The Virgin and the Gipsy by DH Lawrence (1926/1930)

The Virgin and the Gipsy by DH Lawrence (written 1926, published 1930)
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

Yvette watching the gipsy man at work.
Because, yeah, it's actually been filmed.

Somewhere near Papplewick in (north) Nottinghamshire lives a vicar and his two daughters. Sharing the house is an elderly, blind mother and a sour spinster of a sister. The grand/mother is referred to as the "Mater" because she's a domineering matriarch. The family have a collective dislike of the vicar's former wife, and will only refer to her as She-who-was-Cynthia, who was the sort of person not willing to be bossed around by a mean-spirited old lady.

The two daughters, Lucille and Yvette, both in their early 20s, have far too much of their mother in them to be considered lovely by the rest of the family. One day, the sisters and their friends are driving past a gipsy/gypsy camp and stop to have their fortunes told. Everyone has their fortunes told so everyone can hear what's being predicted, except for Yvette who follows the old lady into a caravan, and she won't speak of what's divulged within the walls.

Women in Love by DH Lawrence (1920)

Book review: Women in Love by DH Lawrence (Book Club Associates, 1980 [1920])

Lawrence's finest, most mature novel initially met with disgust and incomprehension. In the love affairs of two sisters, Ursula with Rupert, and Gudrun with Gerald, critics could only see a sorry tale of sexual depravity and philosophical obscurity.

"Women in Love" is, however, a profound response to a whole cultural crisis. The 'progress' of the modern industrialised world had led to the carnage of the First World War. What, then, did it mean to call ourselves 'human'? On what grounds could we place ourselves above and beyond the animal world? What are the definitive forms of our relationships - love, marriage, family, friendship - really worth? And how might they be otherwise?

Without directly referring to the war, "Women in Love" explores these questions with restless energy. As a sequel to "The Rainbow", the novel develops experimental techniques which made Lawrence one of the most important writers of the Modernist movement.

This is a review I've been meaning to finish for ... most of the year now. The above description was taken from the Wordsworth Classics edition, but that's because the heavy brick of an omnibus I actually read isn't around right now. And the mere description above makes my eyes glaze over. If it wasn't for the fine audiobook version read by Ruth Golding (Librivox), I might not have finished it at all. In fact, by the end, knowing how the story ended in the miniseries was the only thing - sheer determination aside - that kept me going.

This review will contain spoilers.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (1928)

Book review: Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (Collector's Library, CRW Publishing Limited, 2005 [1928])

Connie's marriage to Clifford Chatterley is one scarred by mutual frustration and alienation. Crippled from wartime action, Clifford is confined to a wheelchair, while Connie's solitary, sterile existence is eked out within the narrow parameters of the Chatterley ancestral home, Wragby. She seizes her chance of happiness and freedom when she embarks on a passionate affair with the estate's gamekeeper, Mellors, discovering a world of sexual liberation and pleasure she thought she'd thought lost to her. The explosive passion of Connie and Mellors' relationship - and the searing candour with which it is described - marked a watershed in twentieth-century fiction, ensuring for Lady Chatterley's Lover a wide and enduring readership and lasting notoriety.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence was banned in the UK for about thirty years because it was considered lewd and rude and generally inappropriate. The ban wasn’t lifted until after a trial in the 1960s, and nowadays, we read it and shrug. So it has people shagging in it, what’s the big deal?

Odds are most people have heard of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, even if they’ve never read it or seen any adaptations of it. Actually, most of the adaptations around seem to be pornos rather than actual adaptations of the book – which is not a pornographic novel. It’s a novel with some sex scenes in it, but most novels do nowadays. I had heard of this novel too. In 2003, a college friend lent it me, because I was into costume dramas, and she figured this one fitted in. Not quite Jane Austen, though, that’s for sure! I approached the book with curiosity; this notorious tome full of filth and goodness knows what else! As I started reading, I soon realised that it wasn’t what I (and probably most people who haven’t actually read it) thought it was. It was a very engaging love story. Quelle surprise!

The lady in question is called Constance, or Connie, and she is married to a man crippled in World War I – Sir Clifford cannot walk, in fact, he’s pretty much dead from the waist down. At the start of their marriage, the couple lived happily at Wragby Hall, being in tune with one another intellectually. Then came the war, and with that the injury, and the marriage has gone downhill ever since.

Connie’s family (rather bohemian) suggest she takes herself a lover, and she does, in the shape of the handsome Michaelis. However, she gets fed up with him too, because he’s too selfish and yadda yadda. Then one day, she comes across Oliver Mellors, her husband’s gamekeeper. There is a physical attraction but it takes a while before they ever get as far as having a tumble in the hay. The novel is about their growing relationship, of divides which are both down to class and standing in society, as well as that of physical and mental attraction. Oh, and sex.

Lady Chatterley (2006)

Film review: Lady Chatterley alt. Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois (2006), directed by Pascale Ferran

How fascinating, a French version of a British book. Set in England, with English signs, and everyone speaks French. It's nearly as weird as watching Ken Branagh playing Kurt Wallander in English when the show is about a Swedish policeman and it's filmed in Sweden, where everyone have Swedish names. However, because this is mainly set either in the woods or in an old house, it's not as jarring.

From what I've managed to gather, this is an adaptation of DH Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane (1978), a second, lesser known version of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). I've only ever read the first one, and that comes with a few different endings depending on which edition you read, so I'm not familiar with the changes. Trying to find information, it seems Oliver Mellors is now Oliver Parkin - originally, I thought this was a change because maybe "Mellors" sounds like something particular in French and they had to change it for that reason. Apparently, the guy has mellowed a bit as well.

So, before we get down to it, like pointing out how this adaptation has been showered in awards, the story is: Connie (Marina Hands) is the wife of Sir Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot), a man who was injured in the war and who has since not been able to walk or fulfil his husbandly duties. Connie is bored looking after her husband in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, her sister Hilda (Hélène Fillières) worries that there's something wrong with her, and they manage to hire a dedicated nurse for Clifford: Mrs. Bolton (Hélène Alexandridis). When Connie then comes across the gamekeeper, Oliver Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch), she's instantly attracted. After many meetings, they finally decide to initiate a physical relationship. And the rest is history, controversial and scandalous and everything.

Which is quite funny. If you've never heard of DH Lawrence before, you're bound to have heard of Lady Chatterley's Lover, in one way or another. Usually in hushed tones.

England, My England by DH Lawrence (1922)

Short story review: England, My England by DH Lawrence, from England, My England, and Other Stories (1922)

In “England, My England,” Lawrence symbolizes the self-destructive yearning of the fading English gentility through the protagonist Egbert, an effete aristocrat who is killed at the front after enlisting in the army in an attempt to reassert his masculinity. [Source]

Oh, so THAT’S what it was about.

There’s me thinking it was about a man too pretty to be bothered about working a real job, but instead preferring to do some gardening at home, living off his father-in-law’s money and being generally boring and eventually signing on to be a soldier in World War I. Thanks for the clarification, it helped.

Women in Love (2011)

Miniseries review: Women in Love (2011), directed by Miranda Bowen

What do you do on Easter when you've caught up with your TV shows on demand, and have a number of twigs to whittle and want something in the background that isn't too distracting? You realise that hey, didn't you record that miniseries that you could only get through about 40 minutes before you switched to Jane Eyre '06 instead? Something to pass the time while whittling away, and which I needed some form of distraction in order to get through. Perfect!

To sum up Women in Love in one word: arty.

Which is good if you happen to like things that are arty. I, on the other hand, do not. "Look at these lush camera shots! Can you see how we've managed to capture existential angst by using a hand-held camera? Marvellous, darling, this will really have those Culture Show people enthralled!" For me, it's a snoozefest.

Women in Love - first reviews

We were actually busy watching part two of Syfy's Alice on DVD last night, so I have yet to see Women in Love. Here are some reviews I've tracked down, to see what "the professionals" have to say about it. Not that it should be used as a guide as to what you might think of it yourself, because professional critics are generally from a different planet than the rest of us.

Andrew Billen of The Times gave it 4 stars out of 5. He's not too impressed by it, finding the original novel "hard to take seriously". Not quite sure what he means by that specifically. I have issues with the book, which seems to be more part two than part one (being the prequel The Rainbow from what I've understood these reviews), but take it seriously? Well, yes. And finding it a bit weird, dull and preachy too. Billen seems to think that the story was best served when it was first published, in the 1920s, when sex in books was something revolutionary, but nowadays, "Lawrence’s sexual philosophy looks at best like a late corruption of the Romantic movement and at worst comical." Ouch.

Women in Love - finally an airdate!

And that airdate is TOMORROW! The BBC two-part adaptation of DH Lawrence's Women in Love and The Rainbow starts tomorrow, Thursday 24 March 2011 at 9 pm / 21:00 on BBC Four and concludes Thursday 31 March.

Ursula (Rachael Stirling) and Gudrun (Rosamund Pike)

The adaptation was filmed in South Africa as opposed to in Nottinghamshire, where the book is actually set, for "budgetary constraints". Last time I remember seeing outdoors South Africa trying to pose as outdoors England was in Merlin: The Return, and the least said about that film the better. (Scenery was just one of many things that let that piece of sh production down.) It looked nothing like England, let's put it that way.

The Captain's Doll by DH Lawrence

Novella review: The Captain's Doll by DH Lawrence (1923)
from a Book Club Associates omnibus (1980)

In Germany, after World War I, a Scottish man has a relationship with a German woman. She makes dolls and is very good at doing so. She makes a doll of her Scottish friend, and one day, a British lady comes and wishes to buy it. The soldier's wife. She thinks that it's the dollmaker's friend and business partner who has a relationship with her husband, however.

Then he goes away for a bit, the doll gets lost and the dollmaker moves. The wife dies. They reunite, the dollmaker about to be married to a local dignitary. The former couple travel up into the mountains and walk up to a glacier and bicker about this, that and the other and especially about love.

Again, it's a lot of metaphors and symbolic language and scenery porn. It works if you're into symbolism. Perhaps working less if you're not. I'm not. To me, it's a couple of irritating people who argue over silly things and who don't say what they actually mean and it drives me potty. Just be honest with one another for ONE SECOND! Geez! Either you love each other or you don't. Get over yourselves. Well-written and engaging, as usual, although feels a lot like Lawrence is using characters to have a philosophical argument he'd rather have with someone in real life. Which is a recurring theme in his writings, I feel. It's a bit frustrating. Or I'm just unbelievably shallow. :P

This is my seventh review for the DH Lawrence Challenge 2010. Better late than never ...

Happy New Year! - A look back on 2010

Tonight, in an hour, the UK will pass from 2010 to 2011. Almost half the world is already there, in fact! I hope 2010 has treated you well, and even if it hasn't, I hope 2011 will be (even) better. :) Here's a quick re-cap of the year of The Squeee.

The Squeee in 2010 - A year of unabashed fangirling

January opened with the All About the Brontës Challenge, where I set to work straight away, listening to some old radio plays of Jane Eyre, watched the 1996 film adaptation of the same and finished reading Wuthering Heights for the very first time. I also wrote about my visit to Haddon Hall the year before, and had ideas on how you might be able to make sports interesting, because let's face it, it's not exactly all that interesting. I also discovered I was Marianne Dashwood, even though I don't really play the piano.

February announced the first International Magic Day, the blog got itself a makeover, and we were being spoiled rotten by Mr. Armitage narrating even more ads! We took a trip to Blockbusters, resulting in a couple of film reviews, and the Brontë Challenge brought me The Professor - a book half in a language I don't understand very much of at all - and there was also a funny little book about mid-1800s etiquette that was rather amusing.

The Ladybird by DH Lawrence

Novella review: The Ladybird by DH Lawrence (1923)
from a Book Club Associates omnibus (1980)

Set near the end of the First World War, in the late autumn or early winter of 1917, we meet Lady Beveridge, who goes to visit the war prisoners in a hospital somewhere in England. There, she meets someone she regognises from a time in Bohemia in Germany - the Count Johann Dionys Psanek. She mentions this to her daughter, Lady Daphne, who starts visiting him regularly.

They have a sort of friendship going. He once gave her a thimble with his crest on, a ladybird. He wants her to sow him a shirt, and so she sows him a shirt. And then she sows her husband a shirt too, and then the husband comes home from the war. And at first, she's thrilled, but then not so much, because war changes people.

The war ends, the Count is no longer near death with a bullet wound upon his person, so he's invited to Lady Daphne and her husband for a bit, and one night when she can't sleep, Lady Daphne hears a man singing in a foreign tongue - it's the count. And then she ends up being his "wife by night".

Let's talk about books!

Was going through Marvin (the desktop computer) to find some files, and came across this, which I believe was posted on Facebook a couple of years ago or so. So not necessarily very up-to-date, but anyway. Here goes:

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Technically, Carolyn Keene, but on the other hand, they’re not all mine and besides, they’re all at my parents’. Seriously though, we’ve got probably 100+ Nancy Drew books! Sheer number of books aside from that … Bengt Linder. My collection of books about Dante and Tvärsan is almost complete. :D

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Hmm. I’ve got a few doubles of Jane Austen books now, as I decided to get a new batch from the same series (Wordsworth Classics) to make it look nice and consistent.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Prepo-what-a? :P

The Man Who Died by DH Lawrence

The Man Who Died by DH Lawrence (1931)
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004) and a DH Lawrence omnibus (Book Club Associates, 1980)

I had read elsewhere that the first chapter of The Man Who Died is a story of the resurrection of Jesus (the religious figure, not a Spanish speaker). And it sure is, even though the words "Jesus", "Christ" or "Messiah" and such things are ever mentioned. Clever lad, averting controversy by omission! Should anyone ask, he could've just said "well does it say that the man is Jesus anywhere? No? There you go, then! Who says it's about Jesus at all? Might be about another bloke. Called, I dunno, Brian." Should perhaps be a [sic] at the end of that, considering the man in this story could be classed as a Very Naughty Boy, at least come chapter two.

Chapter one (of two) starts by talking about a cock, and I do mean the animal. Okay, that doesn't help, actually, I mean a male hen. This particular male hen is a very special male hen, because his feathers are particularly lovely and he wants freedom and all the rest of it and tries to escape. Then it's cut to a man who hears said animal's call, and wakes up from the dead. Or, as he says himself, near death - they cut him down before he was properly dead.

And it goes on to tell how this resurrected fellow feels about being oblivious and suddenly being back in his body and how awkward, bizarre and generally disappointing that feels. He's not exactly pleased. Think Buffy and her post-ressurection blues - she was in a very nice place, then she gets dragged back to her physical body and finds it a lot less interesting than it used to be. That's pretty much what this unnamed man goes through. (Hah, yes I did just compare Jesus to Buffy ... sweet! :))

The Man Who Loved Islands by DH Lawrence

The Man Who Loved Islands by DH Lawrence
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

I'm in equal parts fascinated and annoyed by this short story. Fascinated because DH Lawrence does paint a clear picture of a man living on an island and how he gets along with it and it's a splendid use of words and I really enjoy the writing. Annoyed because it feels as if it's a really long metaphor for something, and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

The story is about a man who, as the title says, loves islands. He's infatuated with the idea of owning one for himself and eventually manages to rent one. The man moves there with a number of staff to keep him company and for a while, he's content and happy. Then things start falling apart, people leave or he drives them away.

The Rocking-Horse Winner by DH Lawrence

The Rocking-Horse Winner by DH Lawrence
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

This is actually a pretty disturbing piece of writing. It's about a family that always seem to struggle with money. They live above their means and the mother blames this on being unlucky. She can't be lucky because she married an unlucky man, and so on. The little boy, Paul, has always heard that the family need money, need money, need money, and his mother explains to him that it's better to be born lucky than to be born with money: you can lose the money you're born with, but if you're born lucky, you'll always get money anyway. She also says that luck is what gives you money, so it's not money that gives you luck. Paul takes this to heart. In a big way.

Rawdon's Roof by DH Lawrence

Rawdon's Roof by DH Lawrence
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

It's a very short story, a mere 8½ pages, so there's not a lot that happens. It begins with the narrator talking about a man, Rawdon, who vows that no woman will ever sleep under his roof again. Not that he hates women or anything - he's married and seems to be having an affair with a married woman, but the relationship seems a bit strange. It goes on about this for very nearly half the short story, only to then state that "the cat was never let out of the bag", and tells of one evening when this woman came to visit when the narrator was also visiting. And the narrator discovers Rawdon's manservant was having a bit of a how's-yer-father with a woman in the guest bed. Erm, and that's about it.

The story felt a bit "meh" because it's over before it even has much of a chance of starting. Definitely not a favourite of the ones I've read so far. Feels like it's supposed to be some sort of allegory or something along those lines. Like it's meant to have lots of symbolic meaning. Actually, they all do. Unfortunately, I don't really "do" that sort of story, so from me, it's a sound "yeah, whatever". The other ones at least had a bit of a story behind them.


This is my third review for the DH Lawrence Challenge 2010.

Love Among the Haystacks by DH Lawrence

Love Among the Haystacks by DH Lawrence
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

It's hay-making times in Nottinghamshire, and we get to follow inexperienced (in love) brothers Maurice and Geoffrey Wookey making a haystack, having lunch and how they both end up spending a dark and rainy night with a lady each.

That, and the title, makes it sound as if it's a prelude to the, in parts, very saucy Lady Chatterley's Lover, but it really isn't. One gets stuck up a haystack with his girl, a girl from Hannover (in Germany) who works as a governess for the local vicar's children. Maurice puts some tarpaulin over the haystack when it starts to rain, the ladder falls to the ground, and they're stuck.

Meanwhile, his brother Geoffrey has encountered a tramp's wife - the tramp has wandered off somewhere and she's tried to find shelter in a shed or something like that, which is where Geoffrey has gone to get out of the rain. They talk and spend the night together.

The Lovely Lady by DH Lawrence

The Lovely Lady by DH Lawrence
from The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics, 2004)

This short story follows a trio: a mother, her adult son and her equally adult orphan niece. The mother is in her seventies but for some reason, you could make the mistake of thinking her only in her thirties. She's extremely self-absorbed but oh so "lovely", and her son is mesmerised by her in ways that border on being disturbing. But Cecilia, the niece, soon realises something is not quite as they appear ...

And I won't go in to details, because that would spoil the surprise!

Only about 15 pages long, there is no time to dawdle. The three characters are introduced, the story is told from Cecilia's perspective and offers an interesting take on energy vampyrism, which is more of a modern day New Age concept: people who feed on other people's energies, draining them, sucking them dry. Here, it's done in a rather literal form - the old lady actually gains youth while draining the life from her son - while normally, it would just be someone you can't encounter without getting rather exhausted from just being around (and not from running around town shopping or any other mundane and obvious explanations), and so on.

BBC Four - today, you are too awesome for words

BBC Four have done a press release regarding the schedule for the autumn 2010 / winter 2011 season. And I'm thrilled! Delighted! Amazed! As happy as can be!

1. There's the first ever filmed adaptation of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It might not have been made clear here just yet, but I'm a huge fan of Douglas Adams and Dirk Gently is one of those things that tend to get over-looked because of the vastly more successful Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Dirk Gently! On the telly! :D

Holistic detective Dirk Gently,
as played by Harry Enfield in the 2007 BBC radio production

2. They're also adapting not one but TWO of DH Lawrence's novels! Hooray! Women in Love and The Rainbow, which are combined somehow, apparently, and will star Rosamund Pike. DH Lawrence! Now, how's that for timing? :D

I think my reading list just exploded

Went into town on Saturday, and as we were passing one of those wonderful discount bookshops, I went in to see if they had anything of interest. They did: a whole shelf of Wordsworth Classics! So I helped myself to these ones:

• Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
• The Plumed Serpent by DH Lawrence
• The Virgin and the Gipsy & Other Stories by DH Lawrence

Guess my reading list for the DH Lawrence Challenge just expanded! :)