Four Short Novels

by D.H. Lawrence

TWELFTH PRINTING. Aug. 1973 Viking Compass trade paperback, D. H. Lawrence (Women in Love). Four complete stories from the master storyteller.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, British Literature

268 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 1965

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good place to start reading this author if you haven't read anything by Lawrence yet. My favorite here is the odd "Captain's Doll".

[Chuck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of the four novellas, only "The Fox" and "The Captain's Doll" really stood out to me. Both were interesting explorations of the wider changes World War I had on gender rolls, psychology and relationships. Lawrence is amazing in how he makes emotional narratives that run parallel or sometimes against psychological or philosophical narratives involved. I'm not sure I can explain it in it way that does it justice but it's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Interesting reads but not satisfying as stories in their own right.

[David Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

the captains doll is excellent and the rest i can take or leave

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing though sometimes it could have used the editing. The Fox was particularly good.

[Marianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot about DH Lawrence I just can't comprehend. His endings are confusing and sometimes meaningless to me. This book of four novels contained The Fox, Love Among the Haystacks, The Ladybird, and The Captain's Doll. I generally enjoyed reading all four novels, but became a bit frustrated when trying to figure out why he ended them as he did, especially The Ladybird. That was probably the oddest. A common theme of his books seems to be the pairing of a male and female in marriage after a very short period of them knowing one another. In Love Among the Haystacks, a marriage proposal was made after only a couple of hours of meeting. I don't know if that was typical of the time period or just a feature of his writing. These novels make me want to read more of DH Lawrence.

[Edith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose it isn't really so, so terrible, but I wouldn't say it's worth the time unless you are an avid fan of Lawrence.

My word of advice would be to read the first two last, as they're the worst ones, and will possibly poison your feelings for the book such that by the time you get to “The Fox” you're too annoyed to enjoy it. So, read “The Fox” first, or maybe even only.

“Love Among the Haystacks” is incredibly inconsequential and dry. It could have never been written. It also has dialogue written in dialect which is annoying and hard to follow.

“The Ladybird” was somewhat entertaining, but still, underwhelming. The one romantic idea I enjoyed was seated at the very end—the concept of a “night wife.” To be a man's wife only at night, only in the dark, only in the underworld, but by the light of day the two are nothing. Intriguing. It's a shame he didn't find a way to go further with that.

Here is one quote from this one which spoke to me:

“There was a certain width of brow and even of chin that spoke a strong, reckless nature, and the curious, distraught slant of her eyes told of a wild energy dammed up inside her. That was what ailed her: her own wild energy. She had it from her father, and from her father's desperate race. [...] Daphne had married an adorable husband: truly an adorable husband. Whereas she needed a dare-devil. But in her mind she hated all dare-devils: she had been brought up by her mother to admire only the good.
So, her reckless, anti-philanthropic passion could find no outlet-and should find no outlet, she thought. So her own blood turned against her, beat on her own nerves, and destroyed her. It was nothing but frustration and anger which made her ill, and made the doctors fear consumption. There it was, drawn on her rather wide mouth: frustration, anger, bitterness. There it was the same in the roll of her green-blue eyes, a slanting, averted look: the same anger furtively turning back on itself.
This anger reddened her eyes and shattered her nerves.
And yet her whole will was fixed in her adoption of her mother's creed, and in condemnation of her handsome, proud, brutal father, who had made so much misery in the family. Yes, her will was fixed in the determination that life should be gentle and good and benevolent.
Whereas her blood was reckless, the blood of dare-devils.
Her will was the stronger of the two. But her blood had its revenge on her. So it is with strong natures to-day: shattered from the inside.”

Do not read this on account of the quote above though, for he doesn't really delve much deeper into this. That is my trouble with this set of stories, and my trouble with shorter fiction in general. Of course it can be done well, like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” but most of the time a novella is a novella because it comes from an idea not developed enough, or substantial enough, to be a novel! That may be why I find them generally uncompelling.

[Ian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

While my enjoyment of all four novels in this collection definitely wavered, The Fox is so incredibly good that it bumps this entire book up to 4 stars. The tension is heightened throughout (with The Fox, not the book as a whole), with Banford and March's sexuality left euphemistically in the background while the predatory young soldier sets out to claim his romantic prey. The result is a deeply unsettling exploration of romantic relationships in which the quest to attain an end goal takes precedence over one's real feelings and desires. And the ending, simply put, is masterful.

Of the other short novels, The Ladybird stands out for its gradual exploration of feelings, its unfortunate love triangle, and the uncertainties faced by all three characters. Love Among the Haystacks is a fun artifact from the period that aptly captures its time and place, while The Captain's Doll contains more of Lawrence's masterful exploration of relationships, and what it really means to love another human being.

[Fábio · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way the short stories end are a bit unsettling: it seems they keep building up to irreconciliation, only for the women, against all odds and expectations, to attend to the wishes of the men. I liked the Fox the best of all four here, but it follows this same pattern all the same.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Fox" gets five stars.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

An utter waste of time and nothing more than that.

[j.e.rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Oh, merciful heaven, save us from other people's indiscretions."

[=====D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why does this move me so much?

D. H. Lawrence is infinitely more profound than 99% of deep thinkers this world has produced. Somehow, writing beautiful stories of people living out social trajectories they had no hand in choosing and are only marginally able to effect in progress is the very essence and purpose of art to me. (But it is so much more, don't let my inept adulation mislead you as to what all you get when you pick up a book by D. H. Lawrence)

Here, we learn about human beings; the institutions that run our lives, once created by us but subsequently escaped from under our control until they have become themselves independent actors; and the environment, physical and beyond, that will have the last laugh at the hubris of all of the above one day.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm taking a class on DH Lawrence this semester and these short novels were my first introduction to his writing. I was struck by how he represents love and marriage as mutually exclusive or perhaps not sustainable?

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Among the Haystacks: revealing, meditative, enthralling.
The Ladybird: Daphne reminded me of Ursula and Gudrun, she draws you in, the soldier is interesting.
The Fox: Beautiful language, intense relationships, absorbing.
DHL as always is addictive for me.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting short stories. all about the relationships between men and women. I never noticed until I reread this book how many references to the German language he makes.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I unwittingly picked this book up to read to my dad as he waited for angioplasty in the hospital, but it made my heart race a little. Then we both just blushed. Oh, that salacious D.H. Lawrence!

[Alicia]

Read "Love Among the Haystack." Will return at some point.

[Jeffrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Regrettably, the more I read D.H. Lawrence, the less I like his work.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Sarah Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

The third story in the book, "The Fox," was a masterpiece of short story writing, but I'm sorry, I just don't enjoy D.H. Lawrence.

[Tinquerbelle]

1) Love Among the Haystacks
2) The Ladybird
3) The Fox
4) The Captain's Doll