D. H. Lawrence

BOOK REVIEWS Cowan provides a lively account of Lawrence's responses to film, which were almost entirely negative, and succeeds in justifying Lawrence's strictures with a series of quotations from psychologists and historians who have formed similar judgments. From Roger Fry in 1909 through Derrida, critics have castigated exactly those aspects of early popular movies that angered Lawrence: the escapism, the sexual titillation disguised as prudishness, the artificial sentiment, the stereotypes of the child-woman and the macho Lation lover. "Beauty," wrote Lawrence , "is an experience. ... It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features . . . there is a greater essential beauty in Charlie Chaplin's odd face than there ever was in Valentino's." In particular, Cowan devotes several pages to D. W. Griffith's "dreamlike idealization" of very young stars like the Gish sisters (Lillian was 16 when she began her career, Dorothy 14), Mary Pickford, and others, and observes wryly that Lawrence was fortunate to have been spared Shirley Temple. There are chapters on The Ladybird, "The Thorn in the Flesh," The Plumed Serpent, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Escaped Cock; there are comparisons between Lawrence and Melville, Lawrence and Joyce; there are analyses of symbols alchemical and otherwise. All are interesting , with the same marvelous feeling for the citation juste, though with an occasional tendency to encyclopedic over-inclusiveness—an amiable fault at worst, stemming from the author's infectious enthusiasm for his topic. This is a worthy piece of work from a senior Lawrence scholar, and deserves its place among Cowan's substantial contributions to the field. P. T. Whelan Francis Marion College D. H. Lawrence Leo J. Dorbad. Sexually Balanced Relationships in the Novels of D. H. Lawrence. New York: Peter Lang (American University Studies), 1991. 143 pp. $31.95 BOTH THE STRENGTH and the weakness of Leo Dorbad's book are inscribed in its conclusion: Dorbad asserts what is nearly a truism about the body of Lawrence's work—that it tends to elaborate upon earlier ideas and motifs even as it changes character and situation, that there is a powerful alliance between the discursive writings (Dorbad's term) and the fiction. But in summarizing what he sees as the value of his own study, Dorbad says "We can live neither with nor without others [Lawrence implies]. Perhaps future studies will address this aspect of the 411 ELT : VOLUME 35:3 1992 writer's work, asking whether or not such a dichotomy tends to undercut his central message." Dorbad's assumption that the novelist has first a message, and only secondarily a vision, makes for reductive readings of the novels from Sons and Lovers through Lady Chatterley (The Lost Girl is omitted). His thesis is that Lawrence worked out his ideas about complementary gender roles in the discursive writings, and dramatized them in character conflict. The method he has chosen is naive: he describes a situation in the fiction—disregarding completely its narrational complexity —then points, not very forcefully, to its genesis in an essay. The reader soon senses that Dorbad is not himself convinced of either the importance or the validity of what he is offering because he then invokes the judgment of some earlier critic, simply by page citation, and without discussion or analysis. The result of this process is a torturously written pastiche of fiction/ essays/critical commentary that displays excessive deference—often to long-superseded critics (e.g., Eliseo Vivas's 1941 essay, "Lawrence's Problems"). It is a pastiche demonstrating further that Dorbad lacks the confidence (and perhaps the experience) which would permit him to rely on his own critical judgment. Dorbad has been ül-served by his editor for he seems himself to lack awareness of the subtly and variety of language, and there is no evidence that assistance was given. To cite a single example of the many that occur, he uses "perverted" where the meaning is that of agency and requires "perverting" (51). The format of the book drove this reader to singing Gertrude Himmelfarb's lament, "Where have all the footnotes gone?" There are three, all at the bottom of the page, two totally unnecessary, but the volume contains neither a note...