Ford Madox Ford

31:4 Book Reviews tion of and desire for fatherhood: "Lawrence is no less Gerald's father and Gerald than he is Birkin; indeed he likely enough wants to be and feels he is the novel's 'repressive central authority.'" John Worthen (1979) sensibly places the novel in its biographical context. He discusses the conflict between individual consciousness and the moeurs of established society, and notes that the "clear-cut, often unlinked chapters follow not the sequence of a particular narrative but the progress of particular [thematic] concerns." Gavriel Ben-Ephraim (1981) is concerned with narrative strategies: with the "tale/ teller division in Lawrence's fiction." Baruch Hochman (1988) emphasizes characterization: "Lawrence's view of the self." Philip Weinstein (1984) describes three "arenas" of narrative: the "flux of corruption," Birkin's relationship with Gerald and with Ursula. And DiBattista, who sounds as if she had been translated from Turkish, declares: "The wilderness is the precarious open that designates the creative prodigalities of the eternal origin whose spontaneous activities always impress us as 'the waste enormity of Nature.'" AU the essays circle around Lawrence's assertion in "The Reality of Peace" that "It is not of love that we are fulfilled, but of love in such intimate equipoise with hate that the transcendence takes place." The anal intercourse in "Excurse" is compounded of such love and hate. By denying Ursula's female integrity and her sexuality, and by penetrating her anus, Birkin uses Ursula as a sexual substitute for Crich and does to her what he wants to do with Gerald. Despite disclaimers, Birkin never actually abandons homosexuality. By substituting anal marriage for inversion, he sublimates and satisfies his desires in an alternative and perhaps even more perverse way. Jeffrey Meyers University of Colorado FORD MADOX FORD Brita Lindberg-Seyerstad. Ford Madox Ford and His Relationship to Stephan Crane and Henry James. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1987. $19.95 Brita Lindberg-Seyerstad's Ford Madox Ford and His Relationship to Stephan Crane and Henry James takes a very literal view of the word "relationship." A reader approaching this book might expect it to examine the relationships between the three men and their influence on each other as authors. However, this is not Lindberg-Seyerstad's purpose. She does not claim to offer a new view of relations between Ford, Crane, and James, or to deal significantly with their impact on one another. What she does propose "Is to give as full and balanced a picture as possible of [their] contacts, especially the ups and downs of [Ford's] relationship with James" (13). She also "prints all extant 492 31:4 Book Reviews conespondence exchanged between Ford and his two colleagues, placed in an explanatory narrative" (13). The book's real purpose is not to present new information, or a new view of the relations, but, rather, to clarify the relations they did have. The author finds that "The evidence for Ford's contact with Crane and James is not overwhelming" (11), and the word contact indicates the way in which Lindberg-Seyerstad approaches the question of the relationship among the three men. The letters are the most reliable evidence available to document the FordCrane -James contacts. This is the book's limited strength. It does record factual details about rather superficial connections. For example, because Lindberg-Seyerstad prints James's thank you letter, we learn that Ford gave James a presentation copy of The Cinque Ports. This kind of fact the book presents most usefully. However, the decision to place so much emphasis on the letters as the primary evidence for her discussions leads the author into several difficulties. The largest of these is the book's constant air of speculation; the participants may have done something; they might have felt something; perhaps they did something. This is most evident in Lindberg-Seyerstad's treatment of James's reaction to the Violet Hunt affair. She writes that "It may not be our duty or right to judge the participants in this little drama" (63). Several lines later she notes that "[James's] contradictory statements and actions . . . might, however, hide a more powerful force behind his stance: an abnormal fear...