A Lack Of Kindness

It looks like I’ll be finishing Lawrence’s The Woman Who Rode Out today. I’ve got just a couple of stories left. It was my original intention to complete it and leave it with the books here as it came from that part of my collection, being one of the texts I bought back in the seventies but never got beyond merely dipping into. I’ve now put that right.

As is usually the case with any of the man’s prose, I found quite a bit that grated on me, but overall I enjoyed the stories more than those in England, My England, which I read earlier this year. A few were essentially ghost stories and although lightweight it was interesting to see what Lawrence did in the genre. Also the title story was a very fine piece.

What was more obvious in this collection than is usually the case with Lawrence was the degree of unkindness, sometimes shading into sheer nastiness, he was capable of exhibiting towards people he knew. It’s obvious a number of the stories, especially those concerning marriage, are based on people in his social circles. These stories must have read as a kind of betrayal. But then, who said writers have to be nice? The animus against his friends is rather bracing.

Having said that, he’s not a man I would have enjoyed meeting. I don’t think many did.