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[A date was scribbled here — 1951.]
(1952) Had lunch with film man. Discussed cast for Frontiers. So incredible wanted to laugh. I said no. Found myself being persuaded into it. Got up quickly and cut it short, even caught myself seeing the words Frontiers of War up outside a cinema. Though of course he wanted to call it Forbidden Love.
(1953) Spent all morning trying to remember myself back into sitting under the trees in the vlei near Mashopi. Failed.
[Here appeared the title or heading of the notebook:]
THE DARK
[The pages were divided down the middle by a neat black line, and the subdivisions headed:]
- Source
- Money
[Under the left word were fragments of sentences, scenes remembered, letters from friends in Central Africa gummed to the page. On the other side, a record of transactions to do with Frontiers of War, money received from translations, etc., accounts of business interviews and so on.
After a few pages the entries on the left ceased. For three years the black notebook had in it nothing but business and practical entries which appeared to have absorbed the memories of physical Africa. The entries on the left began again opposite a typed manifesto-like sheet gummed to the page, which was a synopsis of Frontiers of War, now changed to Forbidden Love, written by Anna with her tongue in her cheek, and approved by the synopsis desk in her agent's office:]
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Page 60
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About
The Golden Notebook is a collaboration between if:book London and Apt.
Principal funding by Arts Council England.
HarperCollins, the publisher of The Golden Notebook, digitized the book for us and generously gave permission to reproduce it here in its entirety at no cost.
Additional support from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and New York University
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Nona Willis Aronowitz November 12th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
This page, and the one later with the list of Willi’s traits, strikes a chord in me. As a writer, especially one who feels that her feelings and ideas are sometimes disorganized and fractured, lists are immensely comforting. Notebooks that supposedly exist to be filled with pure analysis and priceless epiphanies always seem to be interrupted by lists, as if to say, “wait a second, let me touch base with my reality…this is easier, this makes sense.” In the case of the Willi adjectives on pg. 83 of the UK edition, it exists to remind Anna of the limitations of lists themselves, and she appears to find a kind of comfort in that.
Is this a woman thing or a writer thing, though? Is it true that women feel compelled to keep things (and by extension their being) more contained, more organized? I have a feeling Laura might have an opinion on this.
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