June / Lawrence Reading: 'Women in Love'

[Virgil]

I have asked myself countless times if L believed in God or one god and I think it is a hard question to answer precisely. He is not an atheist, as Hardy claimed to be. I think his religious views varied over his lifespan. Towards the end of his life, if you read his poetry, he writes some beautiful poems speaking of his impending death and the hereafter and God; but as I said not in a 'conventional' way, more universal. There is nothing about Lawrence that is ever truly conventional. Am I right about this, Virgil?

Oh there is no question Lawrence is not an atheist. I think most of his works are a striving to understand how religion (his personal unconventional beliefs) relates to our mortal lives. The understanding of marriage as the central theme of this book (and of The Rainbow) is a religious link to marriage. There are many aspects of Lawrence's ideas that I don't personally agree with, but the idea that so much of our lives are interconnected with spituality is something that attracts me to his writing. Whether Lawrence's ideas about religion evolve is something I've grappled with too. I'm going to say that it does not that much but the way he expresses it evolves. Plus he adds layers to it, but the central ideas seem the same.

Virgil, this is very good and I agree. It is good to note many contrasts/opposites like the 'ice and heat' throughout the novel. Lawrence uses opposites like these often, as you well know, and as symbols of greater and deeper meanings.

Lawence was dualist, meaning he believed that the world worked in opposites, light and dark, hot and cold, man and woman. Whenever I get stuck understanding a particular passage, I always look for what opposites Lawrence is setting up and what meaning seems to come from that contrast. Notice as you read how many opposites and contrasts he sets up in this novel.

I don't understand it all either, who could? I recall that even at the end of this novel, I had many questions lingering in my mind. I think this is what I like about Lawrence's novels/stories. I once read, years ago, that he leaves his novel's and story's endings like this on purpose. I believe they are 'unsolved' to mimic real life, and truly it makes the novels more believable and real. This is 'no accident', do you think? It is always quite 'intentional' to make the reader think and contemplate. I recall the story we disgused - "The Horse-Dealer's Daughter" - I am still questioning the ending and what will happen afterwards. But I think in this novel you will see a lot of loose ends take meaning by the end. However, eternal questions will always remain.

Lawrence hated the pat conclusion. There is almost always a new issue to come up at the end that projects a continuation of further life.

[Janine]

Virgil, for once we totally agree
....now onto more reading..........
I will try not to stay up till 4:00AM tonight.....

[Virgil]

I finished chapter 5 last night and found this to be a very important passage. Key words/concepts within this passage: "experiences," "finality," "love." And earlier in the chapter is the word "religion" is also introduced.

Suddenly Birkin’s eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of the other man.

‘What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?’ he asked.

Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun, or not?

‘At this moment, I couldn’t say off–hand,’ he replied, with faintly ironic humour.

‘Do you think love is the be–all and the end–all of life?’ Birkin asked, with direct, attentive seriousness.

‘Of my own life?’ said Gerald.

‘Yes.’

There was a really puzzled pause.

‘I can’t say,’ said Gerald. ‘It hasn’t been, so far.’

‘What has your life been, so far?’

‘Oh—finding out things for myself—and getting experiences—and making things GO.’

Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel.

‘I find,’ he said, ‘that one needs some one REALLY pure single activity—I should call love a single pure activity. But I DON’T really love anybody—not now.’

‘Have you ever really loved anybody?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yes and no,’ replied Birkin.

‘Not finally?’ said Gerald.

‘Finally—finally—no,’ said Birkin.

‘Nor I,’ said Gerald.

‘And do you want to?’ said Birkin.

Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘I do—I want to love,’ said Birkin.

‘You do?’

‘Yes. I want the finality of love.’

‘The finality of love,’ repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.

‘Just one woman?’ he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin’s face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out.

‘Yes, one woman,’ said Birkin.

But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident.

‘I don’t believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my life,’ said Gerald.

‘Not the centre and core of it—the love between you and a woman?’ asked Birkin.

Gerald’s eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the other man.

‘I never quite feel it that way,’ he said.

‘You don’t? Then wherein does life centre, for you?’

‘I don’t know—that’s what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can make out, it doesn’t centre at all. It is artificially held TOGETHER by the social mechanism.’

Birkin pondered as if he would crack something.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘it just doesn’t centre. The old ideals are dead as nails—nothing there. It seems to me there remains only this perfect union with a woman—sort of ultimate marriage—and there isn’t anything else.’

‘And you mean if there isn’t the woman, there’s nothing?’ said Gerald.

‘Pretty well that—seeing there’s no God.’

[grace86]

Okay guys...I'm going to attempt to do something I've never personally done. That is, read three books at one time. I really want to participate in the book club as much as I can...so wish me luck!

Women in Love doesn't seem horribly long either. I am looking forward to starting Lawrence (here I come Janine!). I will be reading chapters one and two today.

[Janine]

Okay guys...I'm going to attempt to do something I've never personally done. That is, read three books at one time. I really want to participate in the book club as much as I can...so wish me luck!

Women in Love doesn't seem horribly long either. I am looking forward to starting Lawrence (here I come Janine!). I will be reading chapters one and two today.

Hi Grace, depending on what the other books are and the length of them, and if they also have a deadline, I think you can do it. I don't like reading that many books myself, all at once (being a slow-poke reader), but have done it occasionally and kept each story straight in my mind. I am glad to see you here and I think you will find WIL goes quickly reading-wise, and as you said, the book is not very long. I am shocked that I am as far already in my reading, because, in-between I read 4 of Lawrence's short stories; I am trying to determine a good one for the SS thread - my turn to pick. Stop in there if you have the time, but if not catch it next month maybe(?). I am picking a shorter story this month, since so much D.H.L. discussion is going on elsewhere.
Grace, enjoy your reading! Janine

[Janine]

I finished chapter 5 last night and found this to be a very important passage. Key words/concepts within this passage: "experiences," "finality," "love." And earlier in the chapter is the word "religion" is also introduced.

Virgil, I read this part last night, also. I am maybe a little further than you in my reading now. But this part on the train particularly struck me as "key" moments of very significant conversation between Birkin and Gerald. At one point I almost see their attitudes as complete opposites, how about you? They seem to represent L's idea of "dualities" and complementing each other; in a way they balance each other out, I believe. In order to let Birkin's (Lawrence's own ideas) shine forth this difference enhances the ideas of Birkin. It is like a comedy team where there is a funny man and a straightman; thus making the joke even funnier by contast. In our case the two of course are serious but at opposite ends of the pole. It also sets up this picture of how ingrained Gerald's set conventional ideas are and how much Birkin wants to break loose of these conventions in life. He also wants it for Gerald, which is later very significant.
When Birkin gets to the part about wanting to love one women in the "finality of love", if you notice this particularly throws off Gerald. He sees it quite differently, truly opposite to Birkin's views. Also "centre and core" are major words of significance in Lawrence's ideas. You may have quoted some of this before.

`And do you want to?' said Birkin.

Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man.

`I don't know,' he said.

`I do -- I want to love,' said Birkin.

`You do?'

`Yes. I want the finality of love.'

`The finality of love,' repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.

`Just one woman?' he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin's face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out.

`Yes, one woman,' said Birkin.

But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident.

`I don't believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my life,' said Gerald.

`Not the centre and core of it -- the love between you and a woman?' asked Birkin.

Gerald's eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the other man.

Then this a short while, later on, toward the end of the conversation:

Gerald was held unconsciously by the other man. He wanted to be near him, he wanted to be within his sphere of influence. There was something very congenial to him in Birkin. But yet, beyond this, he did not take much notice. He felt that he, himself, Gerald, had harder and more durable truths than any the other man knew. He felt himself older, more knowing. It was the quick-changing warmth and venality and brilliant warm utterance he loved in his friend. It was the rich play of words and quick interchange of feelings he enjoyed. The real content of the words he never really considered: he himself knew better.

Birkin knew this. He knew that Gerald wanted to be fond of him without taking him seriously. And this made him go hard and cold. As the train ran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, became as nothing to him.

Here we see their inner feelings reflecting what as just transpired between them. I feel keenly the "duality" and attraction to each other. Somehow the two men need each other to be whole - yet they are at odds - in their basic vie/philosophy of life. Thus, sets up a tention between Birkin and Gerald.

[Virgil]

Virgil,I read this part last night, also. I am maybe a little further than you in my reading now. But this part on the train particularly struck me as "key" moments of very significant conversation between Birkin and Gerald. At one point I almost see their attitudes as complete opposites, how about you? They seem to represent L's idea of "dualities" and complementing each other; in a way they balance each other out, I believe.

Absolutely, they are opposites. The question I have then that i have not resolved is whether Ursula and Gudrun are opposites? I don't see that yet, although they seem different.

In order to let Birkin's (Lawrence's own ideas) shine forth this difference enhances the ideas of Birkin. It is like a comedy team where there is a funny man and a straightman; thus making the joke even funnier by contast.

Yes, they have great chemistry together, don't they?

In our case the two of course are serious but at opposite ends of the pole. It also sets up this picture of how ingrained Gerald's set conventional ideas are and how much Birkin wants to break loose of these conventions in life. He also wants it for Gerald, which is later very significant.

Yes of course. I think also it's more than Gerald being set in conventional ideas. I think we'll see in the next few chapters that he is what makes society the way it is.

The "finality of love" is such a great phrase. I think it may be the core of the book.

[Janine]

Absolutely, they are opposites. The question I have then that i have not resolved is whether Ursula and Gudrun are opposites? I don't see that yet, although they seem different.

Virgil, I have been thinking the same thing and I read this book before, so I have thought on it for a long time. I am still not sure, but they are extremely different. I think that Gundrun is more adventuresome than Ursula. Gundrun is also much more unconventional which is odd since Birkin is attracted to Ursula, not Gundrun. However - again, Usuala may be the opposite and Birkin does want the 'upperhand' even though he he wants the compliment of man/woman and of being loved in "finality". I believe it was so with Lawrence, too. This may be why many feminists do not like Lawrence. He wanted always to be the one to lead the woman. He has said it many times over in life, and in his novels and stories. I can already detect this in Birkin. He would be too agressive for Gundrun - they would repell each other, being to much alike. Gundrun is the artist and she has lived outside convention, even though now she comes back home to it. Ursula has not yet been 'awakened' or had her eyes opened to it. She is still fighting it - thus the scene when she burst into tears.

Yes, they have great chemistry together, don't they?

They do have chemistry, definitely..... and so do the sisters. They are all closely drawn to each other because of what each character lacks. They make up for it in the reunion of closeness and friendship.

Yes of course. I think also it's more than Gerald being set in conventional ideas. I think we'll see in the next few chapters that he is what makes society the way it is.

That definitely will become increasingly clear to us as the novel unfolds.

The "finality of love" is such a great phrase. I think it may be the core of the book.

It is the "core" of the book - absolutely! Here is the main theme in one simple conversation, but was it simple? Not really, I contradict myself. The conversation was quite complex and revealing of both men's attitudes towards life. The phrase "the finality of love" is however, simply and beautifully stated by Birkin, don't you think?

Yes, religion was mentioned, but it was said kind of "off the cuff", I thought - "Well, pretty well that -- seeing there's no God". Birkin really did not explain that statement at all and I felt it was said casually; and perhaps later explored in a much deeper way. He doesn't sound too definite starting the statement with "Well, pretty well that".

[Virgil]

I just read chapters six and seven and what writing!! Minette and Halloday and Maxim are incredibly drawn out characters in a great bar scene. That was sooo enjoyable. "Wupert" with the lisp is a stroke of characterizational genius. So real and yet so funny without two dimensionalized, cartoonish characters. That is not easy to do. [Schoky, just compare the writing of chapter six with anything in Owen Meany and you can see the difference.] Let me just quote a few passages:

The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed, hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength. His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He piqued her.

`How long are you staying?' she asked him.

`A day or two,' he replied. `But there is no particular hurry.'

Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark, fully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and sullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was made of rich peach-coloured crepe-de-chine, that hung heavily and softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and form, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her head, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight fulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost null, in her manner, apart and watchful.

`There's Julius!' and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark, soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat, moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once naive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste of welcome.

It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice:

`Pussum, what are you doing here?'

The cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was limited by him.

`Why have you come back?' repeated Halliday, in the same high, hysterical voice. `I told you not to come back.'

The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety, against the next table.

Halliday took no notice, until the little plate was set before her. Then suddenly he cried:

`Pussum, you can't eat oysters when you're drinking brandy.'

`What has it go to do with you?' she asked.

`Nothing, nothing,' he cried. `But you can't eat oysters when you're drinking brandy.'

`I'm not drinking brandy,' she replied, and she sprinkled the last drops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat looking at him, as if indifferent.

`Pussum, why do you do that?' he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the impression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror. He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and extract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a strange fool, and yet piquant.

`But Pussum,' said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, `you promised not to hurt him.'

`I haven't hurt him,' she answered.

`What will you drink?' the young man asked. He was dark, and smooth-skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour.

`I don't like porter, Maxim,' she replied.

`You must ask for champagne,' came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of the other.

Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him.

`Shall we have champagne?' he asked, laughing.

`Yes please, dwy,' she lisped childishly.

Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim young Russian with the smooth, warm- coloured face and black, oiled hair was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was always a pleasant, warm naivete about him, that made him attractive.

Isn't that great. And then notice how the drowning motif keps surfacing at the end of chapter six and into chapter seven:

She turned and was gone again. She had been wearing a loose dressing-gown of purple silk, tied round her waist. She looked so small and childish and vulnerable, almost pitiful. And yet the black looks of her eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some potent darkness that almost frightened him.

and

The Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black, unhappy pools. He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her eyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of cruelty.

[Janine]

I just read chapters six and seven and what writing!! Minette and Halloday and Maxim are incredibly drawn out characters in a great bar scene. That was sooo enjoyable. "Wupert" with the lisp is a stroke of characterizational genius. So real and yet so funny without two dimensionalized, cartoonish characters. That is not easy to do. [Schoky, just compare the writing of chapter six with anything in Owen Meany and you can see the difference.] Let me just quote a few passages:

Virgil, I have been thinking exactly the same things, about the writing and the fully fleshed out characters. I suppose though, we should not compare apples to oranges. Maybe Irving meant his characters to be less cerebral and left us their inner thoughts unknown, except Johnny's and therefore more for our individual interpretation, more left to out imaginations. We never are revealed the inner thoughs of other characters besides Johnny, if you think about it; only what Johnny relates to us that they say or do. Here we are constantly given all the information of each key character. I am just being fair to those people faithful to Irving. Lawrence is considered the 4th greatest English novelist, according to Cambridge, in the 20th Century, so how can one compare, really? Different type books and authors, I think, but reading them, back to back, one tends to do this comparing.

Yes, the slight 'put on' lisp the woman had was quite ingenius. The whole scene felt quite real to me. I liked the way that started with the description of the room being smokey and like a fog reflected in the mirrors behind the bar. Interesting since the whole scene is sort of unreal or articifial - seen through a veil. The way the next day goes is also interesting, how the tide seems to turn with the woman and how Gerald knows that she was only trying to get the boyfriend back by using him. It does not seem earth shattering to him. The whole atmosphere with the quests that day changes so from the other day though - don't you think? What did you think of the male nude scene and the statue or the pregnant woman giving birth? Interesting, don't you think?

Isn't that great. And then notice how the drowning motif keeps surfacing at the end of chapter six and into chapter seven:

It is brilliant. Drowning is very significant in this novel. Water and ice, also. I had not noticed how many times the word 'drowning' was mentioned in the tavern scene, but I will go back and review it tonight.

I just started chapter 7. If Pensive is around, I wanted to tell her that in my opening page to my Cambridge WIL (that came today) it states that "The Rainbow" was suppressed, and that Lawrence was three years finding a publisher for WIL. His books were quite the outrage!

[Virgil]

One last thing on that bar scene. It felt just like a something out of college. I can swear I knew people just like that. I can swear I sat in a conversation just like that. We all knew girls like Minette and guys like Halloday. I'm talking about back in college.

[Janine]

One last thing on that bar scene. It felt just like a something out of college. I can swear I knew people just like that. I can swear I sat in a conversation just like that. We all knew girls like Minette and guys like Halloday. I'm talking about back in college.

Virgil, You know, I felt this same way, but more so after college days, in my late 20's to early 30's. Guess I was a late bloomer. I really felt like I knew this scene. In going to an art school I am not sure I was exposed to these types, yet you would think I would be. I was kind of the serious type then, working on my degree. But the whole mechanics of attraction and making someone else jealous definitely is something I was explosed to and experienced years later among an adopted bunch of friends that were a best friend's crazy free-spirited group. I could definitely relate to just what was going on here and especially the feelings that Gerald was having. I found this scene very interesting indeed and I had truly forgotten it, completely, from my first reading...strange.

I posted the short story. J

[_Shannon_]

Okay....for the mushy-mommy-mided among us....

How do you pronounce the name Gudrun...Gud-run or Goo-drin or Goo-drun or Gewd-rin or Gewd-run???

-we can all tell at this point what an asset I'll be to the conversation -

[Virgil]

Okay....for the mushy-mommy-mided among us....

How do you pronounce the name Gudrun...Gud-run or Goo-drin or Goo-drun or Gewd-rin or Gewd-run???

-we can all tell at this point what an asset I'll be to the conversation -

I'm listening to an audio book of Women In Love as I read. I enjoy having both at the same time, a paper version in front to read as the audio speaks the words. Anyway, the reader of the aduiobook pronouces it Good-run, with the accent on Good.

[_Shannon_]

Thanks Virgil!! It's very distracting to me to think to myself everytime I encounter a name, "How am I supposed to pronounce this!?"