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Originally Posted by
Antiquarian
No, Janine, I don't have a volume of Lawrence's short stories, but I'd like to get one on Monday. Can you suggest one? Thanks! :) And thank you for the other suggestion. I'll look for it online and print it out until I get a book.
Anti, Lawrence's Complete short stories come in paperback, three volumes I'm afraid. I think Penguin publishes them. If you find the paperbacks it's not too expensive.
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Virgil, I printed out "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" and I loved the story.
I liked the fact that it wasn't a romantic story in any sense. Not really.
No it's not romantic in the usual sense. It's really a good introduction to Lawrence's themes. If you read pages 2 through 6 or 7 of this thread you'll see our discussion on this story.
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I did notice that Lawrence used "horsy terms" to describe Mabel's three brothers. A touch of humor, perhaps? Joe is described as "...broad and handsome in a hot, flushed way" and having "...a sensual way of uncovering his teeth when he laughed." Fred Henry was "...erect, clean -limbed, alert" and "...carried himself with a well-tempered air of mastery." A very different kind of horse from Joe, but still, a horse. Later, Joe even "...straddled his knees with a downward jerk, to get them free, in horsy fashion, and went to the fire." And he "...stood with his knees stuck out, in real horsy fashion."
:lol: Yes, actually you found more than I ever noticed. ;)
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I think a turning point in the story comes when Mabel visits her mother's grave. Lawrence writes: "Mindless and persistent, she seemed in a sort of ecstasy to be coming nearer to her fulfillment, her own glorification, aproaching her dead mother, who was glorified." This, of course, seems to foreshadow Mabel's suicide attempt. As well as this: "For the life she followed here in the world was far less real than the world of death she inherited from her mother." This line also tells me Mabel isn't quite emotionally healthy.
That graveyard scene really holds the key to the story.
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I really don't understand Dr. Fergusson's change of heart. He admits he had absolutely no feelings of love for Mabel prior to her suicide attempt and his rescue of her, yet watching her tend her mother's grave, prior to her suicide attempt, he thinks, "It seemd to mesmerize him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self."
I see Dr. Ferguson as having a similar internal crises as Mabel, but his activity in the world masks or holds off the a sterility that makes life worthless.
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After Dr. Fergusson pulls Mabel from the pond, fire and warmth seem to be a symbol of rebirth, for both of them. Rebirth or life or perhaps awakening. Fergusson thinks: "But there was another desire in him. And she seemed to hold him. His will seemed to have gone to sleep, and left him, standing there slack before her. But he felt warm inside himself. He did not shudder at all, though his clothes were sodden on him."
I agree.
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Later: "It was as if she had the life of his body in her hands, and he could not extricate himself. Or perhaps he did not want to." "His soul seemed to melt." "He had never thought of loving her. He had never wanted to love her. And yet - and yet - he had not the power to break away." "In view of the delicate flame which seemed to come from her face like a light, he was powerless." "A flame seemed to burn the hand that grasped her soft shoulder." And there are more references to heat and flame and fire.
Later: "Only now it had become indispensable to him to have her face pressed close to him; he could never let her go again. He could never let her head go away from the close clutch of his arm. He wanted to remain like that forever."
That is beautiful. :)
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I liked the story very, very much, but remember, I have not read Lawrence, so have no frame of reference.
I felt bad for Mabel, primarily because of her mother's death and Mabel's extraordinary closeness to her, but I couldn't like Mabel. There was something so strange in Fergusson as well. One does not "fall in love" that quickly and that easily. Or perhaps I just don't have enough of the romantic in me. I don't for one second believe in "love at first sight." I believe love grows, with careful tending and care, over a long period of time. This didn't seem to be lust, either. Perhaps Fergusson felt responsible for Mabel because he saved her life? I know people sometimes form an inordinate attachment to someone they've saved from death.
Lawrence would not go for love at first sight type of love either. I think the key to the characters is the dead world in which they live and the rebirth of finding someone who can piece back the fragments.
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All in all, I really enjoyed the story and am looking forward to whatever Janine chooses. I'm sure I'll love it.
Well, welcome to our Lawrence group. :)
