In my quest to read books I’ve had on my shelves for decades, I finally picked up D. H. Lawrence’s Four Short Novels. I’m not sure the term “short novel” is appropriate for some of these stories. For example, “Love Among the Haystacks” is only 41 pages. That’s hardly a short novel in my book!
Let’s start with “Love Among the Haystacks.” It’s the story of a couple of young farmers and a couple of young women finding romance among the haystacks. I found it very ho-hum. GRADE: C
“The Fox” concerns two women who are living together and trying to turn a patch of wilderness into a farm. A young man visits them, stays for a time, and all hell breaks loose! This is a strange story that takes some bizarre turns. GRADE: C+
“The Ladybird” features a young woman in love with an older man. The older man, of course, is married and a prisoner of war. The young woman visits the wounded solider and when the man asks her to sew him a shirt, she does so. Why? The story really seems to go nowhere. GRADE: C
The final story in this collection is “The Captain’s Doll.” A gifted artist has a crush on a military man. She makes a doll that resembles the Captain, the man she would love to marry. The Captain tells her that he only cares to take care of a woman and have her obey his commands–he cares nothing of love. Of course, they end up together. GRADE: C
I’ve never been a big fan of D. H. Lawrence’s fiction. Lawrence wrote a brilliant non-fiction book, Studies in Classic American Literature, in 1923. Read that instead!
Sounds like an exciting collection. The only Lawrence I have read was Women in Love for a lit class a few centuries ago. Found it a chore. I’m familiar with The Fox which was a movie in the late 60’s or 70’s. They played up the lebian angle at the time.
Steve, although all the stories in FOUR SHORT NOVELS revolve around “love,” there’s a sexual undercurrent.
In Germany he was considered as a kind of porn writer, not much available.
I haven’t read too much of DHL besides Lady Chatterley but I’ll never forget that episode of my life.
At the end of the evening I met my wife about 15 years ago I drove here home and while she went for a glass of water I looked at the book shelf in her living room.
Besides many Hungarian authors I saw Asimov and … drum roll …
Lady Chatterley!
When I asked her if she had enjoyed the evening she said yes and when I asked her if she wanted another evening she said of course.
So I asked her when and she answered: Tomorrow!!!
That was the beginning of a wonderful partnership and love …
Wolf, finding LADY CHATTERLEY on your future wife’s bookshelf was a positive omen! I read LADY CHATTERLEY in the 1960s and wondered what all the fuss was about.
Sadly, unlike you, Wolf, my wife and I did not connect over Lady Chatterley. Instead, we connected over Spider-Man .
Jerry, I know most people will consider me silly, but when Spider-Man (Tobey Mcguire) and Kirstin Dunst engage in that Up-Side Down kiss…my heart just melts!
I think there are certain writers that tend to only work for you at a certain point in your life. I loved Lawrence when I was in my late-teens & early-twenties. I loved his passion and commitment and, in about a five-year span, read almost everything he wrote. I didn’t see the flaws in his effusive (and, frankly, often over-the-top) style then. As I’ve gotten older, I tend to view him as someone with a great gift for writing who was attempting to work out a LOT of issues (family, personal, political, and sexual) in his writing and not always being completely successful. I don’t think I could go back and reread his books now, but almost half-a-century ago, they spoke to me. By the way, the female couple in THE FOX always remind me of Henchcliff & Murgatroyd, the women who run a farm in Agatha Christie’s A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED: after both world wars, I think it was common for unattached women to end up working and living together, whether they were “in a relationship” or not.
Deb, I agree with you that certain writers tend to only work for you at a certain point in your Life. That’s why rereading books you loved as a teenager or young adult is a risky proposition. A lot of those books and authors just don’t hold up. I read Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature in one of my doctoral classes and it blew me away! And Lawrence didn’t mince words: “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.”
It is what Jo Walton calls being visited by the suck fairy. I book you loved at one point can often disappoint years later. I loved Asimov as a teenager but can’t read him anymore.
Steve, you are so right (and Jo Walton, too)! When I reread Asimov’s FOUNDATION TRILOGY I was struck by all the blah, blah, blah conversations. As a kid, I was thrilled by the concepts and must have imagined more action than there was.
The ideas were new with Asimov; the passions unchecked new with Lawrence. For the adolescent reader.
Todd, you’re correct. As a teenage reader, I was bowled over by Asimov’s ideas. But, then again, I was just getting into SF in a major way.
Deb, someone in the generation just before me explained, to look if they were in a “relationship,” look at their shoes.
I’m pretty sure I never read anything by Lawrence that I finished. Probably his greatest contribution to literature is that his work caused Geoff Dyer to write a ridiculously enjoyable book called OUT OF SHEER RAGE, which is about not writing a book about Lawrence.
Michael, I’m a Geoff Dyer fan, too! And, I have OUT OF SHEER RAGE on my shelf right next to FOUR SHORT NOVELS. I’ll have to read Dyer’s book soon.
Never read these and clearly I never will. My experience with Lawrence: as a teenager I babysat for a woman down the block several times. While snooping around the house, I found a copy of LADY CHATTERLEY in her bedside table and read the “good parts” of it. In college, I read (after seeing the Ken Russell movie) part of WOMEN IN LOVE before giving up on it.
Jeff, Lawrence was a hot writer a 100 years ago. The controversy with LADY CHATTERLEY only increased his book sales. I started watching Ken Russell’s movie on TCM but gave up on it.
I sat through the film at a showing at U Hawaii (mentioned in my comment on THE LAST WALTZ) and laughed and laughed. But it might take a Russell to make Lawrence even more ridiculously over the top.
Todd, I wasn’t laughing…I was bored.
To be sure, I was laughing at at least as much as with the Russell film.
No, I wouldn’t call 40 pages a “short novel” either. I’m reading IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM, and George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings” is 43 pages long – and no one is calling that a short novel.
Jeff, FOUR SHORT NOVELS is a Penguin book so maybe they have different standards.
“Short novel” is often another way of saying novella. 41 pages isn’t the longest possible novella, either (if widely-spaced lines, it’s more like a novelet), but it will pass…recall the Complete Novels that not only but often pulps would promise, which would barely be novelets.
Todd, the novella might be my favorite length for fiction of all types.
Read Lady and Women in Love and maybe something else. He certainly seems to be largely “forgotten.”
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” was my first by some distance, and it did affect me at age 8…but even then it felt a little over the top.
Todd, being youthful (and not well-read yet) makes a big different!
Patti, in all the doctoral courses I took only Lawrence’s STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE appeared on any syllabi.
I never got around to Lawrence because I came of age in the immediate wake of his being marketed as college kid porn. I read one ghost story that I recall thinking was OK. He’s on the back burner. Maybe some day. His quote about Americans still rings true, except for the stoic part. Americans are the cry babies of the world.
Byron, with all the mass shootings lately Lawrence got the “killer” part right.
OFF TOPIC: We recorded The Grammy Awards a few weeks back and finally watched about half of it last night. My question is: what happened to music?
Well…the Grammys have never been about, much less a reliable measure, of music. But as usual, some of it wasn’t terrible. Though also as usual, most of the pop music involved was.
Todd, I consider all Award shows to be marketing.
Rick, I’m with you. If The GRAMMY AWARDS are supposed to represent the Best of Contemporary music…we’re in deep trouble.
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.” And this is distinct from the Essential Soul of other nations in which manner?
Todd, you’ll have to ask D. H. Lawrence about that.
Wasn’t D. H. Lawrence’s nickname “The Big Yawn”? If not, it should have been.
Jerry, D. H. Lawrence might be “The Big Yawn” but he was on fire in STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE!
I have never tried anything by D.H. Lawrence, and it probably won’t happen now. But your review and all the comments were very interesting.
Totally OT
I’m leaving hospital today, at home I have access to my computer again so you might read more from me.
You have been warned!