Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Everything must have utility
One topic we didn't discuss today in class was the theme of utility in The Golden Notebook - that is, what individuals, groups, or even ideas are good for, how they can be put to use. We see this with Anna's communist friends who want to use the native blacks as a trade union vanguard, but also more subtly in other places. For example, Molly demands that Anna put her talent to good use, whereas Anna is constantly afraid that she's wasting perfectly useful words (Lessing 10). I wonder how this may end up playing into the novel's preoccupation with class. And if someone is "broken," like a machine may be broken, are they useless?
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Good point. This must be related to the question of what the novel (literature, in short) is good for. For instance, the moment Dr. Stuber pointed out in class of 19th century literature being raised as a heuristic to help solve the problem of George's half-black son, or when Anna discusses the great difficulties she has with her only published book and novels in general (pp 59-62). "The novel has become a function of the fragmented society, the fragmented consciousness."
ReplyDelete"The novel is 'about' a colour problem....But the emotion it came out of was something frightening, the unhealthy, feverish illicit excitement of wartime, a lying nostalgia. (...) It is an immoral novel because that horrible lying nostalgia lights every sentence."
I had not drawn the connection between the novel's content and a meta discussion at all. Thanks for the addition.
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