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Apocalypse
The last major work of D.H. Lawrence, who E.M. Forster called "the greatest imaginative novelist of [their] generation"
Written during the winter of 1929-30 and his last major work, Apocalypse is Lawrence's radical criticism of the political, religious and social structures that have shaped Western civilization. In his view the perpetual conflict within man, in which emotion, instinct and the senses vie with the intellect and reason, has resulted in society's increasing alienation from the natural world. Yet Lawrence's belief in humanity's power to regain the imaginative and spiritual values which alone can revitalize our world also makes Apocalypse a powerful statement of hope. Presenting his thoughts on psychology, science, politics, art, God and man, and including a fierce protest against Christianity, Apocalypse is Lawrence's last testament, his final attempt to convey his vision of man and of the cosmos.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Written during the winter of 1929-30 and his last major work, Apocalypse is Lawrence's radical criticism of the political, religious and social structures that have shaped Western civilization. In his view the perpetual conflict within man, in which emotion, instinct and the senses vie with the intellect and reason, has resulted in society's increasing alienation from the natural world. Yet Lawrence's belief in humanity's power to regain the imaginative and spiritual values which alone can revitalize our world also makes Apocalypse a powerful statement of hope. Presenting his thoughts on psychology, science, politics, art, God and man, and including a fierce protest against Christianity, Apocalypse is Lawrence's last testament, his final attempt to convey his vision of man and of the cosmos.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
226 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
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About the author
D.H. Lawrence
2,084 books4,176 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...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
June 29, 2020
This is a hard book to review, because it’s quite short and yet every single paragraph is bristling with ideas. He’s already reduced what he has to say to a sweet perfection. This is one of his trademarks. Technically so concise and yet so poetic.
Basically he is discussing the anomaly that is the Book of Revelations, and how poorly it fits into what purports to be a Christian gospel. He traces the pagan roots of all the symbolism and discusses the mind set of its authors and of its audience.
In doing so he presents a consummate critique of Christianity and of our modern democratic system. He nails (so to speak) the reason why Christianity has come so far from being a religion of love. In fact he considers Christ and his doctrines to be purely relevant for the actuated individual (who is a rare freak), and completely inappropriate for the collective as a whole, who he considers as a collection of fragments. As soon as Christianity became a collective entity it started to degenerate. And the writings of the Apocalypse predict and describe what it has become. Really it is all very much connected to our inability to live sustainably on the earth. Our mass suicidal tendencies, our half dead existences, it’s all explained so cleverly. It’s a relief to realize you were quite right to feel this all instinctively. That someone else has noticed.
I love his use of symbolism. The narrative of human history told through various coloured dragons especially. But so much inspiration. I don’t think any book has ever inspired me more.
Basically he is discussing the anomaly that is the Book of Revelations, and how poorly it fits into what purports to be a Christian gospel. He traces the pagan roots of all the symbolism and discusses the mind set of its authors and of its audience.
In doing so he presents a consummate critique of Christianity and of our modern democratic system. He nails (so to speak) the reason why Christianity has come so far from being a religion of love. In fact he considers Christ and his doctrines to be purely relevant for the actuated individual (who is a rare freak), and completely inappropriate for the collective as a whole, who he considers as a collection of fragments. As soon as Christianity became a collective entity it started to degenerate. And the writings of the Apocalypse predict and describe what it has become. Really it is all very much connected to our inability to live sustainably on the earth. Our mass suicidal tendencies, our half dead existences, it’s all explained so cleverly. It’s a relief to realize you were quite right to feel this all instinctively. That someone else has noticed.
I love his use of symbolism. The narrative of human history told through various coloured dragons especially. But so much inspiration. I don’t think any book has ever inspired me more.
December 3, 2020
Lorens pišući esej o „Otkrovenju Jovanovom” – poslednjem tekstu biblijskog korpusa - potvrđuje tvrđenje Oskara Vajlda da je pisanje o tuđim književnim delima „zapravo hronika vlastite duševnosti” i da je to „jedini civilizovani oblike autobiografije”. Lorens pišući o „Apokalipsi” mnogo više otkriva o sebi, sopstvenim opsesijama, traumama religijskog obrazovanja iz detinjstva, svojoj prgavosti i isključivosti, fantazijama i željama, nego što nam donosi smisleniju analizu najproblematičnije biblijske knjige (ko želi da čita zaokruženiju i sasvim pitku studiju o „Apokalipsi” njima preporučujem „Otkrovenja: vizije, proročanstva i politika u Knjizi Otkrovenja” Elen Pejgels).
Lorens sa pretpostvalja da je „Otkrovenje” imalo složenu genezu, te da se u njemu poput arheološkog nalazišta može pronaći više slojeva - nekoliko paganskih tradicija na koje je nakalemljeno više jevrejskih slojeva napisanih u tradiciji kasnostarozavetnih proročkih knjiga. Sama nakalemljena mešavina Jovana sa Patmosa postala je, prema Lorensu, najuticajniji tekst u hrišćanstvu uprkos tome što sama poruka „Apokalipse” nema ničeg zajedničkog sa stvarnim Hristom i porukama jevanđelja. Tu poruku, razvija dalje, preuzeli su „drugorazredni duhovi” i „najniži slojevi” (ne u ekonomskom smislu) te su Hristovom učenju dodali „osvetoljubiv duh moći” zasnovan na „frustriranom i potisnutom kolektivnom ja”, što je i rodilo želju među hrišćanima da se protera i uništi sve ono što se nije našlo među izabranima. Ukratko, zbog „Apokalipse” poruka hrišćanstva nije mogla da bude: „ljubi bližnjeg svog”, nego je bila: „hrišćanine, vladaćeš poput kralja posle smrti, a svima koji nisu isto što i ti moći ćeš da nagaziš na vrat i baciš u večni plamen pakla”. Tako je „Otkrovenje Jovanovo” postalo svojevrsni Judin poljubac Hristovog učenja.
Naravno, lako je osporiti Lornesovu tvrdnju o zloglasnom uticaju „Otkrovenja”. On na sebi svojstven, teatralni, način preteruje iako je nesporno da je to deo Biblije koji je kroz istoriju najviše puta zloupotrebljen. Ali nisu bitne „istinost tvrdnji”, bitno je kako Lorens nadahnuto priča o svojim „istinama”. On je lucidan, sa osobenim pogledom i nastranim zaključcima, strastven (a kao i svi strastvenici vrlo slep) i debelo pristrasan. Sve što ima veze sa paganizmom ga uzbuđuje – vavilonska kurva ga posebno raduje – a sve što pripada judeohrišćanskoj tradiciji ga nervira. Nekako osetiš da prevrće oči dok priča o anđelima koje naziva nebeskim policajcima i poštarima. Pošto je ovaj esej napisao godinu dana pre smrti, sve opsesije njegovog poznog perioda izbijaju – falusi, sunce, seks kao put do Boga, zmajevi, neopagan revival, kosmos, netrepeljivost prema asketizmu (negde u približno vreme pisanja „Apokalipse” piše i kratki roman „Čovek koji je umro” gde Isus ustaje iz groba i otkriva sopstveno telo kroz erotsko spajanje sa Izidinom sveštenicom). Taj poslednji period se smatra njegovim stvaralačkim padom, a razumem i zašto je kontroverzan, ali kako da ne cenim lucidnost čoveka koji je samouvereno i bez ironije tvrdio da je Džej Ejr pornografija i da takve romane treba zabranjivati zbog opscenosti, a ne njegovog „Ljubavnika Ledi Četerli”? Kod savremnih pisaca mi uglavnom fali ta iščašenost, pošto su svi nešto akademski dosadni. Preporuka za one koji recimo vole Vasilija Rozanova (koga je Lorens i čitao) i slične Raspućine inteligincije.
Lorens sa pretpostvalja da je „Otkrovenje” imalo složenu genezu, te da se u njemu poput arheološkog nalazišta može pronaći više slojeva - nekoliko paganskih tradicija na koje je nakalemljeno više jevrejskih slojeva napisanih u tradiciji kasnostarozavetnih proročkih knjiga. Sama nakalemljena mešavina Jovana sa Patmosa postala je, prema Lorensu, najuticajniji tekst u hrišćanstvu uprkos tome što sama poruka „Apokalipse” nema ničeg zajedničkog sa stvarnim Hristom i porukama jevanđelja. Tu poruku, razvija dalje, preuzeli su „drugorazredni duhovi” i „najniži slojevi” (ne u ekonomskom smislu) te su Hristovom učenju dodali „osvetoljubiv duh moći” zasnovan na „frustriranom i potisnutom kolektivnom ja”, što je i rodilo želju među hrišćanima da se protera i uništi sve ono što se nije našlo među izabranima. Ukratko, zbog „Apokalipse” poruka hrišćanstva nije mogla da bude: „ljubi bližnjeg svog”, nego je bila: „hrišćanine, vladaćeš poput kralja posle smrti, a svima koji nisu isto što i ti moći ćeš da nagaziš na vrat i baciš u večni plamen pakla”. Tako je „Otkrovenje Jovanovo” postalo svojevrsni Judin poljubac Hristovog učenja.
Naravno, lako je osporiti Lornesovu tvrdnju o zloglasnom uticaju „Otkrovenja”. On na sebi svojstven, teatralni, način preteruje iako je nesporno da je to deo Biblije koji je kroz istoriju najviše puta zloupotrebljen. Ali nisu bitne „istinost tvrdnji”, bitno je kako Lorens nadahnuto priča o svojim „istinama”. On je lucidan, sa osobenim pogledom i nastranim zaključcima, strastven (a kao i svi strastvenici vrlo slep) i debelo pristrasan. Sve što ima veze sa paganizmom ga uzbuđuje – vavilonska kurva ga posebno raduje – a sve što pripada judeohrišćanskoj tradiciji ga nervira. Nekako osetiš da prevrće oči dok priča o anđelima koje naziva nebeskim policajcima i poštarima. Pošto je ovaj esej napisao godinu dana pre smrti, sve opsesije njegovog poznog perioda izbijaju – falusi, sunce, seks kao put do Boga, zmajevi, neopagan revival, kosmos, netrepeljivost prema asketizmu (negde u približno vreme pisanja „Apokalipse” piše i kratki roman „Čovek koji je umro” gde Isus ustaje iz groba i otkriva sopstveno telo kroz erotsko spajanje sa Izidinom sveštenicom). Taj poslednji period se smatra njegovim stvaralačkim padom, a razumem i zašto je kontroverzan, ali kako da ne cenim lucidnost čoveka koji je samouvereno i bez ironije tvrdio da je Džej Ejr pornografija i da takve romane treba zabranjivati zbog opscenosti, a ne njegovog „Ljubavnika Ledi Četerli”? Kod savremnih pisaca mi uglavnom fali ta iščašenost, pošto su svi nešto akademski dosadni. Preporuka za one koji recimo vole Vasilija Rozanova (koga je Lorens i čitao) i slične Raspućine inteligincije.
January 2, 2011
David Herbert Richard Lawrence (1885-1930) last completed work before his death was a non-fiction reflection on the Book of Revelation (last book of the Christian Bible), called Apocalypse. This was first published in 1931, a year after he died at the age of 45. He died of complications from tuberculosis. According to Wiki: "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."
He might have been dying at the time he was writing this book but as written by Richard Aldington in his introduction of the edition I have of this book, "the remarkable thing is that a book by a dying man should contain so much energy, physical energy. The glow and warmth of himself, as of his very blood and flesh, which Lawrence gave in his books, are wonderful and a lovable thing. There was no literary posing, no dry crackle of witticism, no arid friendliness mind-spinning in his work. It was himself."
I chose this book as one of my year-ender books because of 3 reasons: (1) The Book of Revelation has always been of interest to me and since I with a Filipino group reading the Holy Bible since October 1, 2010, sometime later this year, 2011, we will reach the end of it with that book. I thought I would like to prepare for that; (2) The word Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. so who would not want to see what's behind the veil; and (3) December 20, 2011 is supposed to be the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar so I thought I would like to prepare for that as well *kidding*.
Anyway, D. H. Lawrence made a lot of sense in this book. He gave his own interpretation of who we thought represented the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, the Four Beast at the throne of God, the Beast with the Seven Heads, 666 - the Anti-Christ and the numerological significance of number 7 and 10. Of course, he may have limited his interpretations on what he knew to be of interest to his readers (he was known for his controversial views that earned himself lots of enemies in the later part of his life) but he was a well-educated guy and the depth of his knowledge on ancient history and mythology were very evident in this work. In fact, I thought that, with my very little knowledge on those, I was not yet prepared for this book.
One eye-opening part that I enjoyed and read many times is found on page 5 and it talks about the difference between reading many books and re-reading those that you find meaningful: "Now a book lives as long as it is unfathomed. Once it is fathomed, it dies at once. It is an amazing thing, how utterly different a book will be, if I read it again after 5 years. Some books gain immensely, they are a new thing. There are as astonishingly different, they make a man question his own identity. Again, other books lose immensely. I read War and Peace once more, and was amazed to find how little it moved me, I was almost aghast to think of the rapture I had once felt, and now felt no more.
So it is. Once a book is fathomed, once it is known, and its meaning is fixed or established, it is dead. A book only lives while it has power to move us, and move us differently; so long as we find it different every time we read it. Owing to the flood of shallow books which really are exhausted in one reading, the modern mind tends to think every book is the same, finished in one reading. But it is not so. And gradually the modern mind will realise it again. The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again, and always finding it different, coming upon another meaning, another level of meaning. It is, as usual, a question of values: we are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realise any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merely an accumulation of superficial interest, the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value."
Sorry for quoting the whole two paragraphs. This made me question my group's quest of reading all the books included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
BTW, this book, Apocalypse by D. H. Lawrence is my 195th book read in 2010. My first time to read as many books in a year for my entire life!
He might have been dying at the time he was writing this book but as written by Richard Aldington in his introduction of the edition I have of this book, "the remarkable thing is that a book by a dying man should contain so much energy, physical energy. The glow and warmth of himself, as of his very blood and flesh, which Lawrence gave in his books, are wonderful and a lovable thing. There was no literary posing, no dry crackle of witticism, no arid friendliness mind-spinning in his work. It was himself."
I chose this book as one of my year-ender books because of 3 reasons: (1) The Book of Revelation has always been of interest to me and since I with a Filipino group reading the Holy Bible since October 1, 2010, sometime later this year, 2011, we will reach the end of it with that book. I thought I would like to prepare for that; (2) The word Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. so who would not want to see what's behind the veil; and (3) December 20, 2011 is supposed to be the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar so I thought I would like to prepare for that as well *kidding*.
Anyway, D. H. Lawrence made a lot of sense in this book. He gave his own interpretation of who we thought represented the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, the Four Beast at the throne of God, the Beast with the Seven Heads, 666 - the Anti-Christ and the numerological significance of number 7 and 10. Of course, he may have limited his interpretations on what he knew to be of interest to his readers (he was known for his controversial views that earned himself lots of enemies in the later part of his life) but he was a well-educated guy and the depth of his knowledge on ancient history and mythology were very evident in this work. In fact, I thought that, with my very little knowledge on those, I was not yet prepared for this book.
One eye-opening part that I enjoyed and read many times is found on page 5 and it talks about the difference between reading many books and re-reading those that you find meaningful: "Now a book lives as long as it is unfathomed. Once it is fathomed, it dies at once. It is an amazing thing, how utterly different a book will be, if I read it again after 5 years. Some books gain immensely, they are a new thing. There are as astonishingly different, they make a man question his own identity. Again, other books lose immensely. I read War and Peace once more, and was amazed to find how little it moved me, I was almost aghast to think of the rapture I had once felt, and now felt no more.
So it is. Once a book is fathomed, once it is known, and its meaning is fixed or established, it is dead. A book only lives while it has power to move us, and move us differently; so long as we find it different every time we read it. Owing to the flood of shallow books which really are exhausted in one reading, the modern mind tends to think every book is the same, finished in one reading. But it is not so. And gradually the modern mind will realise it again. The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again, and always finding it different, coming upon another meaning, another level of meaning. It is, as usual, a question of values: we are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realise any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merely an accumulation of superficial interest, the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value."
Sorry for quoting the whole two paragraphs. This made me question my group's quest of reading all the books included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
BTW, this book, Apocalypse by D. H. Lawrence is my 195th book read in 2010. My first time to read as many books in a year for my entire life!
August 22, 2017
I was curious when I heard D. H. Lawrence had written on the Book of Revelation, and this book did not disappoint. Lawrence was not an expert on the Bible or history, but as an artist he has a number of thought-provoking ideas.
First, he suggests that Revelation is partly derived from an earlier pagan text, perhaps the initiations of a mystery cult (e.g., Dionysus, Mithra, the Orphics). That idea opens up new vistas, regardless of whether it's true or not. Consulting one of my references, The Origins of Christianity & the Bible, I found a wealth of evidence that Christianity borrowed from the mystery cults. The Eucharist is a good example; anyone familiar with the Torah's strict prohibitions on ingestion of blood can immediately see the problem of a devout Jew (Jesus) calling on his disciples to "drink my blood." In fact, the ritual seems to derive from the Cult of Dionysus, as hinted by Clement of Alexandria and Cicero.
Second, Lawrence calls attention to the astral/cosmic aspects of Revelation (and religion as a whole). His thesis: "the stars are the very oldest religion." Another very fertile idea. It's true that Revelation is brimming with star lore, much like the mysteries of Mithra. And it's intriguing that the deepest and oldest layers of religion are always linked to the sky. Lawrence got me wondering about the constellations of the Zodiac: How old are they? Incredibly old, it turns out. Even the Babylonians knew Scorpio as the Scorpion, and there's considerable overlap between Chinese and occidental constellations.
Humans seem to directly bond with the sacred through the sheer vastness of the visible cosmos, like the farmer in Enrico Fermi's anecdote, lying on the grass and saying: "What a beautiful sky... to think there are some people who say God does not exist." Lawrence captures this awe in a beautiful passage:
First, he suggests that Revelation is partly derived from an earlier pagan text, perhaps the initiations of a mystery cult (e.g., Dionysus, Mithra, the Orphics). That idea opens up new vistas, regardless of whether it's true or not. Consulting one of my references, The Origins of Christianity & the Bible, I found a wealth of evidence that Christianity borrowed from the mystery cults. The Eucharist is a good example; anyone familiar with the Torah's strict prohibitions on ingestion of blood can immediately see the problem of a devout Jew (Jesus) calling on his disciples to "drink my blood." In fact, the ritual seems to derive from the Cult of Dionysus, as hinted by Clement of Alexandria and Cicero.
Second, Lawrence calls attention to the astral/cosmic aspects of Revelation (and religion as a whole). His thesis: "the stars are the very oldest religion." Another very fertile idea. It's true that Revelation is brimming with star lore, much like the mysteries of Mithra. And it's intriguing that the deepest and oldest layers of religion are always linked to the sky. Lawrence got me wondering about the constellations of the Zodiac: How old are they? Incredibly old, it turns out. Even the Babylonians knew Scorpio as the Scorpion, and there's considerable overlap between Chinese and occidental constellations.
Humans seem to directly bond with the sacred through the sheer vastness of the visible cosmos, like the farmer in Enrico Fermi's anecdote, lying on the grass and saying: "What a beautiful sky... to think there are some people who say God does not exist." Lawrence captures this awe in a beautiful passage:
Surely one of the greatest imaginative experiences the human race has ever had was the Chaldean experience of the stars, including the sun and moon. Sometimes it seems it must have been greater experience than any god-experience. For God is only a great imaginative experience. And sometimes it seems as if the experience of the living heavens, with a living yet not human sun, and brilliant living stars in live space must have been the most magnificent of all experiences, greater than any Jehovah or Baal, Buddha or Jesus. It may seem an absurdity to talk of live space. But is it? While we are warm and well and "unconscious" of our bodies, are we not all the time ultimately conscious of our bodies in the same way, as live or living space? And is not this the reason why void space so terrifies us?In contrast, he describes the impoverished modern view:
We have lost the sun, and we have found a few miserable thought-forms [...] Do you think you can pull the universe apart, a dead lump here, a ball of gas there, a bit of fume somewhere else? How puerile it is, as if the universe were the back yard of some human chemical works! How gibbering man becomes, when he is really clever, and thinks he is giving the ultimate and final description of the universe! Can't he see that he is merely describing himself, and that the self he is describing is merely one of the more dead and dreary states that man can exist in?Finally, Lawrence highlights a significant point I'd never noticed about Revelation: the destiny of the cosmos. At the end of the book, God annihilates the universe. The material world is so messed up and evil that God has to destroy/erase the whole thing, leaving only singing choirs of good people in a city of jewels. It's a form of hate when you think about it. Hate for the very cosmos itself, by shrill, unhappy men:
How they long for the destruction of the cosmos, secretly, these men of mind and spirit! How they work for its domination and final annihilation! But alas, they only succeed in spoiling the earth, spoiling life, and in the end destroying mankind, instead of the cosmos. Man cannot destroy the cosmos, that is obvious. But it is obvious that the cosmos can destroy man. Man must inevitably destroy himself, in conflict with the cosmos. It is perhaps his fate.
Before men had cultivated the Mind, they were not fools.
April 16, 2023
A paean to a kind of Nietzschean paganism, with the will-to-power being replaced with a will-to-collective-wholeness, Lawrence here seeks to reestablish the pre-Judaeo-Christian world’s connection with the cosmos, an acephalic rapturous correspondence from a man’s blood to the rays of the Sun and the salve of the Moon. It’s all rather beautiful really, with Lawrence’s venom toward John of Patmos being tempered by a congenial warmth. Lawrence utilises his dying pen strokes here to outline a program of contented living for modern man, one contradictory to the individualistic and envious vision portrayed in Revelations: a vision which has been handed down to us by the cruel side of Christianity’s Janus face (the Christian Love of Jesus versus the Christian Envy of John of Patmos, with such envy bringing about the desire to destroy Rome and then the entire universe just because John could not enjoy the delicacies of Babylon).
Of course it’s a shame that any mention of paganism these days makes people quite rightfully turn up their noses, it’s been somewhat co-opted by the dregs of the New-Age-hippy-cum-weird-sex-magick-stuff community (think of Kathy Bates in About Schmidt, wind chimes and a sour sopping pussy, balding chubby men with musty miserable-looking ponytails, you get the picture), even worse are the eye-rolling racist rants espoused by Scandinavian dolts who identify as pagans and think that by using the word ‘degeneracy’ enough times they’ll magically be able to regain some absurd connection with their Norse Gods by virtue of blood and soil alone (I see you Varg Vikernes and The Golden One, you sad bastards). I think there really is something to be said about the line of thought through the Romantic poets, Nietzsche and Lawrence, some kind of link between us and our environment that needs to be rekindled, and it’s always interesting to see someone try to put the words down to communicate such an idea. I think the question now is to try to steer away from the flat and dull materialism of scientism (and the dull orthodox interpretations of Marxism for that matter) whilst at the same time not indulging in some meatheaded irrationalism, aiming instead to give a voice to the capabilities of emotional intelligence, something wider than the individual (almost collective unconscious-y, but I’ve never been a card-carrying Jungian). Don’t tell anyone that I’ve been reading this during my virtual business meetings, I have to cling onto it just so as to remind myself that there is indeed something eternal out there, something worthy of praise outside of the slow suicide I am participating in each and every time I hop on a zoom call.
Lawrence has the virtue/terrible tendency to leave his best stuff on the last page, so I’ll leave you with this.
‘What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his 'soul'. Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.’
‘Shadow wizard money gang
We love casting spells’
‘Who says the sun cannot speak to me! The sun has a great blazing consciousness, and I have a little blazing consciousness. When I can strip myself of the trash of personal feelings and ideas, and get down to my naked sun-self, then the sun and I can commune by the hour, the blazing interchange, and he gives me life, sun-life, and I send him a little new brightness from the world of the bright blood. The great sun, like an angry dragon, hater of the nervous and personal consciousness in us. As all these modern sunbathers must realize, for they become disintegrated by the very sun that bronzes them. But the sun, like a lion, loves the bright red blood of life, and can give it an infinite enrichment if we know how to receive it. But we don't. We have lost the sun. And he only falls on us and destroys us, decomposing something in us: the dragon of destruction instead of the life-bringer. And we have lost the moon, the cool, bright, ever-varying moon. It is she who would caress our nerves, smooth them with the silky hand of her glowing, soothe them into serenity again with her cool presence. For the moon is the mistress and mother of our watery bodies, the pale body of our nervous consciousness and our moist flesh. Oh, the moon could soothe us and heal us like a cool great Artemis between her arms. But we have lost her, in our stupidity we ignore her, and angry she stares down on us and whips us with nervous whips. Oh, beware of the angry Artemis of the night heavens, beware of the spite of Cybele, beware of the vindictiveness of horned Astarte. For the lovers who shoot themselves in the night, in the horrible suicide of love, they are driven mad by the poisoned arrows of Artemis: the moon is against them: the moon is fiercely against them. And oh, if the moon is against you, oh, beware of the bitter night, especially the night of intoxication. Now this may sound nonsense, but that is merely because we are fools. There is an eternal vital correspondence between our blood and the sun: there is an eternal vital correspondence between our nerves and the moon. If we get out of contact and harmony with the sun and moon, then both turn into great dragons of destruction against us. The sun is a great source of blood-vitality, it streams strength to us. But once we resist the sun, and say: It is a mere ball of gas! - then the very streaming vitality of sunshine turns into subtle disintegrative force in us, and undoes us. The same with the moon, the planets, the great stars. They are either our makers or our unmakers. There is no escape. We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great gleaming nerve-centre from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus?’
Of course it’s a shame that any mention of paganism these days makes people quite rightfully turn up their noses, it’s been somewhat co-opted by the dregs of the New-Age-hippy-cum-weird-sex-magick-stuff community (think of Kathy Bates in About Schmidt, wind chimes and a sour sopping pussy, balding chubby men with musty miserable-looking ponytails, you get the picture), even worse are the eye-rolling racist rants espoused by Scandinavian dolts who identify as pagans and think that by using the word ‘degeneracy’ enough times they’ll magically be able to regain some absurd connection with their Norse Gods by virtue of blood and soil alone (I see you Varg Vikernes and The Golden One, you sad bastards). I think there really is something to be said about the line of thought through the Romantic poets, Nietzsche and Lawrence, some kind of link between us and our environment that needs to be rekindled, and it’s always interesting to see someone try to put the words down to communicate such an idea. I think the question now is to try to steer away from the flat and dull materialism of scientism (and the dull orthodox interpretations of Marxism for that matter) whilst at the same time not indulging in some meatheaded irrationalism, aiming instead to give a voice to the capabilities of emotional intelligence, something wider than the individual (almost collective unconscious-y, but I’ve never been a card-carrying Jungian). Don’t tell anyone that I’ve been reading this during my virtual business meetings, I have to cling onto it just so as to remind myself that there is indeed something eternal out there, something worthy of praise outside of the slow suicide I am participating in each and every time I hop on a zoom call.
Lawrence has the virtue/terrible tendency to leave his best stuff on the last page, so I’ll leave you with this.
‘What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his 'soul'. Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.’
‘Shadow wizard money gang
We love casting spells’
‘Who says the sun cannot speak to me! The sun has a great blazing consciousness, and I have a little blazing consciousness. When I can strip myself of the trash of personal feelings and ideas, and get down to my naked sun-self, then the sun and I can commune by the hour, the blazing interchange, and he gives me life, sun-life, and I send him a little new brightness from the world of the bright blood. The great sun, like an angry dragon, hater of the nervous and personal consciousness in us. As all these modern sunbathers must realize, for they become disintegrated by the very sun that bronzes them. But the sun, like a lion, loves the bright red blood of life, and can give it an infinite enrichment if we know how to receive it. But we don't. We have lost the sun. And he only falls on us and destroys us, decomposing something in us: the dragon of destruction instead of the life-bringer. And we have lost the moon, the cool, bright, ever-varying moon. It is she who would caress our nerves, smooth them with the silky hand of her glowing, soothe them into serenity again with her cool presence. For the moon is the mistress and mother of our watery bodies, the pale body of our nervous consciousness and our moist flesh. Oh, the moon could soothe us and heal us like a cool great Artemis between her arms. But we have lost her, in our stupidity we ignore her, and angry she stares down on us and whips us with nervous whips. Oh, beware of the angry Artemis of the night heavens, beware of the spite of Cybele, beware of the vindictiveness of horned Astarte. For the lovers who shoot themselves in the night, in the horrible suicide of love, they are driven mad by the poisoned arrows of Artemis: the moon is against them: the moon is fiercely against them. And oh, if the moon is against you, oh, beware of the bitter night, especially the night of intoxication. Now this may sound nonsense, but that is merely because we are fools. There is an eternal vital correspondence between our blood and the sun: there is an eternal vital correspondence between our nerves and the moon. If we get out of contact and harmony with the sun and moon, then both turn into great dragons of destruction against us. The sun is a great source of blood-vitality, it streams strength to us. But once we resist the sun, and say: It is a mere ball of gas! - then the very streaming vitality of sunshine turns into subtle disintegrative force in us, and undoes us. The same with the moon, the planets, the great stars. They are either our makers or our unmakers. There is no escape. We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great gleaming nerve-centre from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus?’
November 21, 2015
It is trying to be an insightful book, but it only comes through as the ravings of an old, bitter man. It is murky, full of bile all the way and feels like one of those self-published books people try to peddle on the streets. If you remove the name D.H. Lawrence from the cover, nobody would take it seriously and discuss about it.
On top of that, the edition I read has the worst introduction ever by a pretentious academician named Richard something. It was about 30 pages, supposedly in the format of a letter to Lawrence's wife but the guy was so pompous that he could not even keep his selected style. It was ridiculously bad. Get a book, man!
On top of that, the edition I read has the worst introduction ever by a pretentious academician named Richard something. It was about 30 pages, supposedly in the format of a letter to Lawrence's wife but the guy was so pompous that he could not even keep his selected style. It was ridiculously bad. Get a book, man!
June 6, 2018
We're in the habit of reading aloud to one another at Chicago's Heirloom Books. Having done one memoir and two Salinger novels, we decided to move ahead with this, D.H. Lawrence's last work, motivated in part by my interest in biblical exegesis in general and of the Book of Revelation in particular. If it hadn't been for this communal commitment I never would have finished the thing.
Lawrence is no biblical scholar. He appears to have read some material about the Apocalypse of John, but he doesn't furnish sources or treat much of the debates concerning the text. Generally speaking, he subscribes to the fringe theory that the text, as we have it, represents a pagan original, then a Jewish and finally a Christian redaction. On this suspect frame he appends his own opinions which favor the pagan substrate and excoriate the Judeo-Christian overlays. Indeed, most of the book is opinion, opinion which might be of interest to Lawrence biographers as they reveal much about him while revealing little about the text or its author(s).
Lawrence is no biblical scholar. He appears to have read some material about the Apocalypse of John, but he doesn't furnish sources or treat much of the debates concerning the text. Generally speaking, he subscribes to the fringe theory that the text, as we have it, represents a pagan original, then a Jewish and finally a Christian redaction. On this suspect frame he appends his own opinions which favor the pagan substrate and excoriate the Judeo-Christian overlays. Indeed, most of the book is opinion, opinion which might be of interest to Lawrence biographers as they reveal much about him while revealing little about the text or its author(s).
December 27, 2010
Lawrence reconsiders the most controversial book of the New Testament -- the Revelation of St. John -- as a horoscopic blueprint meant to connect man with the cosmos via the unification of body and soul, but one that over time was expurgated by the early church founders to erase all traces of pagan belief and philosophy. It was the last book Lawrence ever wrote, and he may have spent himself putting everything he had into it, all his anti-Christian, anti-democratic, pro-sensuality ideas. As disturbing as some of its undertones are, the power of Apocalypse's spiritual imagination cannot be denied, as Lawrence painfully forces the reader to confront how much we've lost by abstracting God into a vindictive, moral judge rather than the pantheistic hypostasis of nature He (or It) once so vitally was.
August 11, 2022
I adore DH Lawrence's fiction, but he writes of religion with a strange... defensiveness. Possessiveness? I'm not sure, but it's a weird energy. But his analysis is probably not wrong, and his words are pure poetry.
Basically, Lawrence really hates the Book of Revelation - which he dubs a "second-rate book" written by a "second-rate mind." In his opinion, there are two kinds of Christianity: that of the strong (the "aristocrats of the spirit", like Jesus and St. Paul) and that of the weak (the "democrats of the spirit" like John of Patmos, the author of Revelation).
The strong "wish to withdraw their strength from earthly power" and "apply it to another form of life" - their form of Christianity is focused on the cosmos, the immenseness of God, and the command to "love one another." "It takes a great aristocrat to be capable of great tenderness and gentleness and unselfishness: the tenderness and gentleness of strength."
By contrast, the weak, feeling themselves weak, are concerned with earthly power. Rather than the cosmos, they are concerned with made-up rules and dogmatic morality. This Christianity focuses on fire and brimstone, and personal salvation (a concept Lawrence dismisses entirely as selfish and small-minded). It is drawn to the exciting, dramatic pagan imagery of the Book of Revelation, and the fear that the apocalypse can inspire in others, to give power to this brand of Christianity. "It is the Christianity of the middling masses, this Christianity of the Apocalypse. And we must confess, it is hideous. Self-righteousness, self-conceit, self-importance, and secret envy underlie it all. By the time of Jesus, all the lowest classes and mediocre people had realised that never would they get a chance to be kings, never would they go in chariots, never would they drink wine from gold vessels. Very well then - they would have their revenge by destroying it all" [in the Book of Revelation]. True Christianity operates outside of power dynamics; that is why the "modern Christian State is a soul-destroying force" - it is essentially "bullying" its citizens into morality.
Lawrence claims the strong sort of Christianity (which, no doubt, Lawrence himself identifies with) was the faith of the early Christians; however, Christianity has ballooned over the millennia and became a religion of the masses, and because the majority of people are weak, this weaker Christianity is now the predominant one.
Lawrence then goes on to (rather derisively) dissect the Book of Revelation, focusing in particular on the pagan aspects underlying Revelation's imagery.
---------QUOTES---------
Anyhow there is far too much destroying in the Apocalypse. It ceases to be fun.
When I hear modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos. --It is nothing human and personal that we are short of. What we lack is cosmic life, the sun in us and the moon in us. We can't get the sun in us by lying naked like pigs on a beach. The very sun that is bronzing us is inwardly disintegrating us--as we know later. Process of katabolism. We can only get the sun by a sort of worship: and the same the moon. By going forth to worship the sun, worship that is felt in the blood."
It is, as usual, a question of values: we are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realise anymore that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books. Because if a certain book can call you to read it six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merly an accumulation of superficial interest, the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value.
We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is a part of the great human soul . . . There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters. So that my individualism is really an illusion. I am a part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched. What we want is to destroy our false, inorganic connections, especially those related to money, and re-establish the living organic connections, with the cosmos, the sun and earth, with mankind and nation and family. Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen."
Basically, Lawrence really hates the Book of Revelation - which he dubs a "second-rate book" written by a "second-rate mind." In his opinion, there are two kinds of Christianity: that of the strong (the "aristocrats of the spirit", like Jesus and St. Paul) and that of the weak (the "democrats of the spirit" like John of Patmos, the author of Revelation).
The strong "wish to withdraw their strength from earthly power" and "apply it to another form of life" - their form of Christianity is focused on the cosmos, the immenseness of God, and the command to "love one another." "It takes a great aristocrat to be capable of great tenderness and gentleness and unselfishness: the tenderness and gentleness of strength."
By contrast, the weak, feeling themselves weak, are concerned with earthly power. Rather than the cosmos, they are concerned with made-up rules and dogmatic morality. This Christianity focuses on fire and brimstone, and personal salvation (a concept Lawrence dismisses entirely as selfish and small-minded). It is drawn to the exciting, dramatic pagan imagery of the Book of Revelation, and the fear that the apocalypse can inspire in others, to give power to this brand of Christianity. "It is the Christianity of the middling masses, this Christianity of the Apocalypse. And we must confess, it is hideous. Self-righteousness, self-conceit, self-importance, and secret envy underlie it all. By the time of Jesus, all the lowest classes and mediocre people had realised that never would they get a chance to be kings, never would they go in chariots, never would they drink wine from gold vessels. Very well then - they would have their revenge by destroying it all" [in the Book of Revelation]. True Christianity operates outside of power dynamics; that is why the "modern Christian State is a soul-destroying force" - it is essentially "bullying" its citizens into morality.
Lawrence claims the strong sort of Christianity (which, no doubt, Lawrence himself identifies with) was the faith of the early Christians; however, Christianity has ballooned over the millennia and became a religion of the masses, and because the majority of people are weak, this weaker Christianity is now the predominant one.
Lawrence then goes on to (rather derisively) dissect the Book of Revelation, focusing in particular on the pagan aspects underlying Revelation's imagery.
---------QUOTES---------
Anyhow there is far too much destroying in the Apocalypse. It ceases to be fun.
When I hear modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos. --It is nothing human and personal that we are short of. What we lack is cosmic life, the sun in us and the moon in us. We can't get the sun in us by lying naked like pigs on a beach. The very sun that is bronzing us is inwardly disintegrating us--as we know later. Process of katabolism. We can only get the sun by a sort of worship: and the same the moon. By going forth to worship the sun, worship that is felt in the blood."
It is, as usual, a question of values: we are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realise anymore that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books. Because if a certain book can call you to read it six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merly an accumulation of superficial interest, the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value.
We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is a part of the great human soul . . . There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters. So that my individualism is really an illusion. I am a part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched. What we want is to destroy our false, inorganic connections, especially those related to money, and re-establish the living organic connections, with the cosmos, the sun and earth, with mankind and nation and family. Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen."
March 30, 2025
This book has been on my reading list for quite some time now; over nine years if Goodreads can be trusted. I have a habit (whether good or bad is up to you to judge) of reading commentaries on Revelation. This book is unique in my experience in commentaries on Revelation. Certainly it isn’t a scholarly work. Penguin Classics classifies it as Literature and Philosophy which is about right, I think. In mood it is closest to Jacques Ellul’s books on the Apocalypse, and Ellul, I think, is, like Lawrence, more of a philosopher than a Bible scholar.
According to the introduction, Lawrence’s Apocalypse relies heavily on two previous books. The first of these is Frederick Carter’s The Dragon of the Apocalypse (later published as The Dragon of Revelation and more recently as Symbols of Revelation [2003]). Lawrence read an early draft of this work and decided he would write an introduction to it. This introduction turned out to be quite lengthy and ended up being the nucleus of what would become Apocalypse. Carter later complained that Lawrence did not credit Carter for ideas that Lawrence borrowed from him. I’m not sure if this complaint is warranted. It is true that Apocalypse shares some of the ideas from Carter’s books, but I think they may have just been the common intellectual property of the time. When Lawrence first fronted the idea in the book that the seven stars Jesus holds in his hand are the stars of the Bear, I recognized that as an idea from Carter’s book. But later in the book in a rare accreditation of sources Lawrence explains that this idea comes from Archdeacon (R. H.) Charles’s commentary on the Apocalypse.
The second book mentioned in the introduction that Lawrence relied on, and I think much more heavily, is The Apocalypse Unsealed, by James Morgan Pryse. This book is a bizarre esoteric reading of Revelation that doesn’t even see it as a revelation. Instead Pryse translates the first clause as "The initiation of Jesus Christ". Lawrence takes up this idea that rather than being a prophecy, Revelation is a description of an initiate's transformation from a lower psychic state to a higher plane, involving death and rebirth. Lawrence also takes up Pryce’s idea that the book of seven seals is the human body, and the seven seals are the seven chakras of the human body.
Lawrence certainly does not follow Pryse slavishly. He avoids the term chakras, instead referring to them as dynamic centers of consciousness. Whereas Pryse uses the terms of Vedic philosophy liberally in his book, Lawrence avoids them, only occasionally using the terms nirvana and pradha. Whereas Pryse says the two witnesses of Revelation are Ida and Pingala, Lawrence claims that they are Kastor and Polydeukes (Castor and Pollux, of the constellation Gemini).
But the main difference between Pryse and Lawrence is, that while Pryse sees Revelation (or, as he calls it, Initiation) as having a consistent esoteric message, Lawrence thinks the esoteric message of Revelation has been botched by later editing. Thus Lawrence often refers to the theme of powerless masses (the Christians) eventually obtaining revenge against the powers of this world (Revenge, Timotheus cries!) Lawrence uses this theme as a springboard for much political speculation. He opposes individualism to communitarianism, the aristocrat to the democrat, and especially power to love. He sees the apocalypticist's message of power as opposed to Jesus's message of love. So Lawrence writes, "There is Jesus—but there is also John the Divine. There is Christian love—and there is Christian envy. The former would 'save' the world—the latter will never be satisfied until it has destroyed the world. They are two sides of the same medal."
According to the introduction, Lawrence’s Apocalypse relies heavily on two previous books. The first of these is Frederick Carter’s The Dragon of the Apocalypse (later published as The Dragon of Revelation and more recently as Symbols of Revelation [2003]). Lawrence read an early draft of this work and decided he would write an introduction to it. This introduction turned out to be quite lengthy and ended up being the nucleus of what would become Apocalypse. Carter later complained that Lawrence did not credit Carter for ideas that Lawrence borrowed from him. I’m not sure if this complaint is warranted. It is true that Apocalypse shares some of the ideas from Carter’s books, but I think they may have just been the common intellectual property of the time. When Lawrence first fronted the idea in the book that the seven stars Jesus holds in his hand are the stars of the Bear, I recognized that as an idea from Carter’s book. But later in the book in a rare accreditation of sources Lawrence explains that this idea comes from Archdeacon (R. H.) Charles’s commentary on the Apocalypse.
The second book mentioned in the introduction that Lawrence relied on, and I think much more heavily, is The Apocalypse Unsealed, by James Morgan Pryse. This book is a bizarre esoteric reading of Revelation that doesn’t even see it as a revelation. Instead Pryse translates the first clause as "The initiation of Jesus Christ". Lawrence takes up this idea that rather than being a prophecy, Revelation is a description of an initiate's transformation from a lower psychic state to a higher plane, involving death and rebirth. Lawrence also takes up Pryce’s idea that the book of seven seals is the human body, and the seven seals are the seven chakras of the human body.
Lawrence certainly does not follow Pryse slavishly. He avoids the term chakras, instead referring to them as dynamic centers of consciousness. Whereas Pryse uses the terms of Vedic philosophy liberally in his book, Lawrence avoids them, only occasionally using the terms nirvana and pradha. Whereas Pryse says the two witnesses of Revelation are Ida and Pingala, Lawrence claims that they are Kastor and Polydeukes (Castor and Pollux, of the constellation Gemini).
But the main difference between Pryse and Lawrence is, that while Pryse sees Revelation (or, as he calls it, Initiation) as having a consistent esoteric message, Lawrence thinks the esoteric message of Revelation has been botched by later editing. Thus Lawrence often refers to the theme of powerless masses (the Christians) eventually obtaining revenge against the powers of this world (Revenge, Timotheus cries!) Lawrence uses this theme as a springboard for much political speculation. He opposes individualism to communitarianism, the aristocrat to the democrat, and especially power to love. He sees the apocalypticist's message of power as opposed to Jesus's message of love. So Lawrence writes, "There is Jesus—but there is also John the Divine. There is Christian love—and there is Christian envy. The former would 'save' the world—the latter will never be satisfied until it has destroyed the world. They are two sides of the same medal."
October 21, 2021
Excellent and rewarding take on paganism and the extent to which it was plagiarised for sources, narrative and symbolism in the Bible, specifically Revelation/Apocalypse. Surprisingly well educated on the subject Lawrence shows great understanding of pagan symbols, patterns and the sacred cosmos, though he perhaps understandably focuses very heavily on this and not really on central aspects such as the otherworld, chthonic initiation and rebirth rituals, necromancy and divination in relation to communicating with the deceased, ancestor worship and so on... But he clearly knows the likes of Frrazer's work on paganism as well as the Golden Ass even, so can recognise an ancient pagan initiation manuscript at root when he sees one. Fascinating insights here on likes of the great red dragon, relationship of the elements and of the sun and moon and a good understanding of history moving in cycles. Criticisms may be some minor outdated terminology like "Chaldean" being weirdly applied as a catch-all term for Mesopotamians and Assyrians in general (when they were and still are a strictly Aramean people) and Lawrence's apparent misogyny coming through as well as the favouring of outright collectivism, as opposed to a balancing of this and the individual aspects, which may explain the lack of hero worship focus in his take on paganism too. Sure it's hardly wrong, and as a take on Revelation and its origins it's certainly very revealing, however the "esoteric" cosmological view on paganism isn't all there is, and even Lawrence himself comments here about the layered aspects of the human psyche. Overall I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking at ancient pagan initiation texts and symbolism as well as those painfully aware of the fanatic doomsday preaching and revenge mentality of Judeo-Christian religion and the damage it did in antiquity and since, which Lawrence is clearly aware of too throughout this text.
September 1, 2017
This book is terrible. For the most part, it's a half-formed, ill-informed diatribe of the sort one might expect a local crazy to direct at the lamppost (or conceivably a mailbox) on the corner for an hour or two. What begins as as a criticism of Christianity and more specifically, of that unfortunate collection of febrile ravings, the Book of Revelation, soon turns into its own jumbled mess of nonsense, non sequiturs, gross generalizations of humanity, and confident assertions of unknowable facts about the ancient world. I think Lawrence is really onto something when he boils Revelation down to essentially a revenge fantasy of the downtrodden, and his assertions that our scientific understanding of the world and ourselves has necessarily destroyed something primal and yet fundamental to a fulfilled human life certainly warrant a discussion. But when he veers off into the realm of unsubstantiated claims about, for example, how the people of thousands of years ago felt and thought without any basis besides his own imaginings and intuitions (and preferences!), to my mind he's just wasting his readers' time. I certainly feel like he wasted mine.
February 2, 2018
في ترجمة رديئة أقتفيت اثر الأديب الإنجليزي ديفيد لورانس وهو يناقش أخر كتاب في الهعد الجديد (رؤيا يوحنا اللاهوتي) الذي يتضمن في نصفه الأول رسائل للكنائس السبعة والنصف الثاني يعلن عن نهاية العالم
لورانس ناقش شخصية يوحنا البطموسي الذي نسب له كتابة جزئية الأبوكليبس في الكتاب المقدس ( وعملية النسب هذه واجهت مشاكل طوال عدة قرون) وعرض جوانب شخصيته المختلفة عن المسيح عيسى وتناقض رؤيته مع رؤية المخلص وارجع اصل الرؤيا لأديان وثنية واساطير اغريقية تم تعديلها اكثر من مرة واضفاء المسحة المسيحية عليها من قبل يوحنا الذي أنكر عليه كتابة ما كتب بإلهام من وحي إلهي .
كون المؤلف أديباً فأسلوبه اتسم بالهجومية ولم يكن محايداً بل إنساق وراء مشاعره الغاضبة لكن هذا لا يمنع كون الافكار المطروحة مهمة وقابلة للنقاش لكن في خضام ثورته هذه لام المسيحية على أخطاء موجودة في كل الأديان لكونها أخطاء ناتجة عن نفسية بشرية جمعية عامة وهذه النقطة هي السلبية الوحيدة في أفكاره من وجهة نظري
الكتاب حصل على نجمتين للترجمة المتعبة السيئة ولطرح لورانس الغير المنتظم لموضوعه وملاحظة بسيطة لفهم الكتاب حتى ولو بشكل بسيط يتوجب عليك قراءة كتاب رؤيا يوحنا اللاهوتي وبعدها الإنطلاق هنا
لورانس ناقش شخصية يوحنا البطموسي الذي نسب له كتابة جزئية الأبوكليبس في الكتاب المقدس ( وعملية النسب هذه واجهت مشاكل طوال عدة قرون) وعرض جوانب شخصيته المختلفة عن المسيح عيسى وتناقض رؤيته مع رؤية المخلص وارجع اصل الرؤيا لأديان وثنية واساطير اغريقية تم تعديلها اكثر من مرة واضفاء المسحة المسيحية عليها من قبل يوحنا الذي أنكر عليه كتابة ما كتب بإلهام من وحي إلهي .
كون المؤلف أديباً فأسلوبه اتسم بالهجومية ولم يكن محايداً بل إنساق وراء مشاعره الغاضبة لكن هذا لا يمنع كون الافكار المطروحة مهمة وقابلة للنقاش لكن في خضام ثورته هذه لام المسيحية على أخطاء موجودة في كل الأديان لكونها أخطاء ناتجة عن نفسية بشرية جمعية عامة وهذه النقطة هي السلبية الوحيدة في أفكاره من وجهة نظري
الكتاب حصل على نجمتين للترجمة المتعبة السيئة ولطرح لورانس الغير المنتظم لموضوعه وملاحظة بسيطة لفهم الكتاب حتى ولو بشكل بسيط يتوجب عليك قراءة كتاب رؤيا يوحنا اللاهوتي وبعدها الإنطلاق هنا
November 13, 2025
Me parece de las mejores obras de Lawrence.
El uso poético del lenguaje para revelar el hilo de sus pensamientos, es simplemente arte, arte, arte. Me engatusó desde un principio, me dejó en un estado de maravilla para el final.
La crítica hacia la religión. Nunca me sentí tan encontrado en la filosofía de una persona. Él no solamente hace un análisis de la simbología pagana, hace un argumento a la liberación de las mujeres y hombres: a dejar de lado las convenciones morales, y encontrarnos de vuelta con el cosmos y la naturaleza.
El uso poético del lenguaje para revelar el hilo de sus pensamientos, es simplemente arte, arte, arte. Me engatusó desde un principio, me dejó en un estado de maravilla para el final.
La crítica hacia la religión. Nunca me sentí tan encontrado en la filosofía de una persona. Él no solamente hace un análisis de la simbología pagana, hace un argumento a la liberación de las mujeres y hombres: a dejar de lado las convenciones morales, y encontrarnos de vuelta con el cosmos y la naturaleza.
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August 11, 2010A tirade against Christianity's political paradox: its message comes from those in power stepping down in humility, but its flagbearers since Christ have been the downtrodden stepping up in hubris. Lawrence uses the Apocalypse (John of Patmos' book of Revelation) as one symbol of pagan power struggles corrupting what could have been a pure religion. Altogether astute judgments. But too angry, too increasingly emotional in tone for the reading to be smooth & informative.
"Because, as a matter of fact, when you start to teach individual self-realization to the great masses of people, who when all is said and done are only fragmentary beings, incapable of whole individuality, you end by making them all envious, grudging, spiteful creatures. ...
"In a hierarchy each part is organic and vital, as my finger is an organic and vital part of me. But a democracy is bound in the end to be obscene, for it is composed of myriad disunited fragments, each fragment assuming to itself a false wholeness, a false individuality. Modern democracy is made up of millions of frictional parts all asserting their own wholeness. ...
"Democratic man lives by cohesion and resistance, the cohesive form of 'love' and the resistant force of the individual 'freedom'. To yield entirely to love would be to be absorbed, which is the death of the individual: for the individual must hold his own, or he ceases to be 'free' and individual. So that we see, what our age has proved to its astonishment and dismay, that the individual cannot love. The individual cannot love: let that be an axiom. And the modern man or woman cannot conceive of himself, herself, save as an individual. And the individual in man or woman is bound to kill, at last, the lover in himself or herself. ...
"You love your neighbour. Immediately you run the risk of being absorbed by him: you must draw back, you must hold your own. The love becomes resistance. In the end, it is all resistance and no love: which is the history of democracy.
"If you are taking the path of individual self-realization, you had better, like Buddha, go off and be by yourself, and give a thought to nobody. Then you may achieve your Nirvana. Christ's way of loving your neighbour leads to the hideous anomaly of having to live by sheer resistance to your neighbour, in the end.
"The Apocalypse, strange book, makes this clear. It shows us the Christian in his relation to the State; which the gospels and epistles avoid doing. It shows us the Christian in relation to the State, to the world, and to the cosmos. It shows him in mad hostility to all of them, having, in the end, to will the destruction of them all."
"Because, as a matter of fact, when you start to teach individual self-realization to the great masses of people, who when all is said and done are only fragmentary beings, incapable of whole individuality, you end by making them all envious, grudging, spiteful creatures. ...
"In a hierarchy each part is organic and vital, as my finger is an organic and vital part of me. But a democracy is bound in the end to be obscene, for it is composed of myriad disunited fragments, each fragment assuming to itself a false wholeness, a false individuality. Modern democracy is made up of millions of frictional parts all asserting their own wholeness. ...
"Democratic man lives by cohesion and resistance, the cohesive form of 'love' and the resistant force of the individual 'freedom'. To yield entirely to love would be to be absorbed, which is the death of the individual: for the individual must hold his own, or he ceases to be 'free' and individual. So that we see, what our age has proved to its astonishment and dismay, that the individual cannot love. The individual cannot love: let that be an axiom. And the modern man or woman cannot conceive of himself, herself, save as an individual. And the individual in man or woman is bound to kill, at last, the lover in himself or herself. ...
"You love your neighbour. Immediately you run the risk of being absorbed by him: you must draw back, you must hold your own. The love becomes resistance. In the end, it is all resistance and no love: which is the history of democracy.
"If you are taking the path of individual self-realization, you had better, like Buddha, go off and be by yourself, and give a thought to nobody. Then you may achieve your Nirvana. Christ's way of loving your neighbour leads to the hideous anomaly of having to live by sheer resistance to your neighbour, in the end.
"The Apocalypse, strange book, makes this clear. It shows us the Christian in his relation to the State; which the gospels and epistles avoid doing. It shows us the Christian in relation to the State, to the world, and to the cosmos. It shows him in mad hostility to all of them, having, in the end, to will the destruction of them all."
August 13, 2016
The best thing about this slim book is that there is some seriously poetic and passionate writing on Lawrence's part, with one or two great quotes, and he does have some amazing underlying spirit, so I enjoyed reading this book for that reason.
------------
Most of it is an argument for that the Apocalypse in the Bible is pagan in origin and still very pagan but just was altered and written over by Jews and Christians, and there is some social discussion on whom it appeals to and why. With the disclaimer that I'm not a theologian nor a Christian, I don't have a big problem with this because it's obvious that the Apocalypse is totally different to the Gospels, is really bizarre and that the Bible is man-made.
But the rest of it loses serious points for:
a) Aping Nietzsche, whose philosophy is intellectually stupid (I've written a review on why to Thus Spake Zarathustra). If Lawrence had thought more for himself, it might have been better, so that makes me sad.
b) In one part, for going on about how woman is a source of evil and always a policewoman.. just seems ridiculous and is offensive as well as just stupid. True intelligence would be trying to actually move from simplistic and divisive categorisation where one has projected issues that just causes conflicts: embracing the grey shades and complexity that is more the truth of things. There is not one big simple 'man is this, woman is that', in other words.
c) It felt like he was being seriously rose-tinted about past civilisations rather than acknowledging that when they worshipped the cosmos instead of Christianity or Judaism they no doubt had problems just as much. It was like he had an idea of how it was or should be and idealised it, which isn't well-grounded in reality. I have sympathy because I can see how he got carried away with an ideal rather than looking more critically at how things work in practice, but I cannot respect it.
So his manifesto as laid down in this book does not work for me. It's a shame.
------------
Most of it is an argument for that the Apocalypse in the Bible is pagan in origin and still very pagan but just was altered and written over by Jews and Christians, and there is some social discussion on whom it appeals to and why. With the disclaimer that I'm not a theologian nor a Christian, I don't have a big problem with this because it's obvious that the Apocalypse is totally different to the Gospels, is really bizarre and that the Bible is man-made.
But the rest of it loses serious points for:
a) Aping Nietzsche, whose philosophy is intellectually stupid (I've written a review on why to Thus Spake Zarathustra). If Lawrence had thought more for himself, it might have been better, so that makes me sad.
b) In one part, for going on about how woman is a source of evil and always a policewoman.. just seems ridiculous and is offensive as well as just stupid. True intelligence would be trying to actually move from simplistic and divisive categorisation where one has projected issues that just causes conflicts: embracing the grey shades and complexity that is more the truth of things. There is not one big simple 'man is this, woman is that', in other words.
c) It felt like he was being seriously rose-tinted about past civilisations rather than acknowledging that when they worshipped the cosmos instead of Christianity or Judaism they no doubt had problems just as much. It was like he had an idea of how it was or should be and idealised it, which isn't well-grounded in reality. I have sympathy because I can see how he got carried away with an ideal rather than looking more critically at how things work in practice, but I cannot respect it.
So his manifesto as laid down in this book does not work for me. It's a shame.
July 23, 2011
This was definitely not what I expected of a book by D. H. Lawrence, but thanks to a lengthy and informative introduction by Richard Aldington, I could appreciate the significance of this final work, as the author was suffering declining health before his death in 1930. The introduction was written by British writer and poet Aldington as a letter to Lawrence's window Frieda for the 1932 edition of the book, in which he recalls their friendship, the harassment the Lawrences had suffered from British prudes and officials, and the common misperceptions about Lawrence and his life.
Perhaps written as a last jab at Christian orthodoxy while faced with his own mortality, Lawrence analyzes the book of Revelations in the Bible. Beginning with the question of authorship, he concludes that it was written by John of Patmos (not John the Baptist, or John the Apostle, or John the Evangelist) while he was a prisoner on the island of Patmos. While framing Revelations as an ultimate Christian revenge fantasy overall, Lawrence examines the imagery in the various sections of Revelations and concludes that its contents originated in ancient mythology, was later modified by Jewish doctrine, and then had a thick layer of Christian doctrine added before final editing so as to be somewhat consistent with the rest of the New Testament.
Out of literary interest I read the Bible cover-to-cover about twenty years ago, and remember plodding through Revelations in a last test of endurance. It didn't seem to make much sense and only showed where some of the more farfetched of Christian beliefs originated. Lawrence's story of Revelations was more interesting, but not enough to even interest me in reading either his or the Biblical book again.
Perhaps written as a last jab at Christian orthodoxy while faced with his own mortality, Lawrence analyzes the book of Revelations in the Bible. Beginning with the question of authorship, he concludes that it was written by John of Patmos (not John the Baptist, or John the Apostle, or John the Evangelist) while he was a prisoner on the island of Patmos. While framing Revelations as an ultimate Christian revenge fantasy overall, Lawrence examines the imagery in the various sections of Revelations and concludes that its contents originated in ancient mythology, was later modified by Jewish doctrine, and then had a thick layer of Christian doctrine added before final editing so as to be somewhat consistent with the rest of the New Testament.
Out of literary interest I read the Bible cover-to-cover about twenty years ago, and remember plodding through Revelations in a last test of endurance. It didn't seem to make much sense and only showed where some of the more farfetched of Christian beliefs originated. Lawrence's story of Revelations was more interesting, but not enough to even interest me in reading either his or the Biblical book again.
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October 30, 2020"E' ben noto che un libro vive fin quando non sia del tutto scandagliato, dopo di che muore. E' straordinario come un libro sembri del tutto diverso se viene riletto a cinque anni di distanza. Alcuni di essi guadagnano molto, ci appaiono con cose nuove, tanto diversi da farci dubitare di essere rimasti quali eravamo prima. Altri, al contrario, perdono moltissimo. Ho riletto "Guerra e Pace" e mi sono meraviglito nel constatare quanto poco mi commovesse. Anzi, fui come atterrito nell'accorgermi di non provare più quella emozione che quel testo aveva suscitato in me tempo prima. Succede così. Dopo che un libro è stato scandagliato fino in fondo, che lo si conosce, che il suo significato è stato ben segnato, dopo, è un libro morto. Esso vive solo fino a quando possiede la capacità di communoverci, in modo sempre nuovo, fin quando possiamo leggerlo, e ad ogni lettura, trovarlo diverso. Dalla gran congerie di libri un pò superficiali che una sola lettura è sufficiente a sondare, i lettori moderni sono spinti a credere che ogni libro sia così, esaurito ad una prima scorsa. Non è così. Pian piano se ne accorgeranno. L'autentica gioia di un libro consiste nel poterlo leggere più di una volta, e nel trovarlo ogni volta diverso, disvelandogli esso un significato sempre nuovo e sempre più profondo. Questione di valutazione, è ovvio: noi siamo così accecati dall'idea di quantità, anche nei libri, che quasi non avvertiamo quanto possa essere prezioso un solo testo, prezioso come un gioiello, come una pittura meravigliosa su cui possiamo fermare lo sguardo sempre più in profondità, fino a trarre una sempre più profonda esperienza. Molto, molto meglio leggere un solo libro sei volte che leggere sei libri diversi. Perchè se un libro ha in sè il potere di lasciarsi leggere ben sei volte, ciò vuol dire che ad ogni occasione di lettura è in grado di offrirci una più profonda esperienza e arricchirci l'anima di sentimenti e di pensieri. Al contrario, sei libri letti una volta, ci daranno soltanto un accumulo di interesse superficiale, consueto di questi nostri tempi moderni: quantità senza valore reale. Si tornerà a vedere la massa di lettori divisa in due gruppi: il grande numero di quelli che leggono per puro divertimento o interesse del momento e una minima quantità di coloro che ricercano i libri che posseggano un autentico valore, capaci di sollecitare esperienze, sempre più profonde".
Questo dice Lawrence dei libri e quindi della sua lettura dell'Apocalisse. Da non perdere. Io lo leggo e lo rileggo e dichiaro di non capirci molto. Forse questa è una colpa oltre che una incapacità, ma credo che possa essere anche una salvezza. Non sempre capire fa piacere. Il non capire può piacere ancora di più ...
Questo dice Lawrence dei libri e quindi della sua lettura dell'Apocalisse. Da non perdere. Io lo leggo e lo rileggo e dichiaro di non capirci molto. Forse questa è una colpa oltre che una incapacità, ma credo che possa essere anche una salvezza. Non sempre capire fa piacere. Il non capire può piacere ancora di più ...
November 15, 2021
Read again!! Notes to self (not a real review pls ignore me)
"We and the cosmos are one", "four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within" - grant us eyes grant us eyes - here we stand, feet planted in the earth, but might the cosmos be very near us, only just above our heads? - insight looks a lot like madness - time moves in cycles, can only be understood in cycles
Very compelling argument for the book of revelation being a perversion of pagan 'initiation', ego-death, Buddhism is consistent with this pagan interpretation, 'seven centres/gates of consciousness' (chakras), journey through each one, have to fully die before can be reborn - in the bible, this becomes: everything (self, world, universe) must fully die in order to be reborn (afterlife) - destruction of the external world in place of destruction of self/internal world - theos as opposed to 'god', theos as a verb, god as a noun, - four horsemen, four lower centres of consciousness (four elements, winds, humours, seasons, etc), three higher (passage through Hades, divesting of the soul)
Pretty shook by interpretation of Kabiri as male sexuality, they're clearly menstruation? Right?? "...sky-water and the waters and earth... to turn water into blood... dividers, separators, balancers ancient gods of gateposts... twin beasts that guard the alter... hold things asunder to make a space, a gateway... witnesses to life, for it is between their opposition that the Tree of Life itself grows, from the earthly root... always they testify to Adonai" Lawurence's interpretation is testes, mine is ovaries, maybe that's natural idk
Also Kundalini makes an appearance, again conceived of as male/masculine, 'sudden angers... passionate and terrible... sudden accesses of violent desire, wild sexual desire, or violent hunger...' serpent/dragon, libido/eros, this is so obviously written by a man
Holding on to the last cycle/wanting things to be suspended in perpetuity is unnatural, only constant is change, spiritual sickness derived from postponing divinity until one is 'reborn in the afterlife' - divinity is only accessible right now, ego-death/enlightenment > heaven, stop linking the fire
read this again in like 6 months pls
"We and the cosmos are one", "four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within" - grant us eyes grant us eyes - here we stand, feet planted in the earth, but might the cosmos be very near us, only just above our heads? - insight looks a lot like madness - time moves in cycles, can only be understood in cycles
Very compelling argument for the book of revelation being a perversion of pagan 'initiation', ego-death, Buddhism is consistent with this pagan interpretation, 'seven centres/gates of consciousness' (chakras), journey through each one, have to fully die before can be reborn - in the bible, this becomes: everything (self, world, universe) must fully die in order to be reborn (afterlife) - destruction of the external world in place of destruction of self/internal world - theos as opposed to 'god', theos as a verb, god as a noun, - four horsemen, four lower centres of consciousness (four elements, winds, humours, seasons, etc), three higher (passage through Hades, divesting of the soul)
Pretty shook by interpretation of Kabiri as male sexuality, they're clearly menstruation? Right?? "...sky-water and the waters and earth... to turn water into blood... dividers, separators, balancers ancient gods of gateposts... twin beasts that guard the alter... hold things asunder to make a space, a gateway... witnesses to life, for it is between their opposition that the Tree of Life itself grows, from the earthly root... always they testify to Adonai" Lawurence's interpretation is testes, mine is ovaries, maybe that's natural idk
Also Kundalini makes an appearance, again conceived of as male/masculine, 'sudden angers... passionate and terrible... sudden accesses of violent desire, wild sexual desire, or violent hunger...' serpent/dragon, libido/eros, this is so obviously written by a man
Holding on to the last cycle/wanting things to be suspended in perpetuity is unnatural, only constant is change, spiritual sickness derived from postponing divinity until one is 'reborn in the afterlife' - divinity is only accessible right now, ego-death/enlightenment > heaven, stop linking the fire
read this again in like 6 months pls
February 12, 2025
I watched a documentary, Flipside, before finishing this book. It's a feature film about understanding it is perfectly reasonable, acceptable too, to leave behind what we cannot finish as just that. Something unfinished. We may not have the time to finish everything and there will certainly be that book, that album, that goes unlistened because I've croaked halfway through - the three coffees a day and binge drinks of university have already confirmed that. But to waste energy or time, to put your faith to the test with a fundamental misrepresentation, an underwhelming read of the biblical texts from a man whose work was dying along with them, is no victory. Apocalypse is a dire bit of business, this interpretation of the Book of Revelations as a pagan fear factor from D.H. Lawrence, whose hang-ups of being educated to a religious backdrop as a child are playing hell with his faith and his prose. I still finished the book. Flipside may have shown itself as an acceptance of leaving things unfinished, but when a book is this short, you may as well just suffer through it. Astrological nonsense, attempts at seeing the world as the number four, truly the dribbling of a dying man.
September 25, 2018
Oh D.H. Lawrence! What a man. An author who put his soul into his books--his anger and bile; his egotism; his flaws; his sexuality; his acute perception; his mother issues; his father issues; his issues with women; and so on...
This is a second reading years later. On this reading, I felt like I was hearing an angry sick man ranting at me with at times second rate Nietzschean ideas. Lawrence's analysis of the actual work of the apocalypse in the last chapters is rather weak, and obviously they are ravings.
Yet...they are incredibly interesting ravings, in which he makes many excellent points that stir the stomach (or the solar plexus in homage to Lawrence) and the soul, deep down into ones subconscious. I put this down, and I felt an energy--a sense of freedom, and that irascible pagan spirit of Lawrence. He was dying and flawed, but free and alive to the very end, embodying all of life's paradoxes. Again, what a man and an author. Every time I read his work (and even his ravings), I feel a different perspective of life.
This is a second reading years later. On this reading, I felt like I was hearing an angry sick man ranting at me with at times second rate Nietzschean ideas. Lawrence's analysis of the actual work of the apocalypse in the last chapters is rather weak, and obviously they are ravings.
Yet...they are incredibly interesting ravings, in which he makes many excellent points that stir the stomach (or the solar plexus in homage to Lawrence) and the soul, deep down into ones subconscious. I put this down, and I felt an energy--a sense of freedom, and that irascible pagan spirit of Lawrence. He was dying and flawed, but free and alive to the very end, embodying all of life's paradoxes. Again, what a man and an author. Every time I read his work (and even his ravings), I feel a different perspective of life.
December 12, 2020
What a strange book. He writes so well and is evidently abreast of ancient myths as he goes about railing against modern man, the steel age, Judaism and Christianity. Hard to know what to make of it all, but it all comes together strongly at the end. If it hadn't been written by D H Lawrence I probably wouldn't have persevered, as theological arguments don't interest me much. How many angels could fit on that pin?
September 15, 2022
È un po' complicato ma non per questo bisogna arrendersi: i termini, che non conoscevo, prima di leggerlo li ho cercati e imparati grazie al dizionario ma nonostante ciò non ha spezzato una lettera lucida che permette di inquadrare, da diversi punti di vista, la risposta alla domanda nell' aletta "come definire il libro" che secondo me, è una strabiliante narrativa, a scopi di approfondimento, sul tema religione.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2019
Deliciously reactionary and bitter, Apocalypse is in the true spirit of the old ages of all the literary greats, from Defoe on down to Dostoevsky and Saul Bellow. As a biblical exegesis, this is worthless, but as a right-wing manifesto, this is beyond brilliant. I highly endorse this as a gift to the social justice warriors in your life.
August 29, 2020
I don't even know what to call it. I'm trying to pick up some of these sort of classics, or at least what I remember as famous novels I should have read in high school, but seriously...I'd rather discuss the symbolism in Huck Finn. I normally wouldn't even admit to reading something this ridiculous, let alone that I couldn't slog through a tiny little essay...but I couldn't.
October 16, 2020
Author shows important cultural connections and relations for judeo-christian texts. His conception of connection with nature through senses and intuition, which makes individual part of everything, and which was supposedly lost during cultural evolution and which after restoration will bring him the needed feeling of being alive and contentment, seems at least intersting and worth pondering.
July 7, 2020
"The cosmos is certainly conscious, but it is conscious with the consciousness of tigers and kangaroos, fishes, polyps, seaweed, dandelions, lilies, slugs, and men: to say nothing of the consciousness of water, rock, sun and stars. Real consciousness is touch."
September 7, 2020
I read the entire book in an afternoon.
I'm really fascinated by Lawrence's argument about individuality. There's a lot to think about here; I don't know quite what I expected to get out of this book when I pulled it off the shelf, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
I'm really fascinated by Lawrence's argument about individuality. There's a lot to think about here; I don't know quite what I expected to get out of this book when I pulled it off the shelf, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
June 3, 2023
'È straordinario come un libro sembri del tutto diverso se viene riletto a cinque anni di distanza. Alcuni di essi guadagnano molto, ci appaiono con cose nuove, tanto diversi da farci dubitare di essere rimasti quali eravamo prima. Altri, al contrario, perdono moltissimo.'
January 16, 2021
Lawrence had me in the first half with a clever critique of Christianity as it was meant to be and what it has become, but lost me in the second half with ranting and fragmented sentences.
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