D. H. Lawrence

 

Let me say at the start that I am by no means comparing the good people of Nottinghamshire to mud, but man, reading The Rainbow felt a lot like wading through endless descriptions of, well, of mud. I mean, how many ways can you reasonably describe the mud? How many synonyms are there for brown, for wet, for dirty? There's an organic quality to the writing of D. H. Lawrence which refuses to yield: and maybe this is why all I could think of by the end of this novel was the mud. Lawrence focuses on a few themes and encircles them until they can be described no more. But my point is that there are only so many ways to describe mud, and so there are also only so many ways to describe the frustration of love. 

On one level, I have no idea, really, what to make of D. H. Lawrence or The Rainbow. The structure of the novel seems to fall in on itself: every time Lawrence creates some moulding, some foundation, he rips it down with an endless stream of adjectives -- descriptors which often contract each other. The water was warm, but icy, but also fast moving, but then also prone to freezing. Sentences like this come often. 

And then there's the sexuality -- which, to be candid, seems tame: oddly tame. We all come to Lawrence with an expectation that he will be at least as salacious as someone like Henry Miller or Anais Nin, but he's not even close. There were moments in The Rainbow when I had to confirm with the critics whether I was reading only about a kiss, or whether that kiss was something more. The very fact that I was confused by the description of sexuality in the novels speaks, I think, to a larger frustration: namely, what are these characters so unhappy about? 

This, perhaps, was my largest critique of The Rainbow: every love affair, every relationship starts hot, and then recedes into banality, or frustration, or sorrow, or all of these things. There are many other novels which get at these themes in a more effective fashion. And so I did wonder what more at points Lawrence had to say beside: love is distinct from passion or infatuation, and these conditions leave a different imprint. I thought this was self-evident? 

All told, there are parts of The Rainbow which are effective and which, in their own organic, natural way, effectively describe the coming of the Industrial Age and the shifting mores of the British population. But wow, it's a slog getting through some of this, and if the rainbow suggests a clarity of vision and the potential for a new world order based on rationality and opportunity -- then there are less circuitous ways of getting there. With respect to Lawrence, this, I think, will be the last of his novels that I attempt.