Sofia Cohen Cohen itibaren Şahinler Köyü itibaren Şahinler Köyü

Anna is a single mom in 50s London. She keeps four notebooks, in which she writes about different things (politics, writing, emotions, daily life) in order to compartmentalize her life and try to make sense of it. Much of the book is devoted to her interactions with her friend Molly and with a long stream of men she has affairs with. The novel has a unique structure - a short novella about Molly and Anna is interspersed with content from each of the four notebooks. The golden notebook, which is to bring it all together, comes in towards the end. Themes: self-hate and self-love, chaos vs. control, communism, feminism, motherhood, love, relationships This book took me two weeks to read and it definitely left my mood a little sour and my stomach a little queasy throughout reading it. It was extremely interesting, for sure, Anna's sabotaging of herself, her lies to herself (the truth about Anna is only clear at the end of the novel, as she constantly fictionalizes herself throughout to varying degrees), and also what I gleaned of the importance of the whole rather than the divided self. It's interesting to think about how I portray myself in my own journal; I have just one, but I probably fictionalize and rationalize frequently enough. I'm glad I've finished this book - need something a little fluffier next!