I think the sensible thing which has been said here is Alison's comment that he is an infuriating writer.

I am repulsed by some of his stereotypes and prejudices and Alison points to those eloquently. Of course, those are the stereotypes that we are predisposed to see. We don't necessarily become aware of the beams in *our eyes

And I am mindful of Auden's line - though Auden saying something makes it neither relevant nor true of itself - "You were silly like the rest of us" - of Yeats of course

That recognition and humility has largely been lacking here

It's easy to yell fascist. Some, I believe, find it fun. I am not saying it isn't relevant; but he was hardly alone; nor is the inclination entirely absent here sometimes

I recall, having either not seen or not let myself see the racism, a remark somewhere in DHL (authorial voice) that, finding European women whatever it was he was finding them that particular morning, one could always turn to black women... but then *they made you feel like dirt. I quote approximately...

And now, as I look back, it seems to me sooner or later I was going to hit that kind of a brick wall, where I recoiled in shock and din't quite know what to do about it because there was so much else going on in the writing; and now I see it as indicative of the many contradictions - as Whitman has been mentioned, the multitudes (or a rather large group, male probably, swimming naked perhaps) within him. Is it acceptable as a statement? No, not at all. Was it ever? Apparently so. Does it mean I cannot read him? No. I am not a believer.

As to dark gods, I prefer mine absent. Yet that they are absent, leaves me personally something like the Penwith landscape - and I learn from the radio, the Louisiana landscape - where things fall in together because the centre is a hole because we've dug it out and consumed it.

It depends what one means by gods, dark or otherwise. As I am a few hours walk from Zennor, let me remark that I have heard round here beliefs just as daft but perhaps more Methody-friendly than anything Bert Lawrence dreamed up. Now. From otherwise sane people

A person inventing a religion on his own, and we all do it to some extent, does well to get anything coherent in the process.

Rather than pointing to Lawrence's racism, which some here seem to think clinches something, one might ask how many then were not racist. They're there but are few.. Joyce is mentioned and as a comparison. It's an interesting comparison, but I can't help thinking of it as "Why can't you be like that nice Joyce boy."

I don't think DHL a misanthrope. I think he was rather disappointed in humanity. He looked to the new heaven and the new earth - again and again, sometimes through sex!! sometimes town planning, sometimes polity planning...

Alison is spot on regarding his _ _almost_ right_ ness

It's years since I read Lawrence, apart from The Rainbow, which I revisited very recently; but in my time I have read most of it. In retrospect, I am inclined to adapting that Shaw Preface (Androcles, I think) where he suggests that, following his reading of the gospels, you can see Jesus going crazy; but, I am adding, re Lawrence it all remains interesting

I certainly admire the gamble; and the gamble(s) that D H Lawrence took make the comparison with Joyce of limited use because they were attempting different things and using different methods - and the changes in direction Lawrence took mid career were of limited success. But he had a go

He had a go, and slagging off the paintings gets us nowhere. Everyone is entitled to at least a lot of mistakes. I dont think he painted badly tells us much about the writing itself

The change in attitude to Lawrence is interesting; and we would do well to remember that attitudes *keep changing. What we think now is likely to be no better than what we thought before - we being those with the conch

And I am not at all sure that a change in opinion as to his worth can change his supposed seminality... Surely that's on a different set of criteria.

He may not be seminal for many now, though it does not seem obvious to me that he barely deserves a seat at the table with contemporaries like Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Forster, Ford. But he sure was


Re Lady Chatterley, the fact that it is mentioned when so many others are not is indicative of its importance or rather the importance of the decision to publish it

I recommend the penguin book on the trial for the texts of the evidence of what many saw as Lawrence's attempts with that book. One doesn't have to agree with his programme.

I find Yeats daft as a brush and his pov repellent often but my collected yeats is falling apart from use. Lady C is not my first choice of Lawrence, nearer my last

I wonder how much things have changed in terms of prejudices... That's not quite what I mean, and what I write straight off is what I am going to post, there are different prejudices now; but not I think greater intelligence; and the drive towards mindless censorship is still with us

I have to take comparisons of his writing with seat-sniffing on trust, with those who have actually seat-sniffed. I cannot comment, but I do doubt.

The word sloppy was used by someone; and I don't accept that. Let me qualify... I agree with Alison about the degree of _execrably bad_ - I think she said - writing; but not all. And the mix of good and bad is possibly inevitable given his method of total rewriting. He let his head rule there and it done him wrong

It fails often to achieve its ambition - I used to have a girlfriend who had read a lot of D H Lawrence and we used to entertain ourselves with improv DHL speak - how are you today? well there's a fire that consumes me without burning - oh is it in your loins and bowels? aye lass

We weren't that good on authenticity of dialect and accent; and the content was better than I have shown. I am going back to a period when I had just reread everything

It passed the time, both the reading and the piss-taking

I mention it because I want to be clear that the work is good enough to be parodied, good enough to be kicked as far as I am concerned

But the kicks need to be good to be informative.

"He's dead, why waste the ink" is not up to it, Ken. I am shocked by that and disappointed

As a life's work it deserves more than that triteness.

Suggesting "Sex and Sensibility?" for a Lawrence novel reflects more on you than him perhaps - or is without meaning; and you are the only one who admits to wanting to emasculate himself after reading our Bert. Such a strange idea

"Harold Robbins writes screwing at least as well, though give DH credit: he pretty well invented how to describe sexual activity.

And Lawrence also made some distinctions between attitudes to sex which are pertinent. I have always disliked the use of _screw_ for _fuck_ and I remember why now

All the things you say about his personality may be true. But have you really read the books? After I read: "royal-purple prose novels--suited for a teenage boy with a perpetual erection" I did wonder

The dismissiveness with which a teenage response to Lawrence was widely attested is slightly interesting, but not necessarily directly informative.

I prefer not to refer to greatest poems etc, not to rank all the novelists and keep up with others' er rankings; but I find the record of what D H Lawrence attempted deeply rewarding and hope to return to some of it, far as I am from adolescence