The Woman Who Rode Away / St. Mawr / The Princess

by D.H. Lawrence, Brian Finney (Editor), Dieter Mehl (Editor)

Three short works of pyschological liberation from the author of Women in Love

The three works collected in this volume, all written in 1924, explore the profound effects on protagonists who embark on psychological voyages of liberation. In St Mawr , Lou Witt buys a beautiful, untamable bay stallion and discovers an intense affinity with the horse that she cannot feel with her husband. This superb novella displays Lawrence's mastery of satirical comedy in a scathing depiction of London's fashionable horse riding set. 'The Princess' portrays the intimacy between an aloof woman and her male guide as she travels through New Mexico in search of new experiences, while in 'The Woman Who Rode Away' a woman's religious quest in Mexico brings great danger - and astonishing self-discovery.

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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, 20th Century, British Literature, English Literature, Classic Literature

234 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

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

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

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Woman Who Rode Away is a brilliant anthology of highly allegorical and fabulous tales.
The title story is a kind of spiritual journey a woman embarks on to get free from the bonds of civilization.

At thirty-three she really was still the girl from Berkeley, in all but physique. Her conscious development had stopped mysteriously with her marriage, completely arrested. Her husband had never become real to her, neither mentally nor physically. In spite of his late sort of passion for her, he never meant anything to her, physically. Only morally he swayed her, downed her, kept her in an invincible slavery.

The Rocking-Horse Winner is a powerful parable of doom – there is a payment for everything in this world and a winner never takes all.
And my favorite allegory in this collection is The Man Who Loved Islands

He no longer worked at his book. The interest had gone. He liked to sit on the low elevation of his island, and see the sea; nothing but the pale, quiet sea. And to feel his mind turn soft and hazy, like the hazy ocean. Sometimes, like a mirage, he would see the shadow of land rise hovering to northwards. It was a big island beyond. But quite without substance.

The older we get the colder becomes the climate of our feelings. The further we advance in age the more barren turns the soil of our expectations. The longer we live the smaller grow the isles of our hopes. And one day all our islands disappear.

[Paula Mota · Rating 3 out of 5]

“De facto, com 33 anos de idade continuava a ser a rapariga de Berkeley, em tudo menos no físico. O casamento paralisara-lhe misteriosamente a evolução do espírito, tinha sofrido uma paragem radical. Para ela o seu marido nunca tinha sido real, quer sob o ponto de vista mental, quer sob o ponto de vista físico.

A protagonista deste conto, uma americana que sai de casa e se põe a vaguear a cavalo, fundamentalmente por tédio, passa mais de metade do tempo num estado de semi-transe provocado por uma beberragem que lhe é dada pelos índios do povoado mexicano aonde foi parar, mas quem estava a curtir uma grande trip era decerto D.H. Lawrence. Como às vezes me acontece, D.H. irritou-me e, do alto da minha pretensão, confesso que o que mais me exaspera nele é o desperdício de talento. É um autor com um maravilhoso dom de escrita e de descrição que optou por fazer um tratado antropológico com um subtexto freudiano através da dicotomia Eros/Thanatos.

“A ira despontou nos olhos dela com um rompante de loucura, e ficou com as faces lívidas. Um gesto agressivo fê-la reter as rédeas. Mas antes de conseguir que o cavalo voltasse para trás, o jovem índio puxou-as para a frente, agarrando-as sob a garganta, e correndo com rapidez começou a guiar o cavalo. A mulher tinha ficado sem forças. E à ira suprema associou um leve arrepio de júbilo. Percebeu que tinha morrido.

[Agir(آگِر) · Rating 2 out of 5]

از اینکه سرخپوست جوان و دو همراهش ،با نگاهی سرد و بی تفاوت به او می نگریستند، وحشت وجودش را فرا می گرفت
این بی احترامی بزرگی بود
شاید انتظار تجاوز را داشت
او زن است و هنوز زیبا و دلفریب
آنها چرا زنانگی اش را نمی دیدند؟
...
احساس مرده ای را داشت که هر چیزی برایش تمام شده است
مطمئن بود که در طول شب صدای عظیم شکستن چیزی را در درونش شنیده است
صدایی که فریاد مرگش بود
شاید هم این صدا از اعماق زمین برخاسته بود
و خبر از حادثه ای عظیم و مرموز می داد
...

داستان زنی که با شوهری 20 سال بزرگتر از خودش ازدواج کرده و 2 بچه دارد
در اول ازدواج می اندیشید که شاید این ازدواج از ازدواج های دیگر پر ماجراتر باشد
اما زن خیلی وقت است رابطه زناشوئی با شوهرش ندارد
شوهرش در گفتگو با مرد جوان سفید پوستی،از وحشی بودن سرخپوست ها می گوید
این گفتگو ذهن زن را به تکاپو می اندازد
پس آنها مردانی هستند که شبیه شوهرش نیستند
همین که شوهرش با مرد جوان از خانه بیرون می روند
زن سوار بر اسب می شود و بسوی دور دست و قبایل سرخپوست ها حرکت میکند

[Sergio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annoiata dalla routine della vita matrimoniale o semplicemente in cerca di avventura, una donna che vive in Messico dove il coniuge è proprietario di una miniera di argento ormai abbandonata, decide di allontanarsi da casa e andare a conoscere gli indiani che vivono isolati nella sierra approfittando dell'assenza del coniuge: viaggio iniziatico o semplice evasione che la condurrà suo malgrado alla conoscenza di una visione mitologica dei nativi dall'esito inaspettato. Un racconto ben scritto ma che non "prende" fino in fondo.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm slightly saddened these stories have been collected together (though I understand they were all written at a certain point in DHL's life which is probably why they're together here) because while I loved all the feminist undertones and beautiful exploration of the American South in "St Mawr" I found "The Woman Who Rode Away" and "The Princess" really tough going. So much problematic/depressing stuff going on in those stories - especially surrounding treatment of women and depictions of indigenous men (and yes "St Mawr" is also not without fault in this regard too). So yes, would recommend "St Mawr" but suggest keeping a wide berth from the other two...

[António Jacinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma escrita simples, fluente e rigorosa. Lawrence usa frases de recorte quase clássico, empregando adjectivos precisos e expressões depuradas, mas sem afectar o ritmo ligeiro da linguagem. É, igualmente, um tom encantatório, tal como a trama o exige. Lê-se de um fôlego. É um conto longo, hipnótico, que evoca "O coração das trevas" de Conrad (e o brilhante filme que daí surgiu). Também não é possível ler este livro sem recordar o brilhante (até muito mais poderoso) "Subitamente no Verão passado" de Tennessee Williams.
"Que diferença fará eu transitar desta morta que sou para a morta que muito em breve serei?"
Admiro personagens e pessoas, como esta mulher, que arriscam. Gosto dos desconsolados, dos desorientados e dos corajosos, dos que não se importam de perder. É isso que uma vida vale.

[Tybah Sabah · Rating 2 out of 5]

الرواية عن قصة أمراة تركت زوجها وطفلين لتهاجر الى أرض يسكنها الهنود حيث قدموها قرباناً لإلههم بعد ان اقنعتهم انها هربت من أرضها وتركت ألإله الذي تعبده لتستكشف الطبيعة وما ورائها الى ان التقت بيهم وتجري أحداث الرواية بوصف هذا الإله وكيف انه أصبح الأن بيد الرجل الابيض بعد ان كان تحت سيطرة الهنود منذ البشرية لكن المرأة هي التي جعلته بيد الرجل الابيض .. ما يحدث لهذه المرأة التي جمحت وتركت خلفها اسرتها لتتعرف للطبيعية الغامضة ..
هل تهلك ؟

[Scarlet · Rating 5 out of 5]

D.H. Lawrence is my king 👑 A male author who can write women 🤩

Some favourite quotes from this short story collection:

- “There is a certain nonsense, something showy and stagey about spring, with its pushing leaves and chorus-girl flowers, unless you have something corresponding inside of you.” (‘Two Blue Birds,’ pp. 19)

- “Every man his own hero, thought the wife grimly, forgetting that every woman is intensely her own heroine.” (‘Two Blue Birds,’ pp. 19)

- “It is not the wetting of the eyes which counts, it is the deep iron rhythm of habit, the year-long, life-long habits; the deep-set stroke of power.” (‘Sun,’ pp. 27)

- “Her joy was when he rose all molten in his nakedness, and threw off blue-white fire, into the tender heaven.” (‘Sun,’ pp. 31)

- “Both he and his wife had that air of quiet superiority which belongs to individuals, not to a class.” (‘Sun,’ pp. 42)

- “She seemed to feel her own death; her own obliteration. As if she were to be obliterated from the field of life again.” (‘The Woman Who Rode Away,’ pp. 68)

- “And how he would give himself to a Woman, if she would only find real pleasure in the male that he was.” (‘The Border Line,’ 94)

- “And she repented, silently, of the way she had questioned and demanded answers, in the past. What were the answers, when she had got them? Terrible ash in the mouth.” (‘The Border Line,’ pp. 98)

- “He was a fascinating little man with a profound understanding of life and the capacity really to understand a woman and to make a woman feel a queen; which of course was to make a woman feel her real self.” (‘Jimmy and the Desperate Woman,’ pp. 108)

- “ Nearly all people in England are of the superior sort, superiority being an English ailment.” (‘The Last Laugh,’ pp. 142)

- “She had never emerged for a second from the remote place where she unyieldingly kept herself.” (‘Glad Ghosts, pp. 172)

- “He was just looking way in, to the marshes and jungle in her, where she didn’t even look herself.” (‘None of That,’ pp. 218)

- “He smiled, and talked, plucking for them the leaves from off his tree: leaves of easy speech.” (‘A Modern Lover,’ pp. 228)

- “You should be able by now to use the algebra of speech. Must I count up on your fingers for you what I mean, unit by unit, in bald arithmetic?” (‘A Modern Lover,’ pp. 234)

- “And they met again in the poetry of the past.” (‘A Modern Lover,’ pp. 240)

Favourite story: ‘Sun’ ☀️

[Richard Clay · Rating 1 out of 5]

Of the three short story collections he published during his lifetime, the first, The Prussian Officer, remains well worth reading. The second, England, my England, has its substantial title story and some acceptable lesser pieces. This third volume, appearing just two years before his death, is to be avoided by all but the specialist and the ghoul.

One day, much more research will have been done into the effect of tuberculosis on the function of the brain. As it's a disease that attacks the lungs, it must surely reduce the oxygen supply to all organs. This may be the best explanation we'll ever have of the catastrophic implosion of the talent that had previously brought us 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' and 'Daughters of the Vicar'.

Tragically, two much earlier stories have been tacked on to the end of this edition - which, in such a context, only function to highlight how much better a writer Lawrence had been.

If you want to be fair to him, read The Prussian Officer and read his two very fine novels, The Rainbow and Women in Love. The Woman who Rode Away has no artistic value: my best guess is that it is merely a symptom of the disease that was to kill Lawrence a couple of years later.

[Mahmood666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

زنی که گریخت
دی اچ لارنس
ثریا خوانساری()
نشر فردا۱۳۸۴
زنی در خانه ای اشرافی با همسری ثروتمند و کودکانی زیبا زندگی ارامی دارد.صبح یک روز سوار بر اسب خانه ،همسر و کودکانش را در پشت سر جا میگذارد تا به قبیله ای سرخپوست بپیوندد.نه برای اینکه با انها اشنا شود چون هیچ نیازی به این کار نمیبیند ، عدم فهم زبان و عدم شناخت دلیلی بر رفتنش به سوی این قوم است. میرود تا از غریزه اش تبعیت کند .میرود چون میخواهد .....
کتاب سرشار از ایده های غریب و جالب است و لارنس در این داستان بلند به مانند دیگر اثارش غرایز انسان را به صورتی عریان تحلیل میکند .مشابه دیگر اثار لارنس این اثر نیز پر از المان های جنسی است .خواندن این کتاب برای دوستداران ادبیات مدرن که به اثار مهم لارنس (به دلیل غیر قابل انتشار بودن انها)دسترسی ندارند بسیار مفید و لازم است.

[Arwaraheem · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story events revolve around a rebellious woman who destroys the limitations and traditions of the first half of the 20th century's society, in addition to his portraying of Chilchuis who sacrifices the woman in a barbaric rituals in hope of their salvation.
Subsequently, readers and critics might be ambivalent in his ( Lawrence) real attitude. Is he blames the woman for her mysterious journey? Does she deserve her death? Or he wants to blame and criticize the black naïve Indian tribes? Or Lawrence might be criticizing both?!

[Carole Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was another book chosen by my book group. These are short stories, some I liked better than others, my favourite was the title story, The Woman Who Rode Away. The woman was a Californian girl who married a rancher who lived in Chihuahua, Mexico. She grew bored with her life and so rode into the Mexican hinterland and met a band of Indians, who took her miles into the mountains and kept her drugged and a prisoner. She was aware of what was happening to her and knew she was going to be sacrificed to their gods.
Most of the other stories I enjoyed, although not all.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy (1925) has only St. Mawr and The Princess in it. Both highly readable, esp. St. Mawr (the name of an ill-tempered stallion, incidentally), which explores a strangely problematic Anglo-American family as it breaks up. The Princess is interesting for depicting a whole life in some detail in a hundred pages, but doesn't leave a deep impression.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories showed the difficulty of women of deciding between what society expects and what they want (or allowing themselves to not want anything) The depiction of indigenous throughout all three stories was problematic

[Recensioni in tre parole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breve. Modernista. Armonioso.

[Jeremy Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps a slightly uneven collection for Lawrence, I believe these works came after his early successes, and he was travelling from pillar to post, exiled from Britain because of the xenophobia and suspicion that resulted from his marriage to Freida, a relation of the Red Baron, when he was rumoured to be a German spy by the malicious gossips around his Devon home and in poor health and having his work brutally censored by a priggish publishing literati, he abandoned Britain for Mexico.

This is the theme of the title story, really a novella, about a woman who becomes fatefully disenchanted with her sheltered life and so runs away, rather rides away, to live with the Chilchuis Indians. Here Lawrence explores the juxtaposition of civilisation and brutality with all his immense skill. But it is not an especially enjoyable story, nor is is it replete with the richness as is characteristic of his works. There is an austere beauty to the landscapes he describes at times, but mostly the story is one of harsh and unforgiving ideals and the gradual erosion of those strange civilising values which creates so many of life's dichotomies and struggles against baser instinct. The ultimate destination is both bleak and alien, and it is skilfully done, but leaves one feeling disconcerted.

Most of the remaining stories are more familiar to readers of the great man. The Desperate Woman, for example, deals rather well with his usual themes. There are even tales here with a more supernatural slant, actually too a ghost story, but on the whole, while many of these tales convey his habitual and effortless skill in building a sense of outright humanity, there are frivolous moments too. I still loved this, but it's not his best work. Even Bert's second rate writing leaves almost everyone else in the shade though.

[saizine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating is probably more along the lines of 3/3.5 stars for the two short stories and 4 stars for the novella.

The Woman Who Rode Away is evocative and highlights the fact that Lawrence is deft with description: ‘He was a squeamish waif of an idealist’, for example, as well as ‘the chuckling sobbing cry of the coyote’ and ‘that gleam of after-hate in his eyes’.

The Princess is a bit too reliant on imagery of vulgarity versus virginity to be entirely enjoyable, although there are still some striking descriptions (‘Mars sat on the edge of a mountain, for all the world like the blazing eye of a crouching mountain lion’, for example).

St. Mawr is the real gem of this collection. Although it suffers from similar pitfalls (an overuse of phallic metaphor, female characters whose thoughts almost inevitably return to the concept of masculinity or the lack thereof, some racist characterizations typical of the era), the overall feel of the work is much more engrossing. Moving from English towns and villages to Texas and New Mexico, the descriptions are lovely and evocative; St. Mawr is a constant undercurrent, half beauty and half dread. These stories may not go anywhere (far), plot-wise, but they are thought-provoking nonetheless.

[Martina Mezzadri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence è quello scrittore capace di trascinarti all'interno di un libro attraverso la sua incredibile bravura di descrivere situazioni, luoghi e sentimenti. In questo piccolo, ma grande, libro ci troviamo di fronte a una storia affascinante e brutale, non è possibile chiudere il libro, il desiderio di continuare a leggere è troppo grande. Di sicuro "La donna che fuggi a cavallo" è un ottimo libro per chiunque voglia approcciarsi all'autore, ma anche per chi a voglia di una lettura veloce, ma di certo non indifferente.

[Rob Forteath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could rate this more highly. The writing is as good as you expect, and some of the stories are quite entertaining and enjoyable. There is much humour in the early stories in the collection.

Unfortunately, too many of the stories drag, with characters and situations that were tortured to fit into something the author wanted to write about. Also, the Hemingway-like fetish for "manliness" of the domineering, selfish, bestial sort gets a bit creepy after it's been extolled in a few of the stories.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked most of the stories in the collection, especially the title story, and Sun and None of That...I didn't like Glad Ghosts in the beginning but by the end I had changed my mind. The only stories I really didn't like were Smile and The Last Laugh. I've come to really like DHL. He was versatile, and deft at conjuring up a scene, and painting a character.

[Megansnopik · Rating 5 out of 5]

glad ghosts 10000000/10

[Zachary Ngow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixture of some decent stories, two great ones and some lesser ones. Many of these are set in America and Mexico written around the time he lived in Taos (I think).

The decent stories were 'Sun' , 'Smile', 'Jimmy and the Desperate Woman', 'The Last Laugh' and 'In Love'.

The ones I enjoyed least were 'Two Blue Birds', 'The Man Who Loved Islands' and 'None of That'. 'None of That' reminds me a little of Muriel Spark's 'The Driver's Seat'. This is a sort of attack on Mabel Dodge. Unfortunately it was a bit boring. 'The Man Who Loved Islands' was based on a friend of Lawrence (Compton MacKenzie). The man becomes more and more isolated escaping the modern world and his responsibilities. It was used as the title for Frances Wilson's selection of his stories, so I was expecting a bit more but it wasn't too interesting.'Two Blue Birds' was slightly amusing at parts, otherwise cringy, and was about a love triangle.

The best stories were the titular 'The Woman Who Rode Away' and my favourite, 'The Border Line'. 'The Woman Who Rode Away' involves a Mabel Dodge character who rides into Mexico and sacrifices herself to bring in a new era. 'The Border Line' is about the borderline between life and death, civilization and waste and man and woman. Alan and Philip, his decrepit successor, compete for a woman, even after Alan's death. It has beautiful descriptions of post-war Europe, especially the imagery of cathedrals looming over ruined towns.

"And dimly she realised that behind all the ashy pallor and sulphur of our civilization, lurks the great blood-creature waiting, implacable and eternal, ready at last to crush our white brittleness and let the shadowy blood move erect once more, in a new implacable pride and strength."

These two better stories express Lawrence's belief that civilization is rotting, and something dark is returning. He said to Catherine Carswell that 'The Woman Who Rode Away' is sad, but true to what is. Though written a hundred years ago, that lurking feeling feels more imminent than ever.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I was at first thrown off and disappointed by this collection-- Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner being one of my favorite stories, but also one of my only experiences with him apart from a few of his poems (A snake came to my water trough on a hot, hot day and I in pajamas for the heat to drink there. ...)-- I soon came to love this collection. The title story was disappointing and I think I was most frustrated that he'd named the collection after such a tale. But the rest of the stores were lovely. They sauntered along at their own paces, never dragging but never being page turners. The stories are more meditations (or more accurately ruminations) on the ways relationships fall apart and is incredibly focused on the dynamic of love and infatuation between two people. Lawrence seems to love this dichotomy between a "clever man" and a "true man." And the clever man while being witty and gaining power in his own way never ascends the height of the true man, because his way (the clever man) is lowly and conniving when compared to the resolute, almost God-given constitution of the True Man. The prevalence of this, and the bitterness many of the women feel towards the clever men, and the yearning for (and the incurable emptiness caused when lost) leads me to believe our buddy D.H. had a pretty strained marriage himself and could stand for some self-love and forgiveness. But maybe bitterness was his muse. He certainly gave some incisive insights into humanity in this collection, even if the themes were rather narrow. The world is not encompassed in these stories, but a section is placed under a microscope and watched as it festers.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twelve stories from 1928, penned by D.H.Lawrence...'Bert' to his nearest & dearest!...the so-called 'Priest of Love'! Several of them are classics of the form, very popular in the years straddling the centuries, as popular magazines devoured short stories by eminent authors, & the subject matter became more egalitarian & liberated. 'Bert' was one of the pioneers of a new vision of both the working classes & the middle-class bohemians who pushed hard against the rigid social & sexual conventions of that suffocating era, particularly on either side of the cataclysmic Great War.
The twelve stories in this curate's egg of a collection are varied in length & in literary style... the best, glimpses of D.H.L.'s early years in his time as a young & 'thrusting' force of nature, 'A Modern Lover', but also of his years as a miserable misfit, a man tortured by both his social predicaments & his failing health.
It's fair to say that a few of these stories would not be published in 21st c. volumes as they teeter on every controversial, contemporary, liberal-despised 'ism'...'Bert' was not a writer who seemed to have a reliable editor of any strict, commercial discernment, & 'Bert' was always a red-headed man short of temper & taste, preferring to be a rebellious soul in a time of real change in the world of literature, art & sexual license...& this collection has the feel of a writer with much more to say...in language that would bring down an institutionalised 'ism' in its wake! Lawrence is not for the woke! The brute of a gamekeeper with more than his shotgun to fire!

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

خورشید در یک سوی آسمان زنده است و ماه در آن سوی دیگر آسمان زندگی می‌کند. مردان همیشه سعی دارند که خورشید را در آن سوی آسمان شاد نگه دارند و زنان تلاش دارند تا ماه در آن دیگر سو در آرامش به سر برد. پس زنان همیشه به کار مشغولند و خورشید هرگز نمی‌تواند به خانه ماه برود. و ماه هم هرگز نمی‌تواند به خانه خورشید سفر کند. بنابراین زنان از ماه می‌خواهند که در گوشه نماد خود در کنار آنان بماند و مردان نیز تا وقتی که قدرت خورشید را در اختیار دارند خورشید را کنار می‌زنند. آن‌ها همیشه به این کار مشغولند تا اینکه زنی و مردی به ازدواج هم در آیند پس خورشید به نماد ماه سفر می‌کند و از اینجاست که همه چیز دوباره در جهان آغاز می‌شود.

[Neha Zadef · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok when i first started reading this i was deeply blown tf away because ive never read any of his work and the mastery of the written word and storytelling is just insane. sun was my favourite and deserves 5 stars. the woman that rode away killed it totally like i couldn’t look past the way the natives were presented and the white victim/innocence trope like idk if im being too surface about it maybe he meant something more but i dont think he did so that kinda ruined the experience for me. but overall weirder than expected and id love to read more of him.

[Kenneth McMahon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only cared for a handful of the short stories here. Sun is easily the best of the bunch, followed by the title story. Both feature women searching for more from life than their civilised existences, a return to more primitive ways, however both stories end up in vastly different scenarios with one woman being seemingly punished by Lawrence for seeking something different. Of the other stories, Jimmy And The Deperate Woman and Strike-Pay are entertaining, but I practically hate read the rest of them just to get through the book.

[Bucyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Lawrence's writing style and especially the way he indulges in the inner lives of female characters. In this collection, however, I found and enjoyed that in only about half of the stories. Two Blue Birds, Sun, None of That, and A Modern Lover were absoloutely wonderful. Queer, funny, and sappy sweet. The story Smile deserves an honorable mention for how weird it was. The other half of the book, including the story that gave the title, was just boring.

[Ian L. Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting.

Some quite unusual stories, nearly all about man/woman relationships, but not at all romantic, often quite dark. Maybe better to dip into rather than read all the short stories.

[Ivano Canteri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small jem, an abstract (really?) dream of alter cultures and substance. A finger pointed to solitude and the need to refresh and find sense to life. An hymn to freedom of spirit and a question mark around what roots really are (or aren't?). Pleasant reading.