DH Lawrence discussion

"He never became the writer of acknowledged reputation which his early books had suggested he might be; he maintained a public, but a relatively small one. After the war, he broke with England itself; the final eleven years of his career saw him travelling widely, writing experimentally, managing to earn his living, and at times being actively subversive in what he produced . . .

"It was . . . as the author of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' that he would become first notorious, then famous, and finally notorious again . . . What Philip Larkin called 'the end of the Chatterley ban' marked the start of a decade of unprecedented sexual explicitness in the arts which saw Lawrence's reputation as high as it ever grew . . .

"At the start of the twenty-first century, Lawrence is arguably once again the outsider he was during his lifetime . . . his reputation has fallen in the literary and academic worlds which, in the middle of the twentieth century, treated him as a great writer . . . The reasons are simple. A contemporary American writer has declared: 'He was a sexist and a racist, is there any argument?' . . .

"He was in reality generous to women and men alike, and to all races and colours. He wrote wonderfully all his life about his experience of the natural world; he was more perceptive than almost any writer, before or since, about the effects of civilization upon instinct and desire. He has constantly been attacked because his writing constantly thought hard things through in public. But it is, uncannily, as if Lawrence knew where both his contemporaries and those after him would be most sensitive and anxious, and concentrated in his writing on those very subjects: sex, gender roles, and the exercise of power."

-- John Worthen

Lawrence's "Studies in Classic American Literature" is a great work of criticism, quirky but full of essential insights.

Very cool you recommend it, Lloyd -- it's one of the volumes I've added recently to my TBR :-)

And in fact, the reason Lawrence is a good fit for an "immerse yourself in a writer's entire body of work" approach is that he left books like "Studies."

You get to read his novels & stories & poetry. You get to read pieces in which he discusses his novels & stories & poetry. You get to read books about what he thought about other writers' work. And you get to read letters and bios, which in Lawrence's case add another dimension to his fiction since he drew so heavily on his life for material.

It's like a buffet where every dish looks equally enticing :-)

Kirsten wrote: "Very cool you recommend it, Lloyd -- it's one of the volumes I've added recently to my TBR :-)

http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/2009/0...

Oh, excellent!!!!

Picked up a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover a couple days ago and it's been added to my TBR list for the year. I think I'm gonna start with his nonfiction, though.