New Lawrence Biography

BOOK REVIEWS Lawrence with the special empathy he deserves: "We are embedded in a very subtle and violent field of stock responses which make true judgment and patient and generous reading almost impossible." Kundera's cynical being remains unbearably lighthearted at the mere possibility of lyrical sexuality (for him it is "far more ludicrous than the lyrical sentimentality of the last century"), and he demeans Lawrence for his belief "that there was a life force in people that his words could liberate." Fowles proudly acknowledges Lawrence's unique "ability to feel and venerate the existingness in things," while Eagleton, with characteristic reductiveness and contempt, refuses to be tricked into favoring any aspect of "perhaps the most pathologically sexist author that the modern English canon ... has managed to produce." An irritating aspect of the volume remains Adelman's persistent recounting of his recent, unfortunate history teaching students who are either angered by Lawrence's purported views or disengaged from his essential vision and passionate brilliance. Adelman's admission of his pedagogical difficulties in this area plays like a choric whine throughout the volume, and I am perplexed about both the nature of his dreadful experiences in the Lawrence-classroom and by his odd decision to constantly remind us of his failures. Part of my concern stems from the simple possibility that Adelman may not invest sufficient vigor and commitment in the exposition of Lawrence's complex views. When I read his unbalanced interpretation of "The Woman Who Rode Away," conveyed with no sense of the magical subtleties in the work that make the doomed woman more than a vindictive sacrifice, I might anticipate the hyperbole and cloak-and-dagger silliness in Adelman's comment about the tale: "Perhaps it is no wonder, I thought, that some young female members of the Lawrence Society are ashamed of their enthusiasm for him and often keep their research a secret from their colleagues." I refuse to believe that it all has deteriorated this badly. PETER BALBERT Trinity University New Lawrence Biography Michael Squires and Lynn K. Talbot. Living at the Edge: A Biography of D. H. Lawrence and Frieda von Richthofen. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. xv + 501 pp. $34.95 SINCE 1990 alone, numerous biographies of D. H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, have appeared on the scene, among them Jeffrey Meyers 's D. H. Lawrence, Brenda Maddox's D. H. Lawrence: The Story of a 331 ELT 46 : 3 2003 Marriage, Janet Byrne's A Genius for Living: The Life of Frieda Lawrence , and of course the three-volume Cambridge biography of Lawrence authored by John Worthen, Mark Kinkead-Weekes, and David Ellis respectively. One might ask, then, whether—remarkable as this couple was—we really needed another biography at this time. Of course, one would never ask such a question about a scholarly study, since so richly evocative an author as Lawrence is presumed to warrant the hundreds of approaches to his works that are published in any given decade, from around the world. As it is with the art, so it is with the life: biography is interpretation. The slant that Squires and Talbot quite consciously bring to their work is their own marriage, which provides a lens through which they view the Lawrences'. Intentionally , this writing team de-mythologizes the famous marriage, emphasizing the tensions, fears, and joys that people more ordinary than the Lawrences share with that remarkable couple. Sometimes the focal point of this lens is clearly in view, as in the authors' reference to a bitter invective by Lawrence against his wife: "In every marriage [explain Squires and Talbot] angry, irritated partners sometimes say—and write— things that are better left unexpressed because they represent such a small truth about the relationship." Throughout, the reader senses that, in the act of writing this biography, the authors not only brought to bear on the Lawrences their own experiences as a couple, but they also deepened their own relationship in the process of undertaking this joint (ad)venture. Michael Squires, a noted Lawrence scholar and winner of an award for lifelong contributions to Lawrence studies, has clearly inspired his wife, Spanish professor Lynn Talbot, with his own...