Modernists at Odds: Reconsidering Joyce and Lawrence ed. by Matthew J. Kochis and Heather L. Lusty (review)

James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence have rarely been put in dialogue with one another; both writers and their scholars are widely considered to inhabit opposite poles of modernism. As Heather L. Lusty notes in her introduction to the collection, "Joyce and Lawrence famously dismissed each other as creative rivals," because, in part, "Joyce's microfocus on detail annoyed Lawrence, and Lawrence's colloquial language and moralizing annoyed Joyce" (1). This attitude has remained in place for decades, without many attempts at revisiting the issue (the most famous comparison of the two is Zack Bowen's 1985 piece "Lady Chatterley's Lover and Ulysses," which is reprinted in this collection¹). This divergence between the two figures, however, might seem odd to a contemporary readership, particularly in terms of how both writers treat sexuality, myth, and the natural world. The changes in modernist studies in recent years have paved the way for an alteration in the way the relationship between Lawrence and Joyce is perceived, and Modernists at Odds is a timely and beneficial collection. Kochis and Lusty have selected a wide variety of essays (with contributors spanning several generations and hailing from three different continents), all of which clearly display the connections between Joyce and Lawrence.

Lusty's introduction to Modernists at Odds provides many intriguing points of comparison between Joyce and Lawrence. One shortcoming, however, is that many of these points of comparison are not discussed at any length in the collection itself. For example, the introduction notes points of intersection between Joyce and Lawrence: they both "wrote across genres"; they "incorporated music and singing into their writing"; they were fascinated with "the struggling artist figure"; they were both "plagued by debilitating illness"; and they were both preoccupied with the "paralysis" of their respective nations (2). Lusty argues that, thematically, both "Joyce and Lawrence engage in many of the same social concerns—sterility, political apathy, spirituality" (2). Based on this list, readers may expect an essay comparing Joyce and Lawrence as dramatists, a study discussing the political climate of the Irish Free State and post-World-War-I England, or a comparison of the medical histories of the two writers and how illness figures into their work. This, however, is not the case. While there are certainly excellent expansions and updates to classic readings of Joyce and Lawrence in this collection, the introduction's promise of these relatively untouched points of comparison is, frustratingly, not kept.

As Lusty writes in an overview of the essays, "[m]any of these approaches reexamine social constructs of sexuality and marriage" (4). Margot Norris's essay in this section, "Love, Bodies, and Nature in Lady Chatterley's Lover and Ulysses," is one of the contributions that successfully updates a common approach to the two writers. Norris introduces an ecocritical approach to the study of sexuality, first providing a brief introduction to ecocriticism and the way it has been critically applied to Joyce and Lawrence. She points out similarities between the two writers that help strengthen the case for comparing the two and also for applying ecocritical theory to modernism. For example, Norris notes that "[i]n both novels the most satisfying experiences of love and making love occur in a vital connection to the outdoors. Flowers play a highly significant role for both, although less as aesthetic objects than as vivid, living creations" (30). One of the major points in Norris's essay is the simple fact that in the work of both Joyce and Lawrence the human body is a "living organism" (33). Norris assures readers that she does recognize the sentimentality over nature in both Joyce and Lawrence, but that, nevertheless, they both use nature to "usefully complicate" the role of adultery in the early-twentieth-century novel (36). Thus, Norris updates the alignments between Ulysses and Lady Chatterley by using an ecocritical approach to add depth to the ways...