D. H. Lawrence and AU Austen
Having wrapped up a big GOTV mailing a few hours ago, I am pulling together an odds-and-ends letter to my friend Rae, which means being amused anew by some recent commentary on D. H. Lawrence, who is one of the reasons I chose not to specialize in modernism for my MA (having realized I couldn't abide the prospect of teaching or discussing his work with a straight face the rest of my career. There was a thread on K. J. Charles's Twitter feed with these opening shots:
Laughing my head off at the implied framing of DH Lawrence as 1920 Shades of Grey. I mean. Has anyone tried to read that thing. https://t.co/5WNzYx5r3m
- KJ Charles (needs to get back to work) (@kj_charles) September 1, 2021
To quote Will Darling:
"...Women in Love, which had been accused of obscenity as if anyone could find the good bits in all that waffle. Will had given up on page seventeen."
- KJ Charles (needs to get back to work) (@kj_charles) September 1, 2021
. . . and then (having gotten to it a bit late) D.J. Taylor's Wall Street Journal review of Frances Wilson's Burning Man, which included these choice observations:
It is to the author’s great credit, then, that hardly any of the vast pile of dirt that has accumulated around Lawrence in the 90-odd years since his death is swept under the carpet. Ms. Wilson, who has written biographies of Thomas De Quincey and Dorothy Wordsworth, knows that D.H. Lawrence’s reputation has been in the doldrums for nearly half a century; that feminists loathe his phallocentric view of the world; that his sulks, sneers and general intransigence would disgrace a child of 5; and that to deny any of this would be a calamitous mistake. Significantly, some of the worst put-downs of Lawrence are filed by mild-mannered quietists. E.M. Forster, accused by Lawrence of ignoring his “own basic, primal being,” complained that he liked “the Lawrence who talks to Hilda [the maid] and sees birds and is physically restful and wrote The White Peacock [Lawrence’s first novel, published in 1911] . . . but I do not like the deaf impercipient fanatic who has nosed over his own little sexual round until he believes that there is no other path for others to take.”
There is something rather satisfying about the final conundrum that Frances Wilson sets out to solve. This is the question of what, after his death at Vence in the hills above Nice, happened to his ashes. Ms. Wilson reckons they were taken back to New Mexico and eaten by mesdames Brett, Dodge Luhan and his widow. But, then, Lawrence had spent a lifetime consuming the people around him. They could have been forgiven for getting a little of their own back.
On a more palatable note, I came across
daisyninjagirl's More Loving One Sense and Sensibility AU while checking on something else I wanted to mention to Rae. It was both absorbing and satisfying. My plans for today hadn't included devouring 86K of Elinor Dashwood/Colonel Brandon, but these things happen.
I am not letting myself look at some of the source material for Jewltide until I finish the things that were already on my slate for today, but ghost klezmer bands are reportedly a part of the Yudah Cohen series, so that has claimed a slot on the procrastination investigation itinerary. This entry was originally posted at https://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/425092.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.
Laughing my head off at the implied framing of DH Lawrence as 1920 Shades of Grey. I mean. Has anyone tried to read that thing. https://t.co/5WNzYx5r3m
- KJ Charles (needs to get back to work) (@kj_charles) September 1, 2021
To quote Will Darling:
"...Women in Love, which had been accused of obscenity as if anyone could find the good bits in all that waffle. Will had given up on page seventeen."
- KJ Charles (needs to get back to work) (@kj_charles) September 1, 2021
. . . and then (having gotten to it a bit late) D.J. Taylor's Wall Street Journal review of Frances Wilson's Burning Man, which included these choice observations:
It is to the author’s great credit, then, that hardly any of the vast pile of dirt that has accumulated around Lawrence in the 90-odd years since his death is swept under the carpet. Ms. Wilson, who has written biographies of Thomas De Quincey and Dorothy Wordsworth, knows that D.H. Lawrence’s reputation has been in the doldrums for nearly half a century; that feminists loathe his phallocentric view of the world; that his sulks, sneers and general intransigence would disgrace a child of 5; and that to deny any of this would be a calamitous mistake. Significantly, some of the worst put-downs of Lawrence are filed by mild-mannered quietists. E.M. Forster, accused by Lawrence of ignoring his “own basic, primal being,” complained that he liked “the Lawrence who talks to Hilda [the maid] and sees birds and is physically restful and wrote The White Peacock [Lawrence’s first novel, published in 1911] . . . but I do not like the deaf impercipient fanatic who has nosed over his own little sexual round until he believes that there is no other path for others to take.”
There is something rather satisfying about the final conundrum that Frances Wilson sets out to solve. This is the question of what, after his death at Vence in the hills above Nice, happened to his ashes. Ms. Wilson reckons they were taken back to New Mexico and eaten by mesdames Brett, Dodge Luhan and his widow. But, then, Lawrence had spent a lifetime consuming the people around him. They could have been forgiven for getting a little of their own back.
On a more palatable note, I came across
daisyninjagirl's More Loving One Sense and Sensibility AU while checking on something else I wanted to mention to Rae. It was both absorbing and satisfying. My plans for today hadn't included devouring 86K of Elinor Dashwood/Colonel Brandon, but these things happen.
I am not letting myself look at some of the source material for Jewltide until I finish the things that were already on my slate for today, but ghost klezmer bands are reportedly a part of the Yudah Cohen series, so that has claimed a slot on the procrastination investigation itinerary. This entry was originally posted at https://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/425092.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.