Summer Solstice with D. H. Lawrence (1910 - 1928)

Max Pechstein: Summer in Nidden (1919-20)

 

 

D. H. Lawrence liked to think about human life in relation to the wheeling of the year, i.e., the coming and going of the seasons and the movement of the sun through solstice and equinox. So it seems fitting that we might examine what he was up to and what he had to say on the longest day of the year as he experienced it during his (relatively short) lifetime ... 

 

 

21 June 1910 

 

In a letter to the somewhat troubled 27-year-old schoolteacher Helen Corke to whom he was attracted at the time, Lawrence voices his impatience and irritation with their (sexless) relationship: "I would yield to you if you could lead me deeper into the tanglewood of life" [1], he says. 

 

But she can't. Or won't. And so Lawrence feels peeved and unable to express his passion, which, like anger, comes with bright eyes like an angel from God carrying a fiery sword: "I ask you for nothing unnatural or forced. But a little thunder may bring rain, and sweet days, out of a sultry torpor." [2]

 

Indeed. But Helen just wasn't that kind of girl.   

 

 

21 June 1913

 

In a letter to his literary editor, Edward Garnett, written from the latter's own home in Kent (The Cearne), Lawrence expresses his joy at the reviews and letters of congratulations he has received for his newly published third novel, Sons and Lovers. He is excited too that Ezra Pound has asked him for some short stories.

It's nice to find Lawrence upbeat for once, although, of course, he's never quite happy: "I love the Cearne and the warm people, but the English dimness in the air gives me the blues." [3]

 

Sometimes, you really do want to tell him to shut up and go net some more raspberries. 

 

 

21 June 1920  

 

Writing from Taormina, Sicily, to Marie Hubrecht - a Dutch painter whose drawing of DHL can be found in the National Portrait Gallery - Lawrence speaks of several mutual acquaintances and, of course, the weather: 

 

"We have had beautiful days here. Once it rained quite heavily, and made the almond trees and vines bright green. Generally it is sunny, with a cool wind." [4] 

He also mentions the condition of the local fruit: "The grapes are growing big. The first figs are ripe, and abundance of apricots and cherries and yellow peaches." [5] Luckily for a man always watching the pennies, all these items were (comparitively) cheap to buy.

 

It seems that Miss Hubrecht is planning a trip to Norway. Not somewhere Lawrence ever visited, as far as I remember, but, as readers of Women in Love will know, he subscribes to the idea that there are two modes of aesthetic abstraction and disintegration: the African, which is all about the burning heat of the sun and mindless sensuality; and the Arctic, which is all about the annihilating mystery of snow and ice and destructive intellectualism.  

 

Usually, Lawrence writes in favour of dark-skinned, brown-eyed peoples (whom, at times, he comes close to fetishising). But, in his letter to Miss Hubrecht, he confesses a desire to go to the far north and meet the natives:

 

"Blond, blond people, with the fair hair coming keen from the tanned skin, like ice splinters, and the physique sudden and sharp like foam, and eyes blue like water, and like sky, they have a great fascination for me." [6] 

 

Not that he would wish to know them intimately; "frail streaming contact is what I like best: not to know people closely" [7]. The priest of love is, it seems, a voyeur of life, admiring from a distance. Thus, as he also admits in this letter, he loves to watch the Sicilian peasant girls come-and-go "with great bundles of bright corn on their heads" [8].

 

 

21 June 1922

 

Whilst in Australia, Lawrence wrote several letters on what was the shortest day Down Under. 

 

In one, to his American publisher Thomas Seltzer, he announces his plan to sail in several weeks time from Sydney to San Francisco, where he is hoping to arrive without any fuss: "I don't want any strangers to know, or any foolish reporters." [9]

 

And in another, sent to his literary agent Robert Mountsier, he confesses that whilst he doesn't wish to stay in Australia, he's not entirely comfortable with the idea of going to America: "For some reason the U.S.A. is the only country in the world that I shrink from and feel shy of: Lord knows why." [10]

 

Actually, I think Lawrence was perfectly aware of what caused his sense of anxiety about going to the States - for who understood the spirit of America better than he? In the first version of his opening essay to Studies in Classic American Literature, he wrote:

 

"There is an unthinkable gulf between us and America, and across the space we see, not our own folk signalling to us, but strangers, incomprehensible beings, simulacra perhaps of ourselves, but other, creatures of an other-world." [11]

 

 

21 June 1924

 

Writing to one of his (many) homosexual friends, Willard Johnson - often known by the nickname 'Spud', but addressed here with affection as Dear Spoodle - Lawrence complains about the "complicated triangly business of inviting and not inviting" [12] friends to his ranch in Taos, New Mexico: "I'm tired of all that old stuff. I really am. This sort of personal wingle-wangle has been worked to death." [13] 

However, having said that, he does also say: "if you come to the ranch and would like to stay a while and we feel it would be nice - why, let it be so. But let's let things evolve naturally of themselves, without plans or schemes [...]" [14]. 

 

Which I suppose is the Lawrentian way of saying feel free to visit anytime - mi casa, su casa.

 

 

21 June 1927

 

Back in Italy, Lawrence writes a letter to his old friend Gertie Cooper. He sympathises with the fact that she's unwell - "sad to know you are still in bed" [15] - and mentions how hot it is in Florence: "I've never know the sun so strong, for the time of the year." [16] 

 

Considering the date - and considering his obsession with the sun and acknowledging the great phases of the cosmic year - it's surprising that this is the one and only mention of the sun that Lawrence makes in his solstice letters.  

He also reports that Maria Huxley was stung on the arm by a large jelly fish and how much he enjoys watching the peasants cutting the wheat: "It's a fine crop this year, tall and handsome, and a lovely purply-brown colour." [17]

But, ultimately, Lawrence wouldn't swap his own life for the life of a peasant working happily in the wheat fields and sleeping all afternoon:

"Sometimes I think it would be good to be healthy and limited like the peasants. But then it seems to me they have so little in their lives, one had better put up with one's own bad health, and have one's own experiences. At least they are more vivid than anything these peasants will know." [18]

 

 

21 June 1928 

 

And so, finally, we come to a couple of summer solstice letters written in 1928 [19] ... Lawrence is in Switzerland. Frieda has gone to Germany for a week. 

 

To Pino Orioli, the Italian bookseller who privately published Lady Chatterley's Lover on his behalf, Lawrence sings the praises of the Brewsters, who are looking after him in Frieda's absence; concedes that it is better to be warm and comfortable rather than cold and uncomfortable; and asks for the latest news about his scandalous new novel: "I'm so anxious to know what milady is doing [...]" [20]

 

To Harry Crosby, the poet, publisher and solar lunatic, Lawrence complains about being in "a dull hotel with dull people in a dull country" [21], but again acknowledges that, thanks to a beautiful view, good mountain air, and the fact that he's still in possession of the gold coins given to him by Crosby, he's "pretty well content" [22].   

 

A phrase that gives lie to the claim that Lawrence was always a raging malcontent. 

 

In fact, during his final days drinking Ovaltine, writing The Escaped Cock, and preparing his little ship of death, I like to believe that Lawrence discovered a fighter's peace - like a cat asleep on a chair and at one with the world. He earned the right to that I think.     

 

Notes

 

[1-2] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Helen Corke (21 June 1910), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 164.  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Edward Garnett (21 June 1913), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 27. 

 

[4-8] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Marie Hubrecht (21 June 1920), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 553-54.  

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Thomas Seltzer (21 June 1922), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 267.

[10] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Mountsier (21 June 1922), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, IV 268.

[11] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Spirit of Place', Studies in Classic American Literature, First Version, (1918-19), ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 168.  

[12-14] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Willard Johnson [21 June 1924], The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 60. 

[15-18] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Gertrude Cooper (21 June 1927), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VI, ed. James T. Boulton and Margaret H. Boulton with Gerald M. Lacy, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 87. 

[19] Note that Lawrence wrote to Frieda, Catherine Carswell, and Max Mohr on this date also.

[20] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Giuseppe Orioli [21 June 1928], The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, VI 428. 

[21-22] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Harry Crosby (21 June 1928), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, VI 429. 

May Day with D. H. Lawrence (1911 - 1917)

Edith A. Cubitt: Children Dancing Round a Maypole (c. 1900) 

Watercolour drawing (commissioned by Ernest Nister)

vam.ac.uk

 

 

1 May 1911

 

After his advances to Agnes Holt in the autumn of 1909 had come to nothing - not even a handjob - Lawrence convinced Jessie Chambers to become his lover. 

 

In the two years that followed, finally free from the bonds of chastity, Lawrence actively pursued several women - or bed bunnies as he referred to them - in the hope of further sexual experience; "years of enforced virginity had given way to a kind of compulsive arousal" [1].

 

One of these women was the lovely Louie Burrows, to whom he wrote on May Day 1911:

"I would sell birthrights and deathrights for an embrace of thee, Louisa: toss 'em out of the window, poetic powers, perceptivity, intellect - pouf: for a few kisses and a tight clasp." [2]

 

 

1 May 1912 

 

Lawrence has now met and fallen in love with a woman whom he believes to be the most wonderful in all England. 

 

Unfortunately, Frieda Weekley is married with children. Still, that doesn't deter either of them from beginning an illicit affair and on May Day 1912 he writes a letter in which he expresses his anxiety and guilt - but also his commitment to the relationship - having arranged to effectively elope with her to Germany:

"I feel so horrid and helpless. [...] And what was decent yesterday will perhaps be frightfully indecent today. [...] 

      What time are you going to Germany, what day, what hour, which railway, which class? Do tell  me as soon as you can [...] I will come any time you tell me - but let me know.

      You must be in an insane whirl in your mind. I feel helpless and rudderless, a stupid scattered fool. [...] I would do anything on earth for you [...] but I don't like my feeling [of] presentiment. I am afraid of something low, like an eel which bites out of the mud, and hangs on with its teeth. I feel as if I can't breathe while we're in England." [3]

 

 

1 May 1913

 

Although he and Frieda are now an established item, Lawence is still thinking back to his (mostly sexless) relationship with Jessie - and doing so with increased bitterness. In a letter to Edward Garnett, he writes:

 

"It's all very well for Miss Chambers to be spiritual - perhaps she can bring it off - I can't. She bottled me up till I was going to burst. But as long as the cork sat tight (herself the cork) there was spiritual calm. When the cork was blown out, and Mr Lawrence foamed, Miriam said 'This yeastiness I disown: it was not so in my day.'" [4]  

 

It's always surprising how explicit Lawrence was with his sexual metaphors. Reading this, however, makes one wonder whether Jessie (or her fictional alias of Miriam) had a fear of semen and/or the act of ejaculation? In other words, was her intense disgust-response to male sexual activity rooted in a genuine phobia, or was it merely a consequence of her moral beliefs and idealism? 

 

Either way, this would explain (in part at least) why she was so bitterly ashamed of having allowed Lawrence to fuck her; it was as if he had "dragged her spiritual plumage in the mud" [5]. 

 

 

1 May 1915

 

American readers will probably know that William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York.

 

English readers will probably ask: So what? 

 

Well, it turns out that Lawrence was fascinated by this event and much amused by a song (of anonymous origin) that was written about the shooting and Czolgosz's execution in the electric chair. On May 1st 1915, he enclosed the lyrics to the song in a letter to the English author Eleanor Farjeon (presumably at her request) [6]. 

 

 

1 May 1916 

 

In a letter to his Freudian friend Barbara Low - a founding member of the British Psychoanalytical Society - written from his cottage in Cornwall, Lawrence expresses his complete dismay with the world at war:

 

"I would write to you oftener, but this life of today so disgusts one, it leaves nothing to say. The war, the approaching conscription, the sense of complete paltriness and chaotic nastiness in life, really robs one of speech." [7]  

 

Of course, having said that, Lawrence then goes on (at some length) to speak of the local flora, his work on what he still at this time calls the second half of The Rainbow, and the current state of his health: "I was very well, but have been seedy again these few days ..." [8] 

 

But mostly he complains of the utter nausea he feels for humanity; "people smelling like bugs, endless masses of them, and no relief: it is so difficult to bear. [...] I feel I cannot touch humanity, even in thought, it is abhorrent to me." [9]. 

 

Still, it is from such nausea and violent anti-humanism that great art is born and the greater health discovered. For as Lawrence says: One sheds one's sickness in books.

 

 

1 May 1917

 

Today, of course, when we are all supposed to stand with Ukraine and wear a little blue and yellow ribbon or badge in solidarity, to say anything positive about Russia is almost taboo. But in May 1917 Russia was, for many people, the country that held out the greatest promise. 

 

And so it is that Lawrence writes to his Russian-born friend S. S. Koteliansky:

 

"I feel that our chiefest hope for the future is Russia. When I think of the young new country there, I love it inordinately. It is the place of hope. We must go, sooner or a little later. [...] Send me a Berlitz grammar book, I will begin to learn the language - religiously." [10]

 

Notes

 

[1] John Worthen, D. H. Lawrence: The Early Years 1885-1912, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 252.  

[2] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 264. 

[3] Letters, I. 388-89. 

      It should be noted that this letter was actually written on April 30th, 1912, and not May 1st, but I'm using a little artistic and historical license for the sake of the post.

 

[4-5] Letters, I. 545. 

      This letter has been dated by the editor as 2 May 1913. It is mostly famous for the following boast made by Lawrence: "I know I can write bigger stuff than any man in England." [546]. 

[6] See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 332.

[7-9] Letters, II. 602. 

[10] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 121. 

 

 

The second part of this post - May Day with D. H. Lawrence (1921 - 1929) - can be read by clicking here.

D. H. Lawrence is all the Rage

 James K. Walker and an outsider art style portrait of DHL

 

I. 

 

There are not many joyous events to look forward to in November: All Souls' Day, Bonfire Night, and Katxu's birthday - that's really about it. However, I'm pleased to announce an addition to this short list; a presentation by bibliophile and promiscuous homotextual James Walker to the D. H. Lawrence London Group [1].  

James - a teacher, writer, and critic who describes himself as a digital storyteller - has assembled two major projects of note in collaboration with Paul Fillingham: The Sillitoe Trail (2012-13), which explored the enduring relevance of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; and Dawn of the Unread (2014-16), a graphic novel celebrating Nottingham's literary heritage.

 

He is currently working on a transmedia project that will digitally recreate D. H. Lawrence's savage pilgrimage. It's this project - which James likes to describe as a Memory Theatre - which he'll be discussing in November, with particular reference to the subject of rage within the life and work of Lawrence. 

 

This obviously excites my interest, as I've recently been researching the ancient Greek concept of thymos (anger) which Plato named as one of the three constituent parts of the human psyche; the others being logos (reason) and eros (sexual desire) and which Peter Sloterdijk locates as central within Western history, arguing that an active form of this emotion - i.e., free of ressentiment - might actually be something vital and productive.

 

And so, without wishing to anticipate in too great a detail what James might be planning to say, here are a few thoughts on Lawrence and rage that I'm hoping he'll develop ... 

 

 

II.

 

James isn't, of course, the first to have noticed (and been amused by) Lawrence's semi-permanent fury with himself, with others, and with the world at large. 

 

Geoff Dyer, for example, picked up on this in his study of Lawrence entitled Out of Sheer Rage (1997) and, twelve years prior, Anthony Burgess had offered his own passionate appreciation of Lawrence in an episode of The South Bank Show which aired on 20 January 1985 under the title 'The Rage of D. H. Lawrence' [2].  

 

I don't know why Lawrence was so often so angry; some commentators have suggested it was symptomatic of his TB [3]; others take a more psychological approach and discuss Lawrence and his work in terms of behavioural disorders such as social anxiety disorder and intermittant explosive disorder. 

 

Again, I have no idea if Lawrence was bipolar, although he did seem to swing from periods of depression to periods marked by an abnormally elevated mood - but then, who doesn't? 

 

And it's important to note that Lawrence - perhaps aware of his own public image - often played up his anger for comic effect, as in the famous letter to Edward Garnett in which he curses his critics and fellow countrymen: 

 

"Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today. They've got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it's a marvel they can breed. They can but frog-spawn - the gibberers! God, how I hate them! God curse them, funkers. God blast them, wish-wash. Exterminate them, slime." [4]

   

Only someone with no sense of humour would mistake this for genuine anger; it's Lawrence doing what writers love to do most, i.e., play with words.

Having said that, I think we can characterise even Lady Chatterley's Lover as a thymotic text and not simply an erotic novel or piece of romantic fiction. It's as much about Mellors raging against the class system, industrial capitalism, modern technology, poaching cats, crying children, ex-wives and girlfriends, lesbians, and contemporary art, as it is about Connie's sexual awakening. 

 

And I think we should also mention that there were occasions when Lawrence's rage was genuine and took a nasty, violent turn. I'm sure James will refer to the verbal and physical abuse suffered by Lawrence's wife Frieda, for example, and the incident involving poor Bibbles the dog (readers who would like reminding of these things can go to a post on the subject by clicking here).      

III.

 

Anger is an energy, as John Lydon once sang [5]. And, as a matter of fact, he's right; those experiencing rage have high levels of adrenaline and this increases physical strength and sharpens senses, whilst also inhibiting the sensation of pain. 

 

Rage, in other words, enables individuals to do things that they might otherwise be incapable of (and if you don't believe me or Rotten, ask Dr. Bruce Banner).  

 

And with that, it's over to you James ...

 

Notes

[1]  James Walker's presentation to the Lawrence London Group is via Zoom on 26 November 2020, between 6.30 and 8.30 pm local time. For further details of the event and for information on the DHL London Group, visit Catherine Brown's website by clicking here.  

 

[2] Readers who are interested in watching this episode of The South Bank Show [S08/E11] can find it on YouTube in four parts: click here for part 1.

[3] Katherine Mansfield, who was herself consumptive and "subject to outbursts of uncontrollable rage", also believed this. See David Ellis, Death and the Author, (Oxford University Press, 2008) p. 15. 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Edward Garnett, dated 3 July 1912, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp.420-22. Lines quoted are on p. 422. 

 

[5] Play 'Rise', by Public Image Ltd., a single release from the album Album (Virgin Records, 1986), by clicking here.