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Welcome to the January 2023 bulletin.
Good riddance to 2022. What a bag of utter rubbishness. Your editor would like to say things will get better but he no longer believes this with any certainty. 100 years ago, folk sick of modernity, war and industrialisation would head off to warmer climes and begin building new communities, as Lawrence attempted high up in the mountains of New Mexico. But us poor buggers don't even have that option because everyone is on strike.
Anyway, here's the first bulletin of 2023. Tuck in, and remember if you want anything including, or you'd like to write something, just send it over to either Brenda or your editor.
james.walker@ntu.ac.uk
brenda.sumner@gmail.com
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Home
11th January 2023 (7pm)
Laura Ryan
‘[T]his human blight’: Lawrence, Homelessness, and Modernism’
Away
Sat 21 Jan 2023 | 10:30am - 12:30pm
Lara Feigel
Biography Masterclass: How to write a biography
Please see Catherine Brown's website for details of London Group meet-up's. At the time of writing her website was being updated and so we were unable to find details about a January meeting.
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On the Box: D. H. Lawrence Etruscan Places.
D.H.Lawrence (1885-1930) visited Etruria in April 1927. It was his "last pilgrimage".There sprang from it a documentary account which is both literary guide and spiritual testament, a global vision of the Etruscan civilization.
Directed/edited by Tanguy de Thuret.
Narrator Malcolm Jamieson.
Music by Davide Severi Mezzo
Soprano Mara Zaninelli
Assistant camera Luca Benazzi.
©atanguyfilm 2020.
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Lawrence and Academia
D. H. Lawrence and Sexuality: Reassessing the Novels
Michael Squires
As a writer of fiction, D. H. Lawrence spent his career maneuvering between heterosexual and homosexual preferences. In order to make a living, he needed to use mainstream publishers. They encouraged his bold work but only if he censored it. What especially interested Lawrence were the differences between male and female orgasm—not just the mechanics but their meaning. Over his career (1910–1930) his views on orgasm evolved from simple release, to ambivalent forms of lust, to a challenging separation of responses: unfathomable silence for males and articulate expression for females. The sexes are privileged differently, and the categorical separation that Lawrence discovers is a revelation. This essay analyzes five of his most famous novels, from Sons and Lovers to Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and, based on revisions in his texts, reaches conclusions that differ from those most readers have held. In revising, Lawrence came to reshape his characters’ responses into complex, often-coded narratives.
Read the article here.
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Catherine Brown
PhD on D.H. Lawrence anyone?
Catherine Brown works at Northeastern University London - a free-standing UK university, but also part of the global family of the US-based Northeastern University. It has a number of PhD studentships to offer starting April or September 2023.
The studentships cover fees, living in London, and training, for 3.5 years. Catherine
would very much like to supervise a PhD on Lawrence. In that event, she would collaborate also with secondary supervisors at Northeastern University in Boston Mass, and at their UK partner, the University of Kent Canterbury. The studentship would include costs of travel between these, or other relevant, locations as needed.
If you know of any student who has done or is completing an MA, is interested in doing a PhD on Lawrence, and who might be interested in this opportunity, please get in touch with me as soon as possible.
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Lawrence’s first letter of 1923 addresses a familiar theme: finance. He reassures the artist Jan Juta, who illustrated Sea and Sardinia, ‘we both get some money…but not a great deal.’ And then a couple of sentences later dismisses artists in Taos who ‘paint purely in terms of dollars.’
While finishing off the final edits of Studies in Classic America Literature and discussing the format of Birds, Beasts and Flowers, he finds time to translate Giovanni Verga's Little Novels of Sicily.
The most interesting letter of January is to Thomas Seltzer, which reports that Pips, a French bull terrier given to Lawrence by Mabel Dodge Sterne, ‘got well spanked – and so has gone to live with the Danes.’
This incident would cause great controversy with some of those closest to Lawrence denying he would ever do such a thing. ‘I never saw him ill-treat anything except a teapot and some cups’ scalded Dorothy Brett in 1937 to the editor of a local Taos paper. ‘Lawrence’s fits of rage were phenomenal’ added Spud Johnson but ‘I never saw him anything but gentle and affectionate’ with animals. And on and on the letters went.
Meanwhile up in the cabin, entertainment comes in the form of fiddle and flute. ‘I want to be alone – as much alone as I am – while I am here’.
To read a longer version of this visit The Digital Pilgrimage.
To watch this video visit YouTube here.
Or search for 'Locating D.H. Lawrence: January 1923'
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Geoff Dyer’s capacious meditation on endings meanders through a broad range of topics that include jazz, Dylan, movies, drugs, Nietzsche, Beethoven and, occasionally, Roger Federer. As disparate as these topics may seem, Dyer feeds them through a kaleidoscope, creating new and repeating patterns each time, so that each observation becomes an echo of a previous point. Or as he later puts it, ‘Knowledge has to be laid down in the brain in overlapping and criss-crossed layers. You need the underlay before you have the carpet.’
Endings are determined by numerous factors. There is the realisation that the body can no longer do what the mind wants and, on some occasions, such as quitting, the mind can no longer do what the body desires. The motivation, ambition or stubbornness is gone. There is also knowing when to quit and when you are dragging something out. ‘The purpose of the one-book writer’s second book is to serve as a sort of confirmation that it’s all over’ he advises. Then there are those who can’t wait for the end, such as Dyer’s family, for whom retirement was ‘practically an ambition’ something ‘to look forward to’ after years of ‘unpleasant and unrewarding work.’
Lawrence’s work is referred to at various places, the most relevant of which is The Ship of Death which Dyer describes ‘as near as we can get, in words, to experiencing the extinction of consciousness.’ This feeds into a discussion of Beethoven which in turn is then linked to a scene in Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point (1928) when Mark Rampion, modelled on Lawrence, is listening to op. 132.
Unsurprisingly, Lawrence’s health – or rather his conviction that ‘however sick’ he would ‘become healthy again’ gets a mention. But it is Dyer’s analysis of key lines in Lawrence’s work that gives me pause to put the book down on occasion and let an idea properly sink in. One such example is this wonderful line from Twilight in Italy: ‘we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But the stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky of our world.’ Dyer considers this prophetic statement and wonders if the stars still seem like this, ‘not as dead memories of themselves, but living memories of our world.’
For a longer review see the Digital Pilgrimage.
Geoff Dyer's website
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Here are the TTA posts from November...
1: Reflections on Alessandro Raho's New Portrait of Young Kim
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/reflections-on-alessandro-rahos-new.html
D. H. Lawrence's view of English portraiture, with reference to Alessandro Raho's latest work.
2: From Too Many Notes to Silence
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/from-too-many-notes-to-silence.html
If Mozart used too many notes, then arguably John Cage used too few in his famous work 4'33". Some thoughts on silence with reference to Lawrence's poem of this title.
3: Hyaena
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/hyaena.html
Is Lawrence's hatred of the hyaena rooted in Christian theology and his insistence upon sexual dimorphism?
4: Maiesiophilia
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/maiesiophilia.html
D. H. Lawrence's anticipation of so-called 'pregnancy porn' in The Rainbow.
5: La beauté est une promesse de bonheur: On the Joy of Discovering Stendhal
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/la-beaute-est-une-promesse-de-bonheur.html
A reading of a recent article by Naveed Rehan (Editor of the DHLS Newsletter) on the 19thC French writer Stendhal.
6: On the Question of Quality Versus Quantity
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/on-question-of-quality-versus-quantity.html
D. H. Lawrence argues that it's better to read one good book six times rather than six bad books once and thus seems to affirm Seneca's belief that quality matters more than quantity. But artists and evolutionary biologists might challenge such thinking ...
7: Just Because the Sky Has Turned a Pretty Shade of Orange and Red ...
http://torpedotheark.blogspot.com/2022/12/just-because-sky-has-turned-pretty.html
... it doesn't mean you can just point a camera and shoot - or does it? In this post we discuss why there's so much cultural snobbery and philosophical concern around the issue of photography; Walter Benjamin, for example, worried about the effects of the mechanical reproduction of images and Lawrence complained about the development of what he called 'Kodak vision'.
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From the JDHLS
Brenda Sumner
Just to let you know that the latest Journal is in the process of being sent out to all paid up members. Some are currently at the Post Office, the others will hopefully be sent out next Thursday when the next batch of envelopes arrives.
If you have not yet paid your subscription and would like a Journal please renew your subscription as soon as you can.
All best wishes for the New Year.
Brenda
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D.H. Lawrence Dialect Alphabet
If you tried to get a train to visit someone in hospital in December you would be properly vexed because every bogger is out on strike.
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Listen to Ep. 61 of The Western Front Association which features 'D.H. Lawrence and the Great War' by Dr Andrew Humphries.
This is also a masterclass in how not to do a podcast with lots of background chatter.
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Free tickets are available for a rehearsed reading of a groundbreaking new adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow at Mercury Theatre, Colchester, 24 Feb.
Book tickets here
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Netflix's Lady Chatterley's Lover - Directing intimate scenes with director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre on the Film Makers Podcast.
Listen to it here
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DH Lawrence predicted cancel culture – then became its first victim.
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Lawrence and me: Barrie Carson Turner
It seems to me that a lot of people first met Lawrence as I did - through Sons and Lovers. It was one of my 'A' level books. Had I heard of Lawrence before then? Mmm. Not quite sure. I have never at any age been a literary whizzo. And my reading as a sixties kid was based on the classic Blytons, and a whole pot of 'books for boys' - The fifth form at St Dominic's proudly leading the way. How in Hell's name did I understand all that 'boarding school' jargon and claptrap? Perhaps my own schooling helped in a small way. I went to an over- traditional grammar school - boys only, naturally - where the 'masters' wore gowns and called pupils by their surnames (the aim of this clever social device was to turn them into real men, one presumes). And we did Latin. And swotted for exams, and cribbed as necessary.
But back to Bert. I can't remember, when I left school, how I got into reading more Lawrence. Studying in London, I was introduced to a Lawrence family member. Thinking back all these years, who was she I wonder? Was she the stimulus for more reading? It was probably The Rainbow I read next, tempted, I expect, by the 'banned' element. Then further down the line, I discovered The lost girl. This book remains my favourite. It's not crammed with gobbledegook. And I find I can visualize the characters so easily. Alvina notices Mr May wears blue silk underwear. Now doesn't that just tell you everything about the man - not to mention Maurice Magnus, who inspired the character?!
But the big surge of interest in Lawrence happened for me in 1998. I have previously written about this in A New Mexico Visitor, (Autumn 2020 Newsletter). I was waiting for my partner in a hotel doorway in a south western American town I'd never heard of, when I noticed a plaque advertising a collection of paintings by Lawrence, which were available to view inside. Yes! This was Taos! My partner (who hails from New Mexico) and I happened to be holidaying in the area. It was this amazing coincidence that brought me back into the Lawrence fold, not only regarding the New Mexico connection - but also as a reader, a student of the man himself, and a collector of his books.
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From the Archives
The Many Lives of D H Lawrence, hosted at Lakeside in 2012, was dedicated to the memory of two Lawrence scholars who contributed to the study of Lawrence’s life and helped new generations to understand him: Mark Kinkead-Weekes (1931-2011) and Peter Preston (1944-2011).
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To be included in the newsletter contact james.walker@ntu.ac.uk or brenda.sumner@gmail.com
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