The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook

Past Present Future

D&HR Media Ltd

History, Politics, News, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 747 Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode David explores Doris Lessing’s bold and brilliant The Golden Notebook (1962), a book about female emancipation, political disillusionment and much, much more. Why did Lessing insist that the novel’s original critics misunderstood what the book was about? What makes her description of joining and then leaving the Communist Party in 1950s London different from any other account? How did a book about mental disintegration capture the essence of the age? Out now on PPF+: a bonus episode about George Orwell’s 1984. Why does a book that is out of date and out of time still haunt everyone who reads it today? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Join us at the Cheltenham Science Festival this Wednesday 3rd June for a live recording of the podcast with David in conversation with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, to talk about trust, democracy and knowledge in a divided world. There are a few tickets still available: book now https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/the-politics-of-trust-lessons-from-wikipedia You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next time in The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:39.0	You don't watch the films here.
0:40.1	You feel them.
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0:43.4	Every detail.
0:46.4	Immerse yourself in the filmmaking magic at Warner Brothers Studio Tour London.
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1:03.6	Thank you. Potter. Tickets must be booked in advance WBstudioTool.com.uk. Hello, my name's David Runciman and this is past-present future, the History of Ideas podcast.
1:10.2	Today, in our series on great political
1:13.7	fictions of the last hundred years, I'm going to be talking about a book that is one of the
1:19.6	most remarkable novels I have ever read, not just political novels, one of the truly great novels.
1:27.4	It's Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook.
1:35.7	In the previous series that we did about great political fictions, there was one book
1:40.7	that just couldn't be done in a single episode. It was going to need at least two in the
1:46.1	end, two episodes. And that book was George Eliot's Middlemarch, which you may have seen,
	...

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