The Golden Notebook

The Golden Notebook

by

Doris Lessing

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Saul Green Character Analysis

Saul Green is a blacklisted American communist writer who moves into Anna’s flat and eventually starts an intense relationship with her. At first, he is brutish and inconsiderate; however, when he also proves an “extraordinarily acute” observer of her personality and experience, Anna begins falling in love with him. He is incapable of sexual or emotional commitment until the very end of their relationship. Anna finds Saul’s lengthy rants about “I, I, I, I” and perpetual infidelity agonizing, in part because it leads her to question whether he truly cares about her. He also quite literally lacks a sense of time and writes sparsely and unemotionally about women, including Anna, in his own notebook. Anna feels her body tense up whenever Saul approaches but cherishes chatting and listening to jazz with the best version of him—she realizes that there are numerous versions of Saul, and she never knows which one she will face at any given time. Eventually, they begin to meld psychically and emotionally, losing their senses of self: Saul begins feeling controlled by Anna and too guilty to sleep with other women; in her dreams, Anna sees Saul play her memories back as films. She guides their relationship to a mutual understanding by mothering him; eventually, he encourages her to write, but insists on taking the golden notebook from her in exchange for the first line of what becomes Free Women. He leaves her, and Anna dramatizes their entire romance in the closing pages of Free Women, replacing him with a similar character named Milt who also saves her from madness. However, Anna and Milt are only together for five days before Milt realizes he must leave because he is incapable of mixing sex and emotional attachment.

Saul Green Quotes in The Golden Notebook

The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Saul Green or refer to Saul Green. 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:
Fragmentation, Breakdown, and Unity Theme Icon
).
The Notebooks: 4 Quotes

Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green
Page Number: 541
Explanation and Analysis:

Then I remembered that when I read my notebooks I didn’t recognize myself. Something strange happens when one writes about oneself. That is, one’s self direct, not one’s self projected. The result is cold, pitiless, judging. […] If Saul said, about his diaries, or, summing his younger self up from his later self: I was a swine, the way I treated women. Or: I’m right to treat women the way I do. Or: I’m simply writing a record of what happened, I’m not making moral judgements about myself — well, whatever he said, it would be irrelevant. Because what is left out of his diaries is vitality, life, charm. “Willi allowed his spectacles to glitter across the room and said …” “Saul, standing foursquare and solid, grinning slightly — grinning derisively at his own seducer’s pose, drawled: Come’n baby, let’s fuck, I like your style.” I went on reading entries, first appalled by the cold ruthlessness of them; then translating them, from knowing Saul, into life. So I found myself continually shifting mood, from anger, a woman’s anger, into the delight one feels at whatever is alive, the delight of recognition.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Willi Rodde , Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 545-6
Explanation and Analysis:

“What's wrong with you?” he said. He came over, knelt beside me, turned my face to his, and said: “For Christ sake's, you must understand sex isn't important to me, it just isn't important.”

I said: “You mean sex is important but who you have it with isn't.”

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green (speaker)
Page Number: 554
Explanation and Analysis:
The Golden Notebook Quotes

Whoever he be who looks in this
He shall be cursed.
That is my wish.
Saul Green, his book. (!!!)

Related Characters: Saul Green (speaker), Anna Wulf
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 583
Explanation and Analysis:

Still asleep, I read the words off a page I had written: That was about courage, but not the sort of courage I have ever understood. It's a small painful sort of courage which is at the root of every life, because injustice and cruelty is at the root of life. And the reason why I have only given my attention to the heroic or the beautiful or the intelligent is because I won't accept that injustice and the cruelty and so won't accept the small endurance that is bigger than anything.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Mrs Marks / Mother Sugar, Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Dreams
Page Number: 606
Explanation and Analysis:

“Write down: The two women were alone in the London flat.” […] “On a dry hillside in Algeria, the soldier watched the moonlight glinting on his rifle.”

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green (speaker), Molly Jacobs
Page Number: 610
Explanation and Analysis:
Free Women: 5 Quotes

“No, but let's preserve the forms, the forms at least of . . .” He was gone, with a wave of his hand.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Milt (speaker), Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 633
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Golden Notebook LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Golden Notebook PDF

Saul Green Quotes in The Golden Notebook

The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Saul Green or refer to Saul Green. 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:
Fragmentation, Breakdown, and Unity Theme Icon
).
The Notebooks: 4 Quotes

Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green
Page Number: 541
Explanation and Analysis:

Then I remembered that when I read my notebooks I didn’t recognize myself. Something strange happens when one writes about oneself. That is, one’s self direct, not one’s self projected. The result is cold, pitiless, judging. […] If Saul said, about his diaries, or, summing his younger self up from his later self: I was a swine, the way I treated women. Or: I’m right to treat women the way I do. Or: I’m simply writing a record of what happened, I’m not making moral judgements about myself — well, whatever he said, it would be irrelevant. Because what is left out of his diaries is vitality, life, charm. “Willi allowed his spectacles to glitter across the room and said …” “Saul, standing foursquare and solid, grinning slightly — grinning derisively at his own seducer’s pose, drawled: Come’n baby, let’s fuck, I like your style.” I went on reading entries, first appalled by the cold ruthlessness of them; then translating them, from knowing Saul, into life. So I found myself continually shifting mood, from anger, a woman’s anger, into the delight one feels at whatever is alive, the delight of recognition.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Willi Rodde , Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 545-6
Explanation and Analysis:

“What's wrong with you?” he said. He came over, knelt beside me, turned my face to his, and said: “For Christ sake's, you must understand sex isn't important to me, it just isn't important.”

I said: “You mean sex is important but who you have it with isn't.”

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green (speaker)
Page Number: 554
Explanation and Analysis:
The Golden Notebook Quotes

Whoever he be who looks in this
He shall be cursed.
That is my wish.
Saul Green, his book. (!!!)

Related Characters: Saul Green (speaker), Anna Wulf
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 583
Explanation and Analysis:

Still asleep, I read the words off a page I had written: That was about courage, but not the sort of courage I have ever understood. It's a small painful sort of courage which is at the root of every life, because injustice and cruelty is at the root of life. And the reason why I have only given my attention to the heroic or the beautiful or the intelligent is because I won't accept that injustice and the cruelty and so won't accept the small endurance that is bigger than anything.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Mrs Marks / Mother Sugar, Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Dreams
Page Number: 606
Explanation and Analysis:

“Write down: The two women were alone in the London flat.” […] “On a dry hillside in Algeria, the soldier watched the moonlight glinting on his rifle.”

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Saul Green (speaker), Molly Jacobs
Page Number: 610
Explanation and Analysis:
Free Women: 5 Quotes

“No, but let's preserve the forms, the forms at least of . . .” He was gone, with a wave of his hand.

Related Characters: Anna Wulf (speaker), Milt (speaker), Saul Green
Related Symbols: Anna’s Notebooks
Page Number: 633
Explanation and Analysis: