What do you think?
Rate this book
The Complete Short Stories, Vol 3
In the judgment of many, Lawrence's expansive genius found its happiest expression within disciplined limits, for in his short stories and short novels his powers are never weakened by the repetitions which mar some of his longer works. As a short-story writing, Lawrence at his best was unexcelled.
228 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
3 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
D.H. Lawrence
2,084 books4,189 followersDavid 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...
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...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 19, 2016
This final volume of the collected short fiction of Lawrence is definitely the weakest one. You get the sense that by this point DH was spinning his wheels in the mud since half the stories begin exactly the same: X was Y and she had an income of Z pounds. The only one that really stands out is "Last Laugh" which is just weird and wonderful. I'd give this collection a pass unless you're an obsessive completist who thrives on Lawrence's descriptions of hair and shoes.
September 28, 2016
I have a throbbing rock hard boner for this guy. D to the H, M F Lawrrrrrrrreeeeeeennnnnnnnccccceeeeee!!! Shockingly disturbing little stories exhibiting man's corruption, greed, lust, jealousy and infinite discontentment. Humans are powered by selfishness. Bottom line-- humans are little shits. Some are medium to big shits. :)
May 6, 2019
So many wonderful words, although sometimes we lose him. It really feels like we lose him instead of him losing us.
Amazing going through it.
Amazing going through it.
November 14, 2015
Ok, I get it. People are lonely and all destroy each other.
At moments, I did love this. But mostly, I hated it.
At moments, I did love this. But mostly, I hated it.
January 2, 2021
The Complete Stories of D H Lawrence Volume 3
By D H Lawrence
I read these stories aloud to my friend.
One thing that struck me that stood out for me was the courage apparent in this work. The willingness or the entitlement to be able to tell the truth, or a truth, about delicate things in human connection. This is a matter of being able to look at personal relationships and the ambiguities within them directly and report back in a way that even the spouse would see and feel the parallels. Lawrence is a masterful writer who looks deeply into the human conditions of relationship and life and death, to fearlessly express the darkness within as well as the bright joyous parts, the rest of us are left to sheepishly write reviews of the works of the bold, the fearless.
So the reaction of a volume like this, late in the career and short life the a great prolific writer is a call to action and in that a call to life; the expression of what is within more fully and not hold oneself back in reserve and, literally out of the fullness of life for the sake of a notion of keeping the peace, of not upsetting others. This courage to say, “Yes, I think about things in this way and that. I am a confused human sorting things out, but I am still here and with you, until I am not, can no longer be. Let’s go in deeply together.”
For instance, I read Glad Ghosts last. At 40 pages is it the longest story in the book. It took me two hours to read aloud.
It concerned people who have stiffened in relationships, been fearful and undesiring of one another and who ultimately find redemption from and with the spirit of the dead who remain living within them long after the people are gone. It is a remarkable story.
Lawerence in a few of these stories gets into a groove of flord text about the human heart and connection to the elements that was a delight for me to read, perform, to a loved one. The reader is carried along effortlessly on wave upon wave of ideas and emotions in the text. It felt good to speak it and for both of us to hear it.
The Man Who Loved Island, is a strange meditation on wanting isolation, away from and not bothered by others. It felt a kinship to Melvile’s remarkable Bartleby The Scrivener. An isolation flirting with self destruction.
The Blue Moccasins, is a misbegotten May - December marriage in which the younger is the man and trouble comes when he late blooms out in the world.
The Rocking-Horse Winner, has supernatural elements that could make for a Twilight Zone episode.
In Love, has a young couple, friends since childhood coming together as a married couple. But he thinks he has to now play a certain kind of role that alienates and appalls her.
Things, has a couple of Americans who have found a life living in Europe for a time but then are encumbered by the furnishings that they must forever maintain in storage.
Mother and Daughter, are coupled themselves and cohabitate until a surprising stranger appears to change it all.
The Overtone, This is one of the best stories in the collection. It involves a couple who through misunderstanding years ago early on cannot connect physically or spiritually.
But on a certain night in a garden in conversation with a third, a young woman, begin to understand who and what they are and how they can live again. The language in this one is particularly beautiful and poetic.
By D H Lawrence
I read these stories aloud to my friend.
One thing that struck me that stood out for me was the courage apparent in this work. The willingness or the entitlement to be able to tell the truth, or a truth, about delicate things in human connection. This is a matter of being able to look at personal relationships and the ambiguities within them directly and report back in a way that even the spouse would see and feel the parallels. Lawrence is a masterful writer who looks deeply into the human conditions of relationship and life and death, to fearlessly express the darkness within as well as the bright joyous parts, the rest of us are left to sheepishly write reviews of the works of the bold, the fearless.
So the reaction of a volume like this, late in the career and short life the a great prolific writer is a call to action and in that a call to life; the expression of what is within more fully and not hold oneself back in reserve and, literally out of the fullness of life for the sake of a notion of keeping the peace, of not upsetting others. This courage to say, “Yes, I think about things in this way and that. I am a confused human sorting things out, but I am still here and with you, until I am not, can no longer be. Let’s go in deeply together.”
For instance, I read Glad Ghosts last. At 40 pages is it the longest story in the book. It took me two hours to read aloud.
It concerned people who have stiffened in relationships, been fearful and undesiring of one another and who ultimately find redemption from and with the spirit of the dead who remain living within them long after the people are gone. It is a remarkable story.
Lawerence in a few of these stories gets into a groove of flord text about the human heart and connection to the elements that was a delight for me to read, perform, to a loved one. The reader is carried along effortlessly on wave upon wave of ideas and emotions in the text. It felt good to speak it and for both of us to hear it.
The Man Who Loved Island, is a strange meditation on wanting isolation, away from and not bothered by others. It felt a kinship to Melvile’s remarkable Bartleby The Scrivener. An isolation flirting with self destruction.
The Blue Moccasins, is a misbegotten May - December marriage in which the younger is the man and trouble comes when he late blooms out in the world.
The Rocking-Horse Winner, has supernatural elements that could make for a Twilight Zone episode.
In Love, has a young couple, friends since childhood coming together as a married couple. But he thinks he has to now play a certain kind of role that alienates and appalls her.
Things, has a couple of Americans who have found a life living in Europe for a time but then are encumbered by the furnishings that they must forever maintain in storage.
Mother and Daughter, are coupled themselves and cohabitate until a surprising stranger appears to change it all.
The Overtone, This is one of the best stories in the collection. It involves a couple who through misunderstanding years ago early on cannot connect physically or spiritually.
But on a certain night in a garden in conversation with a third, a young woman, begin to understand who and what they are and how they can live again. The language in this one is particularly beautiful and poetic.
December 30, 2024
Odd volume of Lawrence's collected stories. As is often the case with such collections, probably too much of the same thing, but it does give you a very good sense of the author's toolset and his development over time.
The bulk of these are vintage Lawrence, about relationships between men and women, class gaps, unmet desire, conflict and sex. Italy and Mexico are invoked as passionate foils to the cold English.
Two of them (Things and The Man Who Loved Islands) present a similar theme of American or English upper-crusters who just want a life of simple luxury, without having to do anything as distasteful as actually working. And yet somehow, the numbers don't add up? Honestly this happens in a big chunk of European literature and the modern mind (well, at least mine) simply cannot comprehend it. It reminds me of the dril candles tweet.
Mother and Daughter is about a woman with a codependent relationship with her mother, who torpedoes all her chances at marriage. Eventually she accepts an offer of marriage from a Turkish importer, to the impotent horror of her snobbish mother.
I found The Rocking-Horse Winner the most original. It is a creepy story somewhat in the style of Daphne du Maurier. A young boy feels that luck has abandoned his indebted mother. He becomes very attached to his rocking-horse, through which he channels a sinister ability to correctly pick winning horses, but of course this relationship cannot end well.
Things follows two New Englanders, proto-Hippies, who move to Paris and become Parisians "in the old, romantic sense, not the modern vulgar sense". They study Buddhism. Their materialism catches up with them.
Not every page of Lawrence holds the reader's attention, but at his best he writes with burning intensity that few can match.
The bulk of these are vintage Lawrence, about relationships between men and women, class gaps, unmet desire, conflict and sex. Italy and Mexico are invoked as passionate foils to the cold English.
Two of them (Things and The Man Who Loved Islands) present a similar theme of American or English upper-crusters who just want a life of simple luxury, without having to do anything as distasteful as actually working. And yet somehow, the numbers don't add up? Honestly this happens in a big chunk of European literature and the modern mind (well, at least mine) simply cannot comprehend it. It reminds me of the dril candles tweet.
Mother and Daughter is about a woman with a codependent relationship with her mother, who torpedoes all her chances at marriage. Eventually she accepts an offer of marriage from a Turkish importer, to the impotent horror of her snobbish mother.
I found The Rocking-Horse Winner the most original. It is a creepy story somewhat in the style of Daphne du Maurier. A young boy feels that luck has abandoned his indebted mother. He becomes very attached to his rocking-horse, through which he channels a sinister ability to correctly pick winning horses, but of course this relationship cannot end well.
Things follows two New Englanders, proto-Hippies, who move to Paris and become Parisians "in the old, romantic sense, not the modern vulgar sense". They study Buddhism. Their materialism catches up with them.
Not every page of Lawrence holds the reader's attention, but at his best he writes with burning intensity that few can match.
August 5, 2019
Thorough writing. But apart from two or three stories*, there isn't much here to motivate me to search for volumes 1, 2, and 4. The plots are so-so, with hardly a sentence nor phrase to make me swoon. I'm surprised Glad Ghosts hasn't made it to any of the ghost/gothic story anthologies I've read so far. And it's puzzling how The Rocking-Horse Winner consistently makes it to short story anthologies, when in this collection alone, I don't even rate it among the top five.
Two and a half stars.
* The Man Who Loved Islands (Eery, how I empathized with the protagonist's desire to be alone!)
Mother and Daughter
The Blue Moccasins
Two and a half stars.
* The Man Who Loved Islands (Eery, how I empathized with the protagonist's desire to be alone!)
Mother and Daughter
The Blue Moccasins
April 5, 2020
This is the most uneven of the three volumes of Lawrence’s short stories. But there are still plenty of stories in which his genius shines through.
dnf
May 21, 2023left this guy on an airplane 🙃
July 8, 2024
Found his writing quite repetitive and unimaginative. Struggled through this book.
August 10, 2024
I wish.
July 25, 2011
"With my body I thee worship."
Since the Age of Enlightenment, we in the West have believed ourselves and our "minds" to be separate and distinct from our physical bodies, and our bodies to be separate from spirit. Lawrence makes these forces dance in a triangle in this collection.
New to me is his ghost stories - many of these pieces carry supernatural themes. Not every story is a great success, and the themes of marital and family strife, unfulfilled women, and masculine idealism can feel repetitive. But no Lawrence fan's education would be complete without paying attention to his short novels and stories; the trick is to appreciate the subtleties that make each one distinct.
Since the Age of Enlightenment, we in the West have believed ourselves and our "minds" to be separate and distinct from our physical bodies, and our bodies to be separate from spirit. Lawrence makes these forces dance in a triangle in this collection.
New to me is his ghost stories - many of these pieces carry supernatural themes. Not every story is a great success, and the themes of marital and family strife, unfulfilled women, and masculine idealism can feel repetitive. But no Lawrence fan's education would be complete without paying attention to his short novels and stories; the trick is to appreciate the subtleties that make each one distinct.
August 6, 2008
Generally speaking, I really, really like Lawrence, but generally speaking, I also don't really care for short stories that much. Lawrence has some powerful stories in this collection, but also some that I just didn't understand or enjoy, and a few that suffer from some fairly blatant racism or, more commonly, sexism. Overall, I liked this volume, but not as well as volumes 1 or 2 (although I would probably have to reread 1 and 2 to figure out which one was better).
September 7, 2013
I was lucky to find this at an used book store. Maybe I will stumble across volumes 1, 2, and 4 in the future to make this set of stories complete.
July 21, 2016
Good old D.H. Lawrence wrote some good stories and some forgettable stories in this collection.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews