What food is this for the darkly flying
Fowls of the Afterwards!
In a recent post [click here], I compared the pleasure that Bertrand Russell took from eating an apricot with that experienced by D. H. Lawrence when eating an apple.
For the former, knowledge shapes and intensifies sensory experience of the world, enhancing our pleasure and, in this case, literally making a piece of fruit taste all the sweeter. But for the latter, there is a danger that decadent intellectualism barters away the physical delight of eating an actual piece of fruit in exchange for mental satisfaction.
Russell, we might say, has his apricot in his head; his secret horror for the soft flesh of the fruit itself compels him into historico-linguistic abstraction, transfusing the juicy body of the apricot with fascinating facts and false etymologies. It's what Lawrence terms cerebral conceit - the tyranny of the mind and the arrogance of the spirit triumphing over the instinctive-intuitive consciousness.
For the former, knowledge shapes and intensifies sensory experience of the world, enhancing our pleasure and, in this case, literally making a piece of fruit taste all the sweeter. But for the latter, there is a danger that decadent intellectualism barters away the physical delight of eating an actual piece of fruit in exchange for mental satisfaction.
Russell, we might say, has his apricot in his head; his secret horror for the soft flesh of the fruit itself compels him into historico-linguistic abstraction, transfusing the juicy body of the apricot with fascinating facts and false etymologies. It's what Lawrence terms cerebral conceit - the tyranny of the mind and the arrogance of the spirit triumphing over the instinctive-intuitive consciousness.
However, as James Walker reminds us in a post on Instagram [click here], Lawrence himself - hypocrite that he was - couldn't even enjoy a sandwich without lecturing poor Frieda on how the word bread has both a mob-meaning and an individual meaning:
"The mob-meaning is merely: stuff made with white flour into loaves, that you eat. But take the individual meaning [...] and the word bread will take you to the ends of time and space, and far-off down avenues of memory. [...] The word bread will take the individual off on his own journey, and its meaning will be his own meaning, based on his own genuine imaginative reactions. And when a word comes to us in its individual character, and starts in us the individual responses, it is a great pleasure to us." [237]
"The mob-meaning is merely: stuff made with white flour into loaves, that you eat. But take the individual meaning [...] and the word bread will take you to the ends of time and space, and far-off down avenues of memory. [...] The word bread will take the individual off on his own journey, and its meaning will be his own meaning, based on his own genuine imaginative reactions. And when a word comes to us in its individual character, and starts in us the individual responses, it is a great pleasure to us." [237]
To be honest, I'm having a hard time seeing any great difference between what Lawrence does here with a slice of bread and what Russell does with his apricot. If the latter is guilty of cerebral conceit and intellectual posturing, then so too is the former. For rather than just butter his bread, Lawrence has to spread it with his knowledge of the wide variety of breads that exist in the world.
Worse, he can't resist insulting those readers who are "almost all mob-self, incapable of imaginative individual responses" [238]; people, he says, who usually make up the professional classes (including lawyers, academics, and clergymen).
Not that less educated members of the public get off any easier; for being feeble-minded they do not possess the wit to preserve their own individual feelings; which is why they are so easy to manipulate and always open to exploitation.
Worse, he can't resist insulting those readers who are "almost all mob-self, incapable of imaginative individual responses" [238]; people, he says, who usually make up the professional classes (including lawyers, academics, and clergymen).
Not that less educated members of the public get off any easier; for being feeble-minded they do not possess the wit to preserve their own individual feelings; which is why they are so easy to manipulate and always open to exploitation.
Again, one struggles to find anything particularly imaginative or original in Lawrence's disdain for the mob and contempt for the general public; such elitism (and snobbery) was widespread amongst modernists writers and intellectuals at the time. Disappointing, though, when Lawrence joins in.
Ultimately, my advice would be simple: don't go to the baker's with D. H. Lawrence - you'll never get home on time and will probably be insulted.
Ultimately, my advice would be simple: don't go to the baker's with D. H. Lawrence - you'll never get home on time and will probably be insulted.
See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Pornography and Obscenity', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Page numbers in the text refer to this edition.
