Reading 1001 discussion

Definitely an outlier among Lawrence's work. Instead of being about complex interpersonal relationships among people of different British social classes, this one follows a British woman who travels to Mexico and gets involved with a growing Quetzalcoatl Aztec-revivalist cult that threatens the power of the Catholic church and Mexican government.

It was a wild ride of a read that admittedly does challenge the suspension of disbelief a fair amount. Though, it does have some interesting thoughts about cult mentality, the contagion of fanatical fervor, and complex thoughts about the evils of colonial culture vs the fetishization and pedestalization of pre-colonial cultures/empires.

I gave it 4 stars.

Pre-2017 review:

***

I have mixed feelings about this novel. The quality of the writing was much better than his widely known and not-so-controversial novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. It provides a pretty faithful portrait of some of the deep Mexican traits, just as described in The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz, which I am glad to have read previously. However, the pace of the novel is extremely slow; the subject matter required it to be slow, but Lawrence pushed it a bit too much on some parts. Kate, as a character, was exasperating because you felt you never knew what she wanted and was always saying 'no' and yielding to do the exact opposite in the next paragraph. This behaviour kept on until the very last sentence of the novel, in a disappointing and eye-rolling predictable ending. I still keep hope that he has better stuff on offer.

I had no idea what to expect from this. I didn't read any kind of summary before starting. It features an English woman of 40, Kate, previously divorced and then widowed, who goes to Mexico with friends and stays after they leave, becoming involved with a movement to reestablish native Mexican religion and culture.

The Mexico setting was interesting, and I knew that Lawrence spent some time there. I don't know how accurate it was, and Patrick's comments are interesting for that, because I was not inclined to believe very much.

I think setting it in another country allowed Lawrence to use the clash between native culture (natural urges, a favourite topic) and colonial culture (repression, represented here by the Catholic church) in a way that idealised the "primitive" side of people. There was a lot about being "real men" and "real women" and sexual spiritual completion that was familiar to me from dimly-remembered readings of The Rainbow, Lady Chatterley, The Virgin and the Gypsy, but he took it further in this book, probably because he could exoticise his Mexican characters.

It was certainly slow, I think deliberately so, and there was a lot of repetition. Kate's two previous marriages were mentioned from time to time without being fleshed out, as if their only purpose was to show she was already able to leave an unfulfilling situation for a new life involving passion and risk, though she vacillated endlessly and some of the dialogue was laughable.

I see why this is on the list, because it allowed Lawrence to go deeply into the particular aspect of his work that was groundbreaking (published in 1926) while it is flawed and not always credible in other respects.