D. H. Lawrence: Future Primitive by Dolores LaChapelle (review)

B o o k R e v ie w s during the G ulf War may initially distress readers with a traditional patri­ otic bent. Yet in the last essay Kingsolver is back in Tucson with Buster the her­ mit crab. W hile she covers many topics, some launched from far-flung ports, each essay has her personal point of view that brings the topic back home. These essays by a western writer start in the West but reach readers wherever they live. It doesn’t take living in the West to understand what it means to be a parent, a woman, a human, and a person who cares deeply about the world. A ll of us can share in these common human feelings. In Kingsolver’s words, ‘“ It’s not so much what happens,’ I try to explain, ‘but how the words fit together, and what carries over from it into your own life.’” These essays carry over very well. D. H. L aw ren ce: F u tu re P rim itive. By D olores LaC hapelle. Philosophy and the Environment Series 5. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 1996. 223 pages, $26.50. Review ed by Alan Brew University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill In a 1974 article for Planet Drum, Jeremiah Gorsline and Freeman House coined the term “future primitive” to describe a potential condition of symbiotic balance. In this condition, culture would be “integrated with nature at the level of the particular ecosystem” and individuals would be “awakened to the richness and complexity of the primitive mind which merges sanctity, food, life and death.” In D. H. Lawrence: Future Primitive, Dolores LaChapelle argues that achieving this condition of symbiotic bal­ ance is “precisely what D. H. Lawrence lived and wrote about so long ago.” Beginning with Lawrence’s childhood experiences in Sherwood Forest and concluding with his 1927 visit to the Etruscan tombs in Volterra and Chiusi, LaChapelle’s study traces Lawrence’s efforts “to elab­ orate on possible ways to regain the wholeness with the earth that our modern industrial culture was losing.” Central to these efforts were Lawrence’s unique sensitivity to his surroundings (Chapters 1 and 2), his explorations of sexuality and the workings of the human mind (Chapters 3 and 4), his experiences in New Mexico (Chapters 5 and 6), and his life­ long search for “authentic sacred ritual in tune with the natural world” (Chapter 7). LaChapelle’s critical viewpoint, as Thomas J. Lyon notes in his intro­ duction to her study, is “broader than what we have come to expect . . . from literary professions.” In the sixth chapter, for instance, LaChapelle draws on Taoism, modern psychological and anthropological research, W A L 3 3 (1 ) SPRING 1 9 9 8 systems theory, American Indian concepts, and her own experiences as a powder skier to help readers understand the concepts Lawrence tried to articulate in the 1920s. This wide-ranging, ecocritical approach leads to compelling insights into Lawrence’s life and work. It leads, for example, to a revision of commonly held ideas about Lawrence’s relationship with his father as well as to an explanation for why Lawrence often wrote out­ side under a tree. Given LaChapelle’s broad critical approach, it is perhaps not surpris­ ing that D. H. Lawrence: Future Primitive is not a tightly constructed book. Transitions are often rough, and the focus of individual chapters is obscured at points by interesting but, finally, tangential details. Nevertheless, LaChapelle’s study of Lawrence is a rewarding one that awakens its readers to the richness and complexity of the Future Primitive. Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet. By Gerald Locklin. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Water Row, 1996. 72 pages, $25.00. Reviewed by Mark Sanders College of the Mainland Considering the title of Locklin’s tribute to Charles Bukowski, one might expect more from the “sure bet” than Locklin provides. Not a seri­ ous study of Bukowski’s writing, so much of the book’s seventy-two pages is wasted space: ten pages are dedicated to Locklin’s poems about Bukowski, in a style that emulates Bukowski’s but does not equal it; furthermore, seven more pages are absolutely blank. Of...