The Golden Notebook, Week 2

We're now at the end of the second week of the Golden Notebook Project, according to their schedule:

Week 1 & 2 - Ending Sunday, November 23

Finish Free Women 1 and The Notebooks

End Page - Online: 206 (UK: 229; US: 241)

I'm still barely at p.100; better get reading! Some people are very annoyed at the lack of a posted schedule until now; they comment that bookclubs are arranged with better forethought. I'd thought that it would be self-evident that a book of approximately 600 pages read over 6 weeks would result in an approximate schedule of 100 pages a week. But that's just me. In response to this, one of the organizers has noted that this isn't a 'book club', rather, an online experiment in close reading. As she says,

One of the things I'll be looking for is how the Readers re-visit their own earlier commentary as they move through the text. Right now, it seems as though the discussion is happening linearly and tangentially ie: read some, type some, move back to the text and on to the next chunk, repeat.

The online margins invite input in a way unlike paper margins do, and as a result we readers are privy to thoughts and ideas as they develop instead of just final and often times more polished ends. As I mentioned in a different discussion, we'll soon (if not now) be better served by a navigation method other than chronological page or time order. Where will the technology for that come from? This is good stuff!

I am curious as to why I don't see more out-going links in the commentary. If you're going to talk about feminism, for example, if parts of the text remind you of something else, why not use the space and functionality to build the bridge to it and open this novel up to its own themes and implications? (I have my own answers to that question.)

Also noteworthy and curious is why a writer given (theoretically) infinite space to build on an idea might limit her handling of the text to short responses and critiques. Expectations appropriate for a different medium or setting, maybe.

What do you think of all this? Is an 'experiment in online reading' necessary? Do those of us who use this medium feel that anything new needs to be discovered, or are we using the technology successfully for these purposes already? Do you agree with this statement from the posted mission of the Project -- "We don’t yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web’s two-dimensional environment " ?

Personally I find this project quite interesting, and am glad to read the comments of the women participating; it's a relief, for example, to discover that I am not the only one to become bored in parts! And it is helpful to have the text and comments side by side. I'm trying to hold back on viewing the comments beyond where I've read, so really should speed my reading up a bit.

The layout and organization of the site seems to me to suggest marginalia; I don't expect treatises with lots of links -- and generally I'd expect that type of information to be linked into the text itself. If I want to say something like "I'm not sure I agree with her here!" it would make sense to me to note it in the margin. If I want to write a longer, thought out essay on why I don't agree with her, I'd place a link in the text to lead the reader to my discretely posted essay. So I am not sure what I think about the purpose of the Golden Notebook project, but I do enjoy reading it along with a group of other close readers whose comments are available.

Golden Notebook, Week 1

The online Golden Notebook project began yesterday, and so far there is marginalia added for about the first 100 pages. They are planning to read around 100 pages a week, and so the project will run for 5-6 weeks. The seven women participating write their comments "in the margins" of the online text (so you can read along there quite easily), but there are also then forums in which everyone can discuss both Lessing's text and the comments posted. So far I've only read 50 pages in my 1973 edition (pictured here) so perhaps I will find something to say about the first section of the book...for the moment I'd like to share with you a wonderful quote from Lessing's own introduction to the book:

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty — and vice-versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

Golden Notebook Reading project

I got this in an email today:

On November 10th, The Institute for the Future of the Book kicks off an experiment in close reading. Seven women will read Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and carry on a conversation in the margins. ..... Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don't yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web's two-dimensional environment and we're hoping this experiment will help us learn what's necessary to make this sort of collaboration work as well as possible. In addition to making comments in the margin, we expect that the readers will also record their reactions to the process in a group blog. In the public forum, everyone who is reading along and following the conversation can post their comments on the book and the process itself.

To get the full story, plus info on each of the seven women who will be participating in the project, go to their website for all the details. It looks like a great idea, I'll have to remind myself to check it out on Nov. 10.

Maybe this will be the inspiration to finally get me reading the copy I picked up at a used bookstore a few months ago. Has anyone read this already? And, remember, it's on the 1001 Books to Read list, for those of you following it. All good reasons to finally read it!