DHL is (for me anyway) an infuriating writer. I read Women in Love quite
recently, and found it an enraging novel: full of crap about the dark god of
sexuality, the brutal, bitter, lonely (and ultimately self-pitying) Destiny
of masculinity, the dark, passive power of the Feminine, &c&c, and of course
also the racism, which stretches past anti-Semitism to Asians and Africans
(so perhaps might be seen as general misanthropy - he hates the English as
well, though he's hardly free of a conviction of English superiority) - he
gets so many things so _wrong_. But the other thing is that sometimes he is
_almost_ right. He's very good also on certain kinds of middle class English
bitterness and loathing, the repressed sexuality that seeks to destroy life
when it sees it, out of envy and hatred. And how his writing can segue
without notice from glorious, inimitable passages (especially, as that essay
notes, about the natural world and sensual experience) to passages which
seem just plain silly. Kangaroo is full of those bewildering switches.
I suppose what one admires is the gamble. It's there, in your face, in all
its impossible desire, inevitably exceeding its grasp. Yes, brave and
foolhardy, which might perhaps be synonyms -
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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