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I think I might have seen "Lady and the Gypsy", Janine. Is this the one with Ian McShane as the Gypsy? If it is that, indeed, you must watch it. I love Ian McShane, he is a wonderful actor. Have you seen "Wuthering Heights" with him as Heathcliff? Materpiece!!!
I have seen him on stage too, in London, and he was great...
amalia, I don't know if that was the actor. I must go back to Amazon and check. I have the film in my 'wish list' but I think I can only acquire a used copy of a VHS tape of it, otherwise it is Region 2 and my DVD is Region 1. I hate that they have these distinctions because I love to buy the British films and often they are only offered in Region 2 format.
How fortune to have seen the film and to have seen this actor live on a London Stage. I am truly jealous of you, amaila, being able to travel to London, how wonderful! I will have to check out that verion of "Wuthering Heights". Did you ever see the version of WH with a young (very young) Timothy Dalton! It is so good! He was also amazing in the BBC production of "Jane Eyre" - Lady Wentworth and I had a discussion on this and she saw his JE and said it was the best so far. It was pleasantly surprising just how good and intense that production is.
Well, anyway, I am going now to check out Ian McShane on Amazon. Thanks for the tip!
PS: I am trying to get to your email reply, but got busy last few days...sorry. So be patient and I will get to it soon. Gee, and if I keep posting posts like this long one I will never get to my poor emails - grrrr - that is Grace's grrr - works good! :lol:
manolia quote
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Originally Posted by
manolia
Wow Janine you have read all these books on L!! You are ready for a thesis :lol: :thumbs_up
Yes, well, all the ones I designated as reading and the ones with the * I read twice now. I tend to get obsessed with authors and actors I really like. I don't know what it is with L, but something there really spoke to me first time I read his work. Now the pursuit has taken off and it becomes a lifetime venture perhaps since there is a still much I wish to read about him and the works I did not read of his yet. If I had to write a thesis, truly, I could think of about a dozen aspects of L's work to use for a theme. However, manolia, even though I love your flattery (thanks so much), I am too tired out, at this juncture of my life, to take on another major project. Instead and in substitute, I am quite satisfied impressing all of your with my reading list.;) :lol: and seriously helping you all with your own pursuits of knowledge on Lawrence and his works; this last gives me great satisfaction and I think we all have fun in here too, don't you? Believe it or not, I read as many Thomas Hardy books as L, if not more, but only one small biography.
I should make a list of all the books I have read in my life. I tried that with movies, but I got behind in the list now; it takes precious time to make lists, too. Movies were in the thousands....I could not believe it. In 57 yrs one does tend to accumulate a lot of memorable stuff in the gray matter of one's brain. It is a wonder I remember what I have read actually, and I am finding, as I get older, I don't recall what I read. Like with S&L; from the beginning of the book, by the time I get to the end, or even between additional readings....grrrr (using Grace's famous 'grrrr...':lol: ) I forget so much.
Like presently, I feel like I never read S&L's before, but I know I did a few years ago. I feel these passages are so 'fresh' to me. Does anyone else feel this way who is re-reading it?
Let me comment directly on the book here. I think some of the descriptive passages are so beautifully written - really exquisite. I just read about the cherry tree and harvesting the cherries and the way Paul climbed the tree and viewed the sunset all aglow. I was mesmerized with this poetic prose descriptions. I felt like I could visualise this scene perfectly. It was magnificent. Then there is the scene when Paul goes out into the garden at night and the lilies are blooming and filling the air with strong intoxicating odour - this scene is amazing. For among the white madonna lilies, he sees suddenly dark iris blooming, and then he picks a flower to take with him as he returns to the house and his discussion with his mother - I think it is pink. It all seems to be so significant. He is bursting inside with his manly feelings and desperately needing and wanting the freedom of something, of his sexual fulfillment and completeness. I have had this same feeling he is feeling, restlessly looking on my garden and seeing Stargazer lily blooms in the evening of summer, among other lilies and the scent absolutely fills the night and makes one feel drunk and overflowing with life and the 'life blood' and desire for something one cannot always grasp. So when I read this last passage I nearly wanted to weep, because I knew exactly how Paul felt here, with his keen artist's sensitivity to the natural world and it's absolute beauty. Sensitivity such as this is painful and yet elating, at the same time.
The more I read of this wonderful book, the more I feel it is like no other book I have ever read. It is so complex and intricate in feelings and innerworking of the various character's minds and souls and these are intertwined with the natural world. In this way this book can always be a fascination for me. I think I easily could read it, or passages from it, over again and again.
Now, I do agree with you whole-heartedly, Quark, in that the second half, of the book, is the most interesting and the best part. This tug of war and wills between Miriam and Paul, with all the little nuances and expressions and actions/reactions from each character is so well expressed and keeps one's interest every second of the book. And it is all so believable, as well...so realistic to me.
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I saw the chrysanthemums you posted. Beautiful!
manolia, thank you, I thought everyone would enjoy a little splash of fall color there! It breaks up our academic look, don't you think?
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You make a good point here. It really feels like it (Miriam setting up a meeting between Paul and Clara is like her trying to establish a "connection" between them so that Clara, who is an experienced woman in matters of sex may give Paul what she - Miriam- can't???).
Yes, I do see it this way, sort of taking pressure off of her, but I don't think it really makes her happy in the long-run, do you? I think she feels that he will get help/relief with his sexual tension and anxiety through Clara, but I don't know if Miriam really expected that they would actually have sexual relations. This is now unclear to me as I have progressed with the story. Miriam may have felt it was a possibility and then would accept it, but this too, would be part of her 'supreme sacrifice' to and for Paul; her goal, ulitmately, was to win Paul back to her. I believe she thought 'let him be worldly and then he will see it as frivolous and shallow and then he will value what I to offer him, which is the soul and the spiritual communion and relationship and closeness and compatibility. She feels this (their type relationship) is the only meaningful one. She is a very old-fashioned girl in that her mother has told her, referring even to married life and relations, in the following statement she makes, which Miriam now communicates to Paul:
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"But all my life.' Mother said to me: 'There is one thing in marriage that is always dreadful, but you have to bear it.' And I believed it."
Then Paul says:
"And still believe it," he said.
"No!" she cried hastily. "I believe, as you do, that loving, even in thatway, is the high-water mark of living."
However, just after this Miriam abruptly brings up the idea of having Paul's children (procreation as the main goal of sex idea) so she never really acknowledges the value, even within a marriage, of sex as the expression and fulfillment of love between husband and wife. One can see where the difficulty lies. How confusing this must seem to a young man of 24!
Also, present in my mind when reading these passages between Paul and Miriam is the prominent thought that both he and she have been greatly altered or patterned by their mother's opinions and their advice on life. Now Miriam's mother seems to be the happier of the two women but if one reads between the lines it becomes believable that she would have said something like this to her daughter. She has 7 children but she this hardly means she enjoyed her sexual union with her husband. She seems to have given herself as a sort of sacrifice, as a woman, to her husband in order to bear him children. Her is where Lawrence crossed over and blantantly brought out all these thoughts to his public in this book and he says - hey this is not the way life should be but it is how people have been expected to think. In an earlier passage Paul surmisses that young men who are nice young men, as himself at his age, all went through this time of feeling sexually frustrated and hemmed in and struggling with celibacy:
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He looked around. A good many of the nicest men he knew were like himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could not break out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they would go without them forever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themeselves too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their mother, they were full of the sense of their mother. They preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy, rather than risk the other person.
This passage speaks volumes! It seems to sum up the real problem between Miriam and Paul. Both are greatly influenced by their mothers. Thus, when he is making love to Miriam, it is like making love to his mother and deviling her in a psychological sense because Miriam takes on this role as if she were a sacrifice. I think in this way, one could site some shred of the Oedipus Complex in play, but more of the total logic of the fact that from an early age both the woman and the man, were taught values they can not break though, break away from....even though they may know them to be false in their innate natures.
manolia quote
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Virgil, i thought the same thing..that we were going to read LCL sometime in spring..that is more convenient for me too since i have already decided which books to read till then (and i also want to participate in the December reading of the forum if "Master and Margarita" is selected).
manolia, Interesting - who wrote "Master and Margarita" - I have never heard of it. Also, glad you have such a list to accomplish before tackling another complex L book. Enjoy your new reading. Maybe you can participate in the short story thread, in the meantime, and that way keep your mind somewhat on L's works. I can just imagine your long reading list and you are half my age I think. ;) :lol:
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Even if you can't wait, you can still participare in the conversation once the thread is started :)
This is true.
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I am convinced that at least you Alexei will be able to read all the books you have in mind ;) :) :thumbs_up (you read A LOT and you are soooo fast)
I agree with manolia on this one. alexei, you are amazing. When did you start reading - age 1? She must have read her alphabet soup or ABC cereal. When my son was small, he broke off pretzels and made letters out of them. I thought that was pretty clever. :D