Si « aucun homme n'est une île », certains aspirent néanmoins à découvrir celle qui les rendra heureux. Le héros de ce récit, l'un des derniers et des plus intenses de D.H. Lawrence, a choisi de quitter le continent pour se tailler un royaume à sa mesure. Mais où trouver sa plénitude ? Comment être à soi-même un territoire fini ? Botaniste qui tente d'ordonner le chaos du monde ou maître qui organise son domaine au milieu de la mer, l'insulaire volontaire va ainsi aller, île après île, jusqu'au bout de son utopie personnelle. Voici un texte limpide, beau et méconnu où éclate le génie tourmenté de l'écrivain anglais, un texte à lire seul au milieu du monde.
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...
“There was a man who loved islands. He was born on one, but it didn’t suit him, as there were too many other people on it.”
This is a study of obsession, solitude, and the need to control. It has a fairy tale opening, the familiarity of repetition and progression (from island to island, from green to grey to white), coupled with a brooding, escalating darkness. “Out of the very air came a strong, heavy malevolence.”
“He wanted an island all of his own: not necessarily to be alone on it, but to make it a world of his own.” He is a benevolent Master, spending liberally to to create Paradise. Generosity or hubris?
As befits a fairy tale, there is a kind of enchantment: “He had reduced himself to a single point in space”, so at night, he would “step off into the other world of undying time”.
Things change: “The island was no longer a ‘world’: it was a sort of refuge.” But from what?
The Need to be Alone
The desire for solitude can be compelling.
The islander comes to desire… nothing. Is the absence of want healthy and modest, or a symptom or premonition of death, whether physical, mental, or spiritual?
“He didn’t want anything. His soul at last was still… His spirit was like a dim-lit cave under water, where strange sea-foliage expands upon the watery atmosphere.”
It sounds like contentment, but the former Master of a large island, now a mere islander on a smaller one, is rarely writing, and doesn’t care whether his works are published. Sexual desire is “automatic, an act of will, not of true desire” (raising issues of consent). His oxymoronic craving for nothing is extreme: “His single satisfaction from being alone, absolutely alone, with the space soaking into him… This was the bread of his soul.”
No man is an island
Ultimately, solitude is not healthy. We need connection, communion. Perhaps the difficulty is knowing where - with who - to find it.
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.... No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....' - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624
Other Quotes
“Your island, cowered dark, holding away from you. You could feel, down in the wet, sombre hollows, the resentful spirit coiled upon itself.”
“Always, he was greeted with smiles, and the same peculiar deference, as if he were a higher, but also frailer being.”
“He wanted only to hear the whispering sound of the sea.”
“Underneath among the rocks the celtic sea sucked and washed and smote its feathery greyness.”
“How many different noises of the sea! deep explosions, rumblings, strange long sighs and whistling noises; then voices… the far-off ringing of a bell… and an undertone of hoarse gasping.”
Lawrence’s friend, Compton Mackenzie moved to Herm and later Barra, in the Channel Islands. Mackenzie was not thrilled at the parallels - to the extent he persuaded their joint publisher to omit the story from Lawrence’s next collection. Image source for Herm: http://herm.com/images/main_bg.jpg
Müthiş bir anlatı, masal anlatmak için yaratılmış bir kalem, buna bir de mükemmel bir Celal Üster çevirisi ekleyin, işte; D. H. Lawrence ve “Adaları Seven Adam”.
Bir insanın toplumdan kaçış isteği, bunu gerçekleştirmek için seçtiği yol adada yaşamak, üç ada değiştirerek amacına varmaya çalışan birinin hikayesi. Adam ve ada. Kendine yeteceğine olan inancın adadan adaya azalışı, her adada toplumdan biraz daha kopuş ve son adada kaçışın yıkımla sonlanışı.
Tüm isteklerden arınmış yaşamak isteyen adam günler ve geceler geçirir adada, evet istek yoktur içinde ama can sıkıntısı bile yoktur. Tutkusunu, ilgisini zaten çoktan yitirmiş, tek doyumu yalnızlığıdır. Nihayet adasında karanlık bir gökyüzü altında, dondurucu bir soğukta karın soluğunu gövdesinde duymasıdır son hissettiği.
Çok beğendim, hele de son okuduğum kitapların sayılar, kelime oyunları gibi konuları içerdiğini düşününce ilaç gibi geldi. 60 sayfalık bir novella, öneriyorum.
[anobii, Jun, 2016] He was out of key … Un uomo e una grande isola per creare una comunità di uomini. E poi un isolotto, e infine solo pochi acri di roccia, terreno erboso e qualche pecora, e poi … «He was out of key; he did not fit in the world any more …» Cinquecento anni fa, Donne sosteneva, a buon diritto, che … no Man Is an Island ... however ... however … se oggi quell’uomo mi cedesse quei pochi acri di roccia …
Un racconto brevissimo di sole ventisei cartelle sulla fuga dal mondo reale. Un uomo decide di acquistare un’isola semi deserta e qui ritirarsi ,accompagnato solo da pochi domestici, un fattore e un falegname per provare a fondare un microcosmo bastante a se stesso e ai suoi pochi collaboratori. Prestissimo emerge la difficoltà di realizzare una utopia di felicità e perfezione condivisa con altri, complice le bassezze dei sentimenti umani, le invidie, le gelosie, complice la stessa natura che dietro la bellezza smagliante di un’isola coperta da manti erbosi che in primavera si punteggiano di multicolori primule in fiore, dell’azzurro dei giacinti, della melodia dei richiami dei merli, del riverbero del mare, della grande luna che come un’isola del cielo la notte si alza dorata dal mare verso l’alto, nasconde invece un suo rifiuto pervicace a volersi fare addomesticare, la benevolenza di questa illusoria armonia tra pochi scelti umani e una natura solo apparentemente materna si rivela un inganno. Il desiderio di solitudine dell’isolano diventa parossistico e sfocia in una misantropia drammatica: l’uomo decide di si ritirarsi in un’isola ancora più piccola, inospitale agglomerato di scogli sbattuti dai marosi nel nord del mare celtico, lontani da ogni approdo, trova soddisfazione solo dall’isolamento più assoluto e come un eremita procede inesorabile nel suo viaggio di autodistruzione che lo porterà alla morte. Un racconto sul desiderio di fuga, sul desiderio di sradicarsi, di strappare le radici e i lacci tesi che ci avvingono alle consuetudini, ai legami, alle responsabilità, desiderio latente, soffocato ma potentissimo dentro di noi, ci porta verso dove?
Λάτρεψα τον Lawrence με τον "Εραστή της Λαίδης Τσάτερλι" και εδώ θαύμασα το ταλέντο του. Στις ιστορίες του, ο συγγραφέας καταπιάνεται με -γνώριμα- θέματα: η τυραννία της ανώτερης τάξης, καταπιεσμένα πάθη, κυνήγι μιας ουτοπίας. Και εδώ ο συγγραφέας προσπαθεί να εξερευνήσει τη γυναικεία και ανδρική συμπεριφορά. Ιστορίες που κινούνται ανάμεσα στην ουτοπία και τη δυστοπία, τη λογική και το πάθος. Ιστορίες που ξεχώρισα: "Ο άνθρωπος που αγαπούσε τα νησιά" και " Ο Πρώσος αξιωματικός"
her şeyden herkesden kaçmak mümkün mü sorusuna verilecek cevabı psikolojik tahlillerle bundan iyi anlatan bir eser okumadım henüz. Sıradan bir kısa hikaye ya da fiction değildi... Kaçış ütopyası, insan ilişkileri, yalnızlığın insanı götürebileceği yerlerle ilgili harika analizler vardı.
Sesli kitap olarak dinledim. Kısacık bir zamanda bitti. Dönem dönem okunması gereken harika bir başucu kitabı diyebilirim.
tr. Adaları Seven Adam. D.H. Lawrence arayışı, kafa karışıklığını, mutsuzluğu, insan olmayı anlatıyor bu novellada. Kitap 3 bölümden oluşsa ve her bölüm farklı bir arayışı/teslimiyeti/kaçışı temsil etse de, genel olarak varılan yer; Georges Perec'in Uyuyan Adam'ının, Süperberduş Christopher McCandless'in ve nicelerinin vardığı yerden farklı bir yer değil.
Aslında Adaları Seven Adam vakit geçtikçe kendisi de farkına varıyor bunun ama öteki türlüsünü kabul etmek, acizliğini kabul etmek, daha da kötüsü kendisine öngörüleni yerine getirmek "onursuzluğu" ve "tiksinçliği" , böyle bir kabulü ya da kabulün gerekliliklerini yerine getirmeyi imkansız kılıyor.
Kitabın son sahnesi ile, Into the Wild'ın son sahnesini yanyana getirin. Sonra da biraz geriye dönelim;
"Anlaşılan, adalar bile âşıktaşlık etmekten hoşlanıyordu.."
Yes, more than men, that is the man of the story who loved islands, islands liked to keep each other company. This is a story from the pen of D. H. Lawrence who wrote many wonderful stories. In this story he has incorporated several themes and many layers of meaning all in less that twenty-five pages. The man who "loved islands" appears Quixotic as he attempts to create an imaginary island world around himself as he sequesters his being in his book-laden library to write about the birds of the classical world. But his dreams were quickly corroded as the corruption of humanity tainted his imaginary Eden. Suggestions of Milton's Paradise Lost - yet can Satan have corrupted humanity so thoroughly that few are honest or loyal enough to continue the journey with the man? Imaginary though it was it reminded me of Rousseau's attacks on civilization while he wrote of an imaginary state of nature. This state of nature seemed to be close to the reincarnation of our man's island as he tried yet a second time to accomplish his dream. Ultimately the man who loved islands inherits a nightmare as the story veers into a snowy dystopia. What meaning does this hold for the reader? I am not sure, but the thoughts for which the story is a catalyst will continually remind me of this strange world.
Güzel bir hikaye türüydü. Hayata yönelik farklı bir felsefi bakış açısı geliştirilmiş. Kitaptaki her üç ada adeta hayatın bir devresini tasvir ediyor. Doğum,büyüme ve ölüm gibi.
Sous ces abords idylliques et anodins, cette quête du bonheur se transforme rapidement en une tentative désespérée de trouver ne serait ce qu'une raison de continuer à vivre. Un direct rapide à la mâchoire, une petite perle qui demeure contemporaine dans son sujet et qui montre jusqu'où peut parfois mener l'isolement, même et surtout volontaire... David, tu pouvais laisser Lady Chatterley au placard :)
Sono stata attratta dal titolo di questo libro. Il personaggio di fantasia del racconto, tale Cathcart, rappresenterebbe lo scrittore Compton Mackenzie che realmente decise di vivere su alcune isolette della Gran Bretagna. La caparbietà di sperimentare certe utopie diventerà via via sempre più frustrante e drammatica. "No, un'isola è un nido che contiene uno e un solo uomo. Quest'uomo è l'isolano"
rounded up 3.5 of 5 because i can't give it a 3...
the reason why it's 3.5 and not a 4 is simple: sometimes i was thinking about something else instead of actually reading. however, everytime i "focused back" it was interesting and philisophical... don't know if i was the problem or the writing. i think i will like this book more the second time around
Lawrence, hayatın keşmekeşinden uzaklaşmak isteyerek ada hayatı tutkunu bu ana karakterle, okuyucuya yaşama dair giriş-gelişme ve sonuç yaşatıyor. Kısa ancak verdiği metaforla çok şey anlatıyor.
Adalari Seven Adam, adalari seviyordu. Adalari seven adam, modern insanin toplum icinde yasadigi sikinti, acmazlardan dolayi yasadigi cevreden ya da toplumdan uzaklasma istegini, dahasi agir bir tiksinti ile kacisina dair bir anlati. Adam, evvela kendi cennetini/siginagini kurmak icin, ise aldigi yardimcilari ile kiraladigi adaya para kesesinin agzini acarak basliyor. Baslarda buyuk bir azim ve sevkle adaya maddi, manevi emekler harciyor. Cok gecmeden adam, ise aldigi bahcivan, tas ustasi, hizmetcinin kendini dolandirdigina vakif oluyor. Atilan kaziklara karsi bir tepki gostermese de coktan sikilmaya basladigi adasi da adama iyice cekilmez geliyor. Adamin calisanlari arasinda da husumet, kuyu kazma basliyor ve calisanlarin bir kismi adayi, efendilerini terkediyor. Calisanlardan birinin genc kizi adama yazdigi kitabin temize cekilmesinde yardimci olurken birden adam kizin kendisine asik oldugunu ayri bir igrenme-sikinti ile farkediyor. Adamda yeniden kacis, ne olursa olsun esinden bosanmak isteyen bir adamin kararliligi ile uzaklasma istegi belirmeye basliyor ki, nur topu gibi bir kiz cocuklari oluyor. Adam, adasini bir otel isletmesine satiyor ve nedendir bilinmez bir bag hissetmedigi kucuk ailesiyle, adanin yanindaki kucuk adaya tasiniyor. Adalari seven adam, kucuk adada da kucuk bir sure kaldiktan sonra karisina bir gelir bagislayarak bu adadan da, yeni almis oldugu kayalik denilebilecek bir adaya tek basina tasiniyor. Kucuk kayaliginda yalnizliginin huzuru korumak ya da insanligin verdigi huzursuzluktan kacmak icin kayaligina her yaklasan seste, goruntude muthis bir endise yasiyor.
D.H.Lawrence'nin kisa bir sure evvel "Olen Adam" isimli novellasini okumus hayran kalmistim. Buna ragmen, bu esere baslarken pek de buyuk bir beklenti icerisinde degildim. Kitap bana, Strindberg'in "Acik Deniz Kiyisinda" isimli o saheserini de siklikla animsatti. Kitabi okurken surekli sanki daha evvel okumus oldugum bir kitabin begendigim, ozenle altini cizdigim yerlerinden mutevellit oldugunu hissettim. Ne bir kelime eksik ne de fazla, okudugum her satir beni derinden etkiledi.
İçlerinden herhangi birinin onu gerçekten sevdiği kuşkuluydu. Ama onun da onlardan herhangi birini gerçekten sevdiği su götürürdü. Onların mutlu olmalarını ve küçük dünyanın kusursuz olmasını istiyordu. Ama dünyanın kusursuz olmasını isteyen birinin, gerçekten sevdiği ve sevmediği şeylerin olmamasına dikkat etmesi gerekir. En fazla, genel bir iyi niyet gösterebilir. İşin üzücü yanı, bu genel ıyi niyet, ne yazık ki tam da iyi niyetin gösterildiği kişi tarafından her zaman bir hakaret olarak görülür; o yüzden de çok özel bir kötü niyeti besler.Kuşkusuz, genel iyi niyetin, böyle bir sonuç doğurabilmesinin nedeni bir çeşit bencillik olmasıdır!
Kurzgeschichte über einen Mann, der auf immer kleiner werdende Inseln zieht, bis er schließlich allein auf einem winzigen Eiland lebt. Entfremdung, Einsiedelei, sich selbst genug sein und trotzdem in Einklang mit der zeitlosen Welt – das sind die Themen dieses Buchs. Das Ganze schildert der Autor in schönen, teils warmen, teils kalten Worten, neu und gut übersetzt von Benjamin Lebert. Nicht nur was für Leute, die das Meer mögen.
Vieles an der Erzählung ist mir rätselhaft geblieben. Der Symbolgehalt und das scheinbar parabelhafte hat sich mir nicht erschlossen. Die Hauptfigur zieht sich offenbar desillusioniert und enttäuscht von der Menschheit immer weiter in die Einsamkeit zurück. Aber die Gründe dafür bleiben wage und die schnellen Stimmungs- und Motivationsschwankungen der Hauptfigur werden für mich nicht nachvollziehbar. So klingt das Buch die ganze Zeit so bedeutungsschwanger, aber die eigentlich Bedeutung blieb mir verborgen. So war es irgendwie nichtssagend. Schade.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
entgegen meiner Erwartung, dass es ums Glücklichsein bzw. -werden mit der Aufgabe von Besitztümern gehen würde, hatte ich eher das Gefühl, dass der Prozess einer Depression beschrieben wurde, die nachdem das Fundament der Inseln gelegt wurde, unaufhaltsam wurde.
This man who loves islands so much isn't a tragic hero he's just a moron. I have no pity for him at all, he caused all his own problems and now suffers on that silly crag he marooned himself on.
I like it for being a quick, but somehow also deep read.
The book is structured into three parts: first, second, and third island, which I find suiting. The story mentions the man (who loves the island) and always reports from a distant view, I like, that it is very reporting and never mentions the past or deeper thoughts of the character.
I didn’t really expect the story to start as it did. It almost felt a bit like playing some village simulation game. On the first island, I didn’t really know how the story would go on, but I soon realised that the islands would become smaller and smaller. The relationship to his girl came very surprisingly and wasn’t elaborated deeply, but nothing was elaborated deeply in this book, so it somehow suits. I don’t really get the purpose of the snow in the end, I feel like he should’ve died of some other reason, something that was more important on the other islands as well.
But in general I liked it, was fun to read and I’d recommend it to friends.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A good selection with a fantastic introduction. I also thought her biography 'Burning Man' was excellent. I didn't like some of the stories here individually (A Sick Collier, The Primrose Path, The Last Laugh, The Rocking Horse Winner, The Man Who Loved Islands) but I thought they all fit a sort of core essence of 'Lawrence'.
My personal selection would be:
1. Nottinghamshire and autobiographical stories Adolf Daughters of the Vicar The Witch A La Mode A Modern Lover New Eve And Old Adam
2. War The Thorn in the Flesh The Prussian Officer England, My England The Border Line
3. Blood consciousness You Touched Me The Horse Dealer's Daughter The Thimble The Ladybird
4. Late fables The Woman Who Rode Away The Flying Fish The Man Who Died
Si tu devais emporter un livre sur une île déserte : ce livre te permettrait d'y réfléchir à deux fois ! Quelle serait votre île mentale parfaite 🏝 ? Y seriez-vous Heureux ?
Comme d'habitude les Éditions de l'Arbre vengeur ont déniché une pépite : cette nouvelle de D.H. Lawrence, traduite ici par Catherine Delavallade, est loin d'être une balade idyllique. Dans ce microcosme, Cathcart ne semble supporter que lui-même (et encore difficilement), il a choisi de s'installer sur son île métaphorique pour vivre le Bonheur que tout homme recherche mais il y a toujours un truc qui le chiffonne, même dans la beauté du lieu, il finit par trouver un truc qui ne va pas. Le fait est qu'il se lasse aussi vite que son désir ! Peut-on être pleinement heureux ? Il cherche aussi sa vérité, mais où se cache-t-elle finalement ? Sur l'une ou l'autre de ces trois îles ? L'île est-elle liberté ou prison ? Il y aurait beaucoup à dire sur le symbolisme qui se cache dans le texte : archétype, territoire du sacré (chiffre 3 qui fait référence à la Trinité), récit initiatique… La préface de Thierry Gillyboeuf vous donnera quelques clés de lecture vraiment essentielles à la compréhension du texte.
Un mot également, sur le format de cette collection (l'Arbuste véhément) que j'apprécie particulièrement. On peut l'emporter partout (même dans un sac de plage ou sur une île déserte 😁 il ne prendra pas de place). Ce n'est pas un livre de poche comme les autres : il a des rabats, sa taille est différente des poches classiques, les couvertures de Nicolas Etienne sont épurées, graphiques à souhait... Bref on a tout de suite envie de les collectionner !
Clin d'oeil de l'actualité : la villa de Capri où David Herbert Lawrence a écrit « L'Amant de Lady Chatterley » est en vente… Si après ça le coeur vous en dit encore…
"Wer aber nach der vollkommenen Welt strebt, der muss sich vor wirklicher Liebe und wirklichem Hass in Acht nehmen. Mehr als allgemeines Wohlwollen darf er sich nicht leisten."
So schmal dieses wunderschöne Büchlein auch ist, so gewaltig ist sein Inhalt.
Eine gewaltige Abkehr vom Leben mit einem zunächst feinfühligen Protagonisten, der Schrittweise die Welt hinter sich lässt und die Abgeschiedenheit wählt auf der Suche nach seinem persönlichen Glück. Dabei findet er aber keine goldtriefende Glückseligkeit, sondern eher die Gewalt der Natur, des Lebens und jede Menge Melancholie.
Ist es das Glück völlig alleine zu sein? Sich und der Welt asketisch davonzulaufen und um nichts zu kreisen, als die eigenen Gedanken? Wer sind wir, wenn wir uns nicht in Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen definieren können? Zurückgeworfen auf nichts, als unsere eigene Gefühls- und Gedankenwelt.
Auf knapp 70 Seiten hat sich dieses Buch in meinem Herzen verankert. Hat mich aufgewühlt, den Spiegel vorgehalten und mich erschüttert.
D.H.Lawrence schrieb 1927 diese hoch aktuelle Geschichte, die nicht so sehr von ihrer Handlung als vielmehr von den Gefühlen lebt, die sie bei den Leser*innen weckt, wenn sie teils düster die Fragen nach dem Kern des Lebens stellt und die Allmacht des Menschen in Frage stellt.