open for interpretation: from Laurence to Lawrence

I've been doing more "fun" reading this week -- like taking a night off to re-read Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, and standing in line at Starbucks today reading The Guardian.

(I brought few novels with me to London, but I had to bring one Laurence. I love The Diviners because, frankly, I find something new in it every time I pick it up. This time, because in my classes we talk so much about how the very nature of sharing information transforms it, I was particularly struck by this line of Morag's musing: "Will Morag tell Pique all she knows of Lazarus, or of Christie, for that matter? How will the tales change in the telling?" Or, much later in the novel, ".... was she interpreting him, as usual, only through her own eyes? How else could you interpret anyone?")

So, I have a few items to share:

1. There are lots of stories to read today about when Lady Chatterley's Lover went to trial as a banned book, and got un-banned. But I would suggest this tale, of a North England mining town's interaction with the novel, is a must-must-must-read. If only for the author's horrified response to his own mother....
2. Also from The Guardian, this story by Lorrie Moore. "Foes" is included in a 665-page short-story collection I bought earlier this fall, which I also turn to every once in awhile when I need a little more fiction in my life. What strikes me about this particular story, however, is Moore's unyielding push. She pushes the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, then rips away whatever helped them come to that conclusion. Does that make sense? What I mean to say is she ensures you, the reader, can not take the moral high ground, no matter how firm you think that ground is.
3. This is actually a shared link from TSS. Having, at times, the maturity level of a Cosmo-reading 19-year-old, I find this title particularly funny.....

Lady Jane and John Thomas

"All the great words, it seemed for Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. As for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for awhile, then left you more raggy than ever. Frayed! It was as if the very material you were made up of was cheap stuff, and was fraying out to nothing." (p. 63-64)

Generally, when I've read books that have been banned, I snort self-importantly at the misplaced, misunderstanding sense of self-righteousness that must have guided school boards or churches to make such decisions.

That was not the case with D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Which is not to say, in any way, that the book should be banned. It's just that, from a historical perspective, I get why it was. I mean, the author really does get graphic, especially in the words he chooses, which I will not repeat here.

(I can actually hear my university friends laughing at me in memory of a list once posted to the back-side of my dorm room door. Yes, some of those words did appear in this book. I still won't say them. Shut up.)

What is fascinating, though, is the book is a love letter to sex, or a sermon to it. If the perfect relationship is built on perfect sex, and no words ever need be exchanged, then the perfect love is shared by Lady Chatterley (Connie) and her gamekeeper. And the worst imaginable relationship would be that of the lady and her lord, who is kept in a wheelchair (and therefore unable to have sex) thanks to a war wound. Although, one assumes husband Clifford is a rather cold fish anyway and would not be able to hold up all that well in bed even in absolutely perfect condition and not paralyzed at all.

I know I'm hesitantly walking along roads ploughed by bigger thinkers than I (take a look through Google Scholar, although most of the articles are locked away in the libraries of academia), but it was absolutely fascinating to read a book that treated sex as something of religion.

It was a treat to read, too. I loved Lawrence's heavy-handed voice, how he got into every single character's head to tell us what the husband, the gamekeeper, the heroine (?), the maid, even the neighbours were thinking. While I couldn't get on-side with Connie, I couldn't rip apart Lawrence's idea of what it is to be female -- or more importantly his thoughts on what it means to get free, whether you are woman or servant or both. (Sorry, is that bolshy?)

"'But Clifford, you make eternity sound like a lid or a long, long chain that trailed after one, no matter how far one went.'" (p. 173)

I won't ruin the end for you, dear reader, except to say it, too, is heavy-handed. And a little bit of a cop-out and a little bit of a soap opera. And a little bit of brilliant.

chagrin

I've been under attack.

Yes, readers. You know what you've done. You all have me doubting my ability to read books by men. Sure, I might love Henry Fielding. And.... Shakespeare.... But I have a difficult time focusing on the finely-formed sentences of men.

Not all men, right? I really enjoyed Douglas Coupland and Nick Hornby in the last twelve months. But truly, my attention span is low -- take What is the What as an example. Excellent book, for sure, but I had to rush through the final three hundred pages in five hours Saturday night. I was up until 4 a.m. My eyes hurt. And I never, ever, felt any closer to the main character. Which is weird, because it was a fictionalized autobiography. Yet I felt there was a distance between me and him.

A failure on Eggers's part? I don't think so. A gender gap? Perhaps.

On this note, I am challenging myself to read more male authors. I've started with an easy one. D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

That's right. A formerly banned book. A book published decades after Lawrence's death. But if there is ever a way to move past the the gender gap, it must be through the rhetoric of inappropriate sex.

Oh dear.

Anyway, I'm already loving everything about Lawrence's matter-of-fact style. And I'm going to stop talking about this now. I think I'm blushing.

Example 1:

"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen." (p. 1)

Example 2:

".... being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connections and subjections." (p. 3)

Example 3:

".... early in 1918 Clifford was shipped home smashed, and there was no child. And Sir Geoffrey died of chagrin." (p. 9)

excerpts for the unfocused

The sun is out in Edmonton today, and I spent the last handful of hours walking around outside in short sleeves.

Crazy city, where people wear heavy boots on Tuesday and sandals on Thursday.

Anyway, a handful of random reads....

Fodor's 2007 guide to Spain:

The Rock (Gibraltar) is like Britain with a suntan. There are double-decker buses, policemen in helmets, and bright red mailboxes. Millions of dollars have been spent in developing the Rock's tourist potential, while a steady flow of expatriate Britons come here from Spain to shop at Safeway and High Street shops. (p. 600)

D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover:

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. (p. 1)

Also, some mean words from the guy whose book, published just a few months ago, seemed designed to persuade us Belinda Stronach wasn't Politics Barbie....

Daddy always promised his little girl a gold-plated exit from politics. (today's Calgary Herald)