Approaches to Teaching the Works of D.H. Lawrence ed. by M. Elizabeth Sargent and Garry Watson (review)

Reviews nuanced essay: one only wishes that she had pursued in greater detail some ofher intriguing lines of inquiry: the role of merchant women in cultural and educational projects; the tensions between intelligentsia and merchantry; the internal conflicts and self-perceptions that prevented them from developing "a cohesive rhetoric ofpublic self" (159) that would validate their own achievements in the public realm and translate these into political power. James West continues the speculative mode ofthis last part, focusing in particular on the Riabushinsky family and its Utopian and largely unsuccessful attempts to straddle two different eras and consciousnesses, and to make the transition from kupechestvo to a more Western capitalist model while tracing a more indigenously Russian trajectory. While many of the contributors to Merchant Moscow have written about Russia's merchant elite previously, this multi-faceted volume presents the reader with a single excellent venue for a diversity ofsocial, economic, and cultural perspectives . And, whether it is because of the innate limits of its topic, or the editors ' guidance, West and Petrov's collection presents a unified approach, with a number of recurring themes and references to provide a link between the different essays. The photographs, on unnumbered pages, easily comprise about one third of the book's volume and are invaluable to its authors' considerations of the practices and semiotics ofmerchant life. In sum, MerchantMoscow creates a truly synergetic space from which to contemplate and study a neglected topic and is a model for similar future efforts in cultural studies, ^e M. Elizabeth Sargent and Garry Watson, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Works ofD.H. Lawrence. New York: MLA, 2001. 27Op. Logan Dale Greene University of New Mexico The passionate and turbulent nature ofLawrence's life has perhaps been equaled only by the passionate and turbulent nature of the reception of his artistic and literary work. Feminist, psychoanalytic (both Freudian and Jungian), Marxist, postcolonial, and critical race theorists have at various times found much to be excited about in Lawrence's work. For the teacher, the problem with Lawrence is twofold: first, how to address the work itself; and second, how to open a path into this work for students. This collection ofessays provides rich and specific answers to both these questions and will help a teacher integrate Lawrence into interdisciplinary , survey, seminar, and even composition courses at any level. Do students still read Lawrence? A survey done by the editors of this volume suggest that they do not, or that, if they do, they quickly learn to reject him as SPRING 2003 -I- ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 105 antifeminist and politically incorrect. Keith Sagar, who has been teaching Lawrence for nearly fiftyyears, notes that students no longer find Lawrence's openness about sexuality—a central issue in the '60s—shocking or even interesting. But issues that have emerged as postmodern crises await us in Lawrence's work, including his concerns over the changing role ofwomen, the consequent changes in marriage, the whole perplexing issue of gender relations. This book develops approaches to Lawrence that incorporate the emergent issues ofour times. The best offerings ofthis book are in the areas offeminist considerations, and reconsiderations, ofLawrence. The question ofLawrence's misogyny, documented so thoroughly by Kate Millett in SexualPolitics (1970, reissued in 2000) still arises in any study ofhis treatment ofgender issues. Carol Siegel's long and thoughtful essay in this collection complicates feminist readings ofLawrence that dismiss him as a simple misogynist. Her essay touches on a deep rhetorical fissure in current feminist criticism and theory. One camp advocates rights forwomen and dismisses men and works by men as inherently complicit with patriarchal oppression; this group often characterizes women as victims. Another camp interrogates social constructions ofgender—both genders—and undermines assumptions in works by men (and by women) rather than the men themselves. Siegel's sympathies, similar in many ways to those of the first feminist Lawrentian Ana'is Nin, lie with this second camp. Because of Lawrence's challenging depictions of gender and sexual relationships , his work may shock a class into polarized reactions: pro-Lawrence antifeminists and anti-Lawrence feminists. Siegel works through the dangers ofthese reactions by placing Lawrence in context and by questioning some...