Cubist Narrative In The Golden Notebook

The Golden Notebook is the representative work of English woman novelist Doris Lessing, who won The Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. This paper aims to analyze the narrative characteristic of The Golden Notebook by referring to Cubist art principle. This paper maintains that the most remarkable characteristic of the narrative in The Golden Notebook is its adoption of fundamental Cubist artistic tenet, namely, first decomposition and then reconstruction. The Cubist narrative characteristic of The Golden Notebook first manifests in its decomposition of the life story of the protagonist Anna Wulf through Cubist techniques of multiple perspectives and fragmentation. Then, the Cubist narrative characteristic manifests in its reconstruction of structure, narrative perspective and story materials through Cubist techniques of juxtaposition and collage.The paper falls into five chapters. Chapterâ… proposes the necessity of a Cubist narrative study of The Golden Notebook based on a general literature review of previous critical studies. Chapterâ…¡introduces Cubism, its characteristics and fundamental principle of decomposition and reconstruction, as well as its influence on modern literature, which illuminates the study of Cubist narrative in The Golden Notebook. Chapterâ…¢discusses in detail the adoption of Cubist artistic principle of decomposition and reconstruction in The Golden Notebook, which characterizes its narrative experimentation This chapter first illustrates the decomposing characteristic of the narrative in The Golden Notebook: Decomposition of perspective manifests in the coexistence of outside-inside perspectives and multiple inner perspectives; and decomposition of narrative materials manifests in its fragmentation of structure, story materials, language and characters. Then, this chapter expounds the reconstructing characteristic of The Golden Notebook: reconstruction of narrative structure realizes through juxtaposing perspectives, narrative modes, images and colors; and reconstruction of narrative materials is completed through apparent collage of newspaper-cuttings, diaries, letters and short stories, and unapparent collage of intertextualization with literary works, psychological theories and historical/social events. Chapterâ…£briefly discusses the poetic values of Cubist narrative practice in The Golden Notebook: its contribution to defamiliarization and its influence on modern novels. In Chapterâ…¤, the paper concludes that the practice of Cubist aesthetic tenet in The Golden Notebook introduces a new paradigm to novel writing, and thus greatly enriches the art of modern novel.