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Willi Rodde
In the black notebook, along with Jimmy and Ted, Paul Blackenhurst is one of the three (ex-)homosexual Oxford-educated airmen who join the socialist group with Anna and Willi Rodde. While Anna is dating Willi, she is secretly in love with Paul, and they elope to the veld on their final night at the Mashopi Hotel. Paul becomes the model for the protagonist of Anna’s first novel, Frontiers of War. He comes from a wealthy and powerful English family; he is charming but heartless and enjoys mocking and insulting people around him (especially those who have lived their whole lives in the Colonies). He spends most of his days arguing about politics with Willi—Paul’s socialism, like his homosexuality, is feigned, and he loves making fun of Willi’s serious commitment to the revolution. Partially out of jest and partially to make a point about British racism, Paul starts a friendship with the Boothbys’ cook Jackson, which eventually leads to a drawn-out feud between the socialists and Mrs Boothby. The day he is supposed to deploy to India, Paul goes to the airfield drunk and, blinded by the sun, walks into an active airplane propeller that dismembers and kills him.
Paul Blackenhurst Quotes in The Golden Notebook
The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Paul Blackenhurst or refer to Paul Blackenhurst. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Notebooks: 1 Quotes
I was filled with such a dangerous delicious intoxication that I could have walked straight off the steps into the air, climbing on the strength of my own drunkenness into the stars. And the intoxication, as I knew even then, was the recklessness of infinite possibility, of danger, the secret ugly frightening pulse of war itself, of the death that we all wanted, for each other and for ourselves.
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After Anna finally leaves Willi to elope into the wilderness with Paul, she describes this overwhelming feeling that is central to the book: most memorably, she calls it the freedom of dissolution. This is the thrill that accompanies structural change—the breakdown of an existing order that makes way for something new. Here, the thrill is that Anna has rejected an unsatisfying relationship to make way for a truly fulfilling experience with Paul. She has also dissolved the existing order of her group of friends, which was organized around her relationship with Willi but based on everyone’s desire for them to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accus
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Paul Blackenhurst Character Timeline in The Golden Notebook
The timeline below shows where the character Paul Blackenhurst appears in The Golden Notebook. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Notebooks: 1
...before—mostly as a means to social protest, of course. The most interesting of them is Paul Blackenhurst , the model for the pilot character in Anna’s novel—he is so charming that people...
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...the other hand, “suffer[s] a hell of fear.” He ends up surviving the war, but Paul Blackenhurst dies the day before he is supposed to leave for India—still drunk during a blinding...
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...would be wrong, as Ted and Willi never get along, Ted has no connection to Paul Blackenhurst , and Anna is just “the leader’s girl friend.”
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Paul Blackenhurst and Willi hold the group together, with their arguments in the Gainsborough Hotel—which is “really...
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After Paul Blackenhurst stumbles on the Mashopi Hotel at lunchtime during flight drills one day, the group follows...
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That night, “slightly mad out of sheer exhaustion” after two years of this lifestyle, Paul Blackenhurst recounts a “whimsical fantasy” of black revolt against the colonial government—perhaps the masses would be...
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...him, until Maryrose ended up in a loveless marriage with a middle-aged father of three). Paul Blackenhurst makes a joke about incest, and Maryrose says it certainly was, commenting vaguely on her...
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...that “good” is scarcely a specific or literary word, but everyone save Willi, Stanley, and Paul Blackenhurst was clearly good).
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That night, Willi explains his views on the area’s leftist groups to George Hounslow, but Paul Blackenhurst and Ted take over, proposing in jest that they start a revolution from the Mashopi...
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...and Johnnie go off to bed, and George Hounslow asks what they are doing there— Paul Blackenhurst decides that the Boothbys’ cook will be “the obvious key man” in their revolutionary plans,...
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...all the socialists but the rigidly mannered Willi join. They stride into the kitchen, where Paul Blackenhurst asks the cook about his family life, to Mrs Boothby’s disdain—she kicks them out. Anna...
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...day, Johnnie improvises on the tunes Ted hummed, but Stanley has “no ear at all.” Paul Blackenhurst points out how pitiful Maryrose is, surrounded by men “positively hang-dog with sex frustration” but...
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...and she punches him in the face. George comes over, in tears, and complains to Paul Blackenhurst , who casually mentions that “I’m in love with Anna and my heart is breaking.”...
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...for, she replies. They walk back to the hotel for lunch, and Anna eats by Paul Blackenhurst .
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They dance until about five that night— Paul Blackenhurst with Anna, Willi with Maryrose (on whom George Hounslow was also fixated), and Jimmy, somehow...
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On this last weekend, Mrs Boothby kicks Anna and Paul Blackenhurst out of the kitchen (being there is “against the rules”), where they have been chatting...
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...the “romantic, adolescent relationships” between almost every other pair in the group. June Boothby brings Paul Blackenhurst and Anna to the kitchen to help with that evening’s dinner, and of course Paul...
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Paul Blackenhurst meets Jackson after his shift ends, while George Hounslow looks at “the father of my...
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...staying near the hotel. Jimmy also disgusted Mrs Boothby the previous weekend by drunkenly kissing Paul Blackenhurst . This final weekend, he and George drink and dance; Mrs Boothby walks in and...
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Around midnight, Paul Blackenhurst mentions that Jimmy has not returned and goes looking for him along with Anna and...
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George Hounslow stumbles away, and Anna and Paul Blackenhurst take Jimmy to bed before Paul tries bringing Anna to bed herself, since he knows...
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...she has no regrets about firing Jackson. The socialists leave and never return. Soon thereafter, Paul Blackenhurst dies and Jimmy is deployed to Germany; Ted purposefully fails his exams to be with...
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The Notebooks: 3
...Mashopi Hotel. Mrs Boothby brings a .22 rifle to breakfast, asking if anyone can shoot—which Paul Blackenhurst can—because Mr Boothby wants pigeon pie. She directs Paul to a nearby marsh, and he...
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...white butterflies” and a cloud of other insects mating furiously, “the very emblem of stupidity.” Paul Blackenhurst suggests that the butterflies are also “pursuing vile sex”; Paul and Jimmy crouch down to...
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...heat, which suggests that it must have been October or November, a few months before Paul Blackenhurst died the morning after eloping with Anna down this same path in the veld. They...
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Two more pigeons arrive; Paul Blackenhurst shoots them and Jimmy reluctantly retrieves them. Then one more—Paul splatters Jimmy’s arm with blood...
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...some farmworkers pass with averted eyes and an obvious fear of the rifle-carrying white people. Paul Blackenhurst goes into a tongue-in-cheek speech about how the colony has enough resources for its million...
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Paul Blackenhurst insists on shooting one more bird, describing the “toothsome pie” that they might all share...
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...in the ant-eater pit, where it fights with the other insect; another bird lands, and Paul Blackenhurst shoots it, and another, which does not die—but he wrings its neck, then digs out...
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The Notebooks: 4
...“try and fit themselves into Anna’s body.” First are the people from the Mashopi Hotel— Paul Blackenhurst , dead, invades her, and Anna struggles to inhabit her body as she watches Paul’s...
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