D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico: “The Time Is Different There” by Arthur J. Bachrach (review)

BO O K R E VIE W S 2 0 7 for outcomes— for practical applications of scholarly ideas— echoes William Rueckert’s work and, more recently, Glen Love’s Practical Ecocriticism (2003). Reconnecting withJohn Muir offers professors a new and empowering way to think about our own multiple roles. What’s distinctive here is Gifford’s celebra­ tion of the multiplicity scholars generally experience as a dissonant avalanche of competing obligations, but that they could live as a unifying ecosystem of oppor­ tunities. Like Muir’s own Yosemite, readers can visit this book for many reasons and, whether on a short visit or a full expedition, come away enlightened. D . H. Lawrence in New Mexico: “ The Time Is Different There.” By Arthur ]. Bachrach. Albuquerque: University of New M exico Press, 2006. 120 pages, $15.95. Reviewed by Earl Ganz University of Montana, Professor Emeritus D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico is a short, densely packed work detailing D. H. and Frieda Lawrence’s sojourn in America, which began in September of 1922 and continued intermittently through September of 1925. Having lived in Taos for the last twenty years, Bachrach has had access to several people who were there and knew the famous couple. There are good stories told by Eya Fechin, daughter of the painter Nicolai Fechin; Saki Karavas, owner of the La Fonda Hotel on the Taos Plaza, where for years Lawrence’s paintings have been displayed; Walton Hawke, whose family owned the ranch just below the Lawrence’s Kiowa Ranch; and the painter Dorothy Brett, Lawrence’s only English friend to follow him to America. Their words throw light on the truth and falseness of the various myths that have grown up around the Lawrences. The stories about the fate of Lawrence’s ashes on their way from France to Taos are especially weird and amusing. It seems almost everyone who claimed to come into contact with the remains wanted to eat them. What I appreciated most about the book was Bachrach himself. He asks the right questions of the people he interviews and the books he researches. The effect at various times is of the Lawrences speaking for themselves in a way they rarely do in books by famous personalities such as Mabel Dodge Luhan, Witter Bynner, and Joseph Foster. D. H. Ixiwrence in New Mexico has a much simpler approach that the world-weary Lawrence might have appreci­ ated. After all, Lawrence had to work his ranch, repair its buildings, and care for its stock. I’d always imagined him as a semi-invalid, with the heavy ranch work being done by hired people and willing friends. It turns out not to be the case. He did as much as anyone and was hampered more by lack of know-how than willingness. And as Bachrach makes plain, he did it because the ranch was a place of hope for him and Frieda, a place where they thought he might be able to live in a spiritual sense, as well as a physical one, a place where he might have a chance against the sickness he sensed was killing him. Bachrach conveys this quiet struggle beautifully. 2 0 8 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S u m m e r 2 0 0 7 D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico is a good introduction to D. H. and Frieda Lawrence. In most Lawrence biographies I’ve read, good, bad, or indifferent, you get a couple of chapters on Taos somewhere near the late middle of the book. Such weighting and placing of the material makes the experience seem an aberration, a Wild West show for disgruntled Europeans. By isolating their time in America, Bachrach emphasizes the importance of the experience to the Lawrences, an importance that explains a good deal about the famous couple. This is a valuable little book. American Prophet: The Life & Work of Carey McWilliams. By Peter Richardson. A nn Arbor: University of M ichigan Press, 2005. 334 pages, $35.00. Reviewed by Forrest G . Robinson University of California, Santa Cruz “Carey McWilliams’s most notable...