(There is also a strong suggestion that Mary’s father sexually abused her, although this is never stated explicitly however, it is made clear that events from her childhood leave her repulsed by sex.) Once Mary’s parents die, she embarks on a joyful and fulfilling life in an unnamed town, working as a secretary, living in a club for single women, and attending social events every night. The daughter of white South African-born parents, Mary’s childhood is blighted by her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s endless misery. The conditions are always impossible.The novel begins with Mary Turner’s death, and the plot largely revolves around her character. Of course, that is only a description of being young." It's only now, looking back, that I understood, but at the time I lived in a brilliantly lit haze, shifting and flickering according to my changing desires. I don't think I really saw people then, except as appendages to my needs. "Because I was permanently confused, dissatisfied, unhappy, tormented by inadequacy, driven by wanting towards every kind of impossible future, the attitude of mind described by 'tolerantly amused eyes' was years away from me.
"Oh Christ! I'm sure you'd like some uplifting remarks of some kind."
You cannot escape the fact that women mould your first five years, whether you like it or not. Women are conservative – despite what current ideology says. "I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed."Įdinburgh book festival, August 2001, reported in the Guardian "It never crossed my mind with these later books that I was writing science fiction or anything of the kind! It was only when I was criticized for writing science fiction that I realized I was treading on sacred ground." Why not? We are, after all, living in the middle of a whirlwind." While writing it, I found I did not believe some of the things I thought I believed: or rather, that I hold in my mind at the same time beliefs and ideas that are apparently contradictory. "This novel, then, is an attempt to break a form to break certain forms of consciousness and go beyond them. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship." "Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. While it was a terrible thing to do, it was right to do it." I would have had a massive nervous breakdown and become an alcoholic. "If I hadn't left I know what would have happened to me. On the Golden Notebook, the Guardian newspaper, January 2007
If you have spent your life analysing the crimes of capitalism there could not be a better apprenticeship for becoming one." "The collapse of communism created many a fine businessman. "There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth." "Art is the Mirror of our betrayed ideals." In an interview in the Guardian after winning the Nobel prize, October 2007
When The Golden Notebook came out nobody noticed that it was quite an interesting form I was using, they were much too obsessed by the fact that I was meant to be anti-male, this ball-breaker." "We should never underestimate the conservatism of the literati. To pretend that you don't need love when you do or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better." "What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate.