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Work #841 · Mid

The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing
1957-62 · English
Experimental modernist novel · Mid-twentieth-century anglophone fiction

Lessing's 1962 experimental novel of women's lives — communist disillusion, psychic breakdown, integration

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Golden Notebook (Mid)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Non-Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Bi-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Partial
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Single
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Golden Notebook

The 1950s of communist disillusion.

Space

The Golden Notebook

London and remembered Southern Rhodesia.

Matter

The Golden Notebook

The embodied woman writer in breakdown.

Observer

The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf across her four-plus-one notebooks.

Energy

The Golden Notebook

Energies of breakdown and integration.

Information

The Golden Notebook

The four notebooks and the golden integration.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Golden Notebook

Lessing's Golden Notebook: foundational for late-twentieth-century anglophone feminist literature; central reference for the experimental modernist novel.