What's Left of Feelings?: The Affective Labor of Politics in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook

In The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing's fragmented narrative, invocations of Sisyphean labor, and characterization of political work demonstrate that the most effective route to progressive political change is through embodying an optimism that may seem naïve, but whose efficacy is evident in the production of the meta-textual narrative. On the other hand, progressive politics is prey to what Wendy Brown calls "left melancholy," a political and affective paralysis, a mood that is grappled with from within an experience of political depression. The question posed by Lessing is: What can to be done facing such disempowering affective responses to the apparently inevitable defeat of progressive politics?