expresses the oppressive nature of consciousness itself: "I wish I hadn't become so conscious of everything, every little nuance" (41). Unlike the self-conscious characters of earlier novels, in The Golden Notebook consciousness is identified as an unbearable obstacle to a sense of coherence, substance, and unity with others. Of course, being conscious of the unbearable nature of consciousness is itself an act of conscious reflection. For Anna, assessing this condition and remedying it is central to her development.