Steven Hunley
09-07-2018, 11:25 PM
Uncle Bert
Reading David Herbert again. Always like him and somehow missed Women in Love, though I’ve read the rest. Wondered for some time why I neglected him.
Then it came to me. The last time I read Bert was when I was reading The Fox. I was over half-way through, to the part where the soldier was plotting how to murder the fox, when I was accused of planning the murder of my wife, by my wife. We laugh about it now. That put me off reading him for two years. I remember the dialogue as if it was yesterday, on accounta the whole episode was so traumatic I wrote about it.
“The Fox is right in front of me and when Barb looks at my face, I’m reading. It’s almost the end and some dude, some soldier-dude wants to do the horizontal bop with some girl, but she don’t wanna, on accounta her lesbian lover wouldn’t care for the idea. They live on a farm way out in Berkshire. And the soldier guy is chopping down a tree. And the guy really wants the mousey girl for some reason, and to get her he’s about to make the tree fall down on the Foxy one!
It’s sick, but whoa! I’m flabbergasted! Nothing like this ever happened in D H’s novels before! So my attention is fixed on the pages like white on rice. I’m not in San Diego anymore; I’m in Berkshire.
And right there, right then, at that very cosmic second, when I was in the midst of Berkshire, all the evidence of the day was compiled and tabulated in her brain and Barb’s come up with a conclusion.
She’ll have none of it, and she’s about to do something about it. Her ojos narrow.
“Steven, look at me.”
I continued to read, thousands of merry old miles away in Berkshire. My head was on vacation from the trials and tribulations of everyday life which is right where I like it.
“Steven. Look…at…me.”
I looked up. What could she want that was more important than D. H. Lawrence?
“Put that book down and put on your shoes and socks, Steven. We’re going down to the sheriff’s office."
“And why would we want to do that, Darling?”
Yes, I remember that well. But that’s another story.
And another thing. Bert was sick as a child and I was sick as a child. We’ve both been teachers too. And sensitive? We share the patent on sensitivity.
After all, Barb doesn’t call me Barley Boy for nothing. And Bert looks McDonald’s French-fry skinny and I look McDonald’s French-fry skinny too. And he was sensitive and God knows I’m sensitive too. And he used repetition and I use repetition. It worried his editors. It worries me too. And he was fragile and I’m the perpetual egg-shell-ego man who’s always losing his balance.
We were both too close to our mothers. Sorry Mom, but I had to move in close, it kept me out of reach of your round-house right. No offence. Military discipline and all.
Bert had a great beard. I have a great mustache. We both began growing our stashes at the same age. He had a wife named Frieda and I have a wife named Barbara. Both women end their names with an a.
They are both; it turns out, women to be reckoned with.
These kinds of women give their men something to write about.
We share that too.
©StevenHunley2018
https://youtu.be/P-d2LgcTjZU Kermode Uncut: Women In Love
Reading David Herbert again. Always like him and somehow missed Women in Love, though I’ve read the rest. Wondered for some time why I neglected him.
Then it came to me. The last time I read Bert was when I was reading The Fox. I was over half-way through, to the part where the soldier was plotting how to murder the fox, when I was accused of planning the murder of my wife, by my wife. We laugh about it now. That put me off reading him for two years. I remember the dialogue as if it was yesterday, on accounta the whole episode was so traumatic I wrote about it.
“The Fox is right in front of me and when Barb looks at my face, I’m reading. It’s almost the end and some dude, some soldier-dude wants to do the horizontal bop with some girl, but she don’t wanna, on accounta her lesbian lover wouldn’t care for the idea. They live on a farm way out in Berkshire. And the soldier guy is chopping down a tree. And the guy really wants the mousey girl for some reason, and to get her he’s about to make the tree fall down on the Foxy one!
It’s sick, but whoa! I’m flabbergasted! Nothing like this ever happened in D H’s novels before! So my attention is fixed on the pages like white on rice. I’m not in San Diego anymore; I’m in Berkshire.
And right there, right then, at that very cosmic second, when I was in the midst of Berkshire, all the evidence of the day was compiled and tabulated in her brain and Barb’s come up with a conclusion.
She’ll have none of it, and she’s about to do something about it. Her ojos narrow.
“Steven, look at me.”
I continued to read, thousands of merry old miles away in Berkshire. My head was on vacation from the trials and tribulations of everyday life which is right where I like it.
“Steven. Look…at…me.”
I looked up. What could she want that was more important than D. H. Lawrence?
“Put that book down and put on your shoes and socks, Steven. We’re going down to the sheriff’s office."
“And why would we want to do that, Darling?”
Yes, I remember that well. But that’s another story.
And another thing. Bert was sick as a child and I was sick as a child. We’ve both been teachers too. And sensitive? We share the patent on sensitivity.
After all, Barb doesn’t call me Barley Boy for nothing. And Bert looks McDonald’s French-fry skinny and I look McDonald’s French-fry skinny too. And he was sensitive and God knows I’m sensitive too. And he used repetition and I use repetition. It worried his editors. It worries me too. And he was fragile and I’m the perpetual egg-shell-ego man who’s always losing his balance.
We were both too close to our mothers. Sorry Mom, but I had to move in close, it kept me out of reach of your round-house right. No offence. Military discipline and all.
Bert had a great beard. I have a great mustache. We both began growing our stashes at the same age. He had a wife named Frieda and I have a wife named Barbara. Both women end their names with an a.
They are both; it turns out, women to be reckoned with.
These kinds of women give their men something to write about.
We share that too.
©StevenHunley2018
https://youtu.be/P-d2LgcTjZU Kermode Uncut: Women In Love