Much to its author's chagrin, The Golden Notebook instantly became a staple of the feminist movement when it was published in 1962. Doris Lessing's novel deconstructs the life of Anna Wulf, a sometime-Communist and a deeply leftist writer living in postwar London with her small daughter. Anna is battling writer's block, and, it often seems, the damaging chaos of life itself. The elements that made the book remarkable when it first appeared--extremely candid sexual and psychological descriptions of its characters and a fractured, postmodern structure--are no longer shocking. Nevertheless, The Golden Notebook has retained a great deal of power, chiefly due to its often brutal honesty and the sheer variation and sweep of its prose. This largely autobiographical work comprises Anna's four notebooks: "a black notebook which is to do with Anna Wulf the writer; a red notebook concerned with politics; a yellow notebook, in which I make stories out of my experience; and a blue notebook which tries to be a diary." In a brilliant act of verisimilitude, Lessing alternates between these notebooks instead of presenting each one whole, also weaving in a novel called Free Women, which views Anna's life from the omniscient narrator's point of view. As the novel draws to a close, Anna, in the midst of a breakdown, abandons her dependence on compartmentalization and writes the single golden notebook of the title.

这是一本“自由女性”安娜的成长纪录，由一个故事、五本笔记构成。 黑、红、黄、蓝四色笔记，一个不安灵魂的四道反光：黑色代表她的作家生活，红色代表政治生活，黄色代表爱情生活，蓝色代表精神生活。而金色笔记，则是一种哲理的表述，一个生活的总结。它的多彩反映着主人公迷乱失重的灵魂。 通过这部“跨国度的百科全书”，莱辛图解了整个表面平平淡淡，骨子里混乱无序的世界。每部分之间依次插入黑、红、黄、蓝四种笔记，涉及殖民主义、种族主义与男女间的爱情，兼具感性与知性。 诺贝尔文学奖颁奖词称《金色笔记》为“一部先锋作品，是二十世纪审视男女关系的巅峰之作”。 目 录 ： 《金色笔记》 序言 自由女性Ⅰ 笔记 黑色笔记 红色笔记 黄色笔记 蓝色笔记 自由女性Ⅱ 笔记 黑色笔记 红色笔记 黄色笔记 蓝色笔记 自由女性Ⅲ 笔记 黑色笔记 红色笔记 黄色笔记 蓝色笔记 自由女性Ⅳ 笔记 黑色笔记 红色笔记 黄色笔记 蓝色笔记 金色笔记 自由女性Ⅴ

作者把五本笔记穿插在这个故事之中，以此描写二十世纪中期整个世界的风貌。其中黑色笔记描写主人公作为作家在非洲的经历，涉及殖民主义和种族主义问题；红色笔记写她的政治生活，记录她对斯大林主义由憧憬到幻灭的思想过程，黄色笔记是作者根据自己的爱情生活所创作的一个故事，题为《第三者的影子》；蓝色笔记是她的日记，记录了主人公精神的轨迹。四本笔记于是成为一个不安宁的灵魂的四道反光。而最后的金色笔记，却是作者对人生的一种哲理性总结。在这种貌似无序的结构中，作者展示了那个混乱迷惘而多变的时代中一个失重的灵魂的探索和生存。