Customer Reviews (6)

Judith Petres Balogh
The book was not quite what I expected. It did not add much to my store of knowledge, and did not sharpen my perceptions. It is one of those "must" books, which is generally thought to be of importance, and nobody dares argue with thedecree. I did not mind reading it, but I lacked the necessary enthusiasm for it.

Ego overcomes environment
I could only read about 20 pages of this book, it was
not clear to me that Lawrence needed to leave England to
write this . The new Landscapes, villages, and people only
seem an excuse to get a never ending internal dialogue involving
his views and prejudices. I want a travel book to be like
good reporting, with the author only visible by the style of writing.
Joseph Mitchell is without peer in this method.

It might be more enjoyable if his views were not uniformly obvious or
boring.

Thoughtful and Beautiful
These essays are classics. Etruscan Places almost single-handedly revived "modern" interest in the Etruscans and was essential to the preservation and study of their tombs and paintings. Throughout, Lawrence is sensitive and insightful. An added patina to these works is the fact that they were written in the 1930s during the build-up toward WWII. There is an immediacy mixed with nostalgia here that is compelling.

Over the Alps with a stolen German girlfriend...
If i were to read only two travel books then this would be the second one, although both my wife and an English friend read it in German translation and reported that it was terrible. Maybe it doesn't translate well. Lawrence, as young man, describes a thread running through his life as he starts the journey by heading south toward Italy on foot from Bavaria with Frida, a way of travel that many Germans still understand very well. Descriptions of people are attractive, like the one-legged Italian who tried to seduce the cold, northern women at a dance. I liked best his description of his own Alpüberquerung, his description therein of the hurried English hiker, the way that Italins have ruined the alpine valleys with industrialization. And I felt loss at his growing distance from Frida. The book made me want to see the lemon and olive trees above Lago di Garda and the villages high above the lake, but we haven't done that in spite of our nearness to the region. Gardasee is completely overrun by German tourists now, not just by those wearing heavy hiking boots.

Journal of Italian travel....
D.H. LAWRENCE AND ITALY is composed of three stories: 'Twilight in Italy', 'Sea and Sardinia' and 'Etruscan Places'. The firsttwo "books" seem to be based on journals he wrote while traveling with his German born lover then wife Frieda, whom he refers to as q-b for queen bee, through various villages on the mainland of Italy and the island of Sardinia. Lawrence does not record his experience of "famous" sights in these two books, in fact he says he is not interested in historical places, museums etc. but rather he wishes to see the people and the places in the out-of-the way areas of Italy. He and Frieda travel by bus, train, and boat--close to the ground.

Those who have read Lawrence's fiction will recognize his writing. He describes what he encounters with a visceral language--people, clothing, food, establishments. Some of the places are stunning and some so filthy you wonder how he could have stayed overnight. He visits lemon and olive groves and various high places along the coast and in the interior valleys. His writing is graphic--the reader will be as appalled and enchanted. He reflects Italy just before and after WWI.

In the third book, 'Etruscan Places', Lawrence describes his visits to various Etruscan sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. His writing is less descriptive than that of the first two books. He is concerned with nothing less than the meaing of life, and the conflict between religion and truth (he died a few short years later at age 44 so his reflections seem almost prescient). He muses that societies are organized around death or life. He speaks of the use of fertility symbols such as fish and lambs for Christians and dolphins and eggs for Etruscans; the significance of the color vermillion -- male body painting by warrior classes where red paint connotes power contrasted with the the red skin coloring of the Etruscan tomb portraits which seems to have connoted the blood of life. He says the Etuscans loved life and the Romans who subdued them loved power.

Lawrence's book provides good background for those who would know more about Italy. Many of the places he describes have changed since the 1920s--some for the better. The people have changed--their clothing, homes, etc. are less unique and colorful, but they are better fed, warmer in winter, and cleaner. Hopefully their lives are better, but I don't think Lawrence would agree. ... Read more

Book Description
Apocalypse is D. H. Lawrence's last book, written during the winter of 1929-30 when he was dying. It is a radical criticism of our civilisation and a statement of Lawrence's unwavering belief in man's power to create 'a new heaven and a new earth'. Ranging over the entire system of his thought on God and man, on religion, art, psychology and politics, this book is Lawrence's final attempt to convey his vision of man and the universe. Apocalypse was published after Lawrence's death, and in a highly inaccurate text. This edition is the first to reproduce accurately Lawrence's final corrected text on the basis of a thorough examination of the surviving manuscript and typescript. In the introduction the editor has discussed the writing of Apocalypse and its place in Lawrence's works, its publication and reception, and the significance of Lawrence's other writings on the Book of Revelation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An occasional beautiful passage in a generally sterile and fanatic polemic
The greatness of Lawrence as a writer is not in question. But in this final work of his , we see a 'visionary ' side which involves a neo- Neitzschean and almost Fascist reading of ' the Book of Revelations'. Lawrence may as other reviewers claim be here most interested in defying a pagan life- affirming tradition against a spiritually dehumanizing Christianity. But the main thrust is in his condemnation, a very strange one indeed, of the poor of the world for their envy of those higher people, the true aristocrats of life. Borrowing a page from Nietzsche's conception of re-sentiment morality he condemns the poor and sees their anger as barren and empty. So too his reading of John of Patmos condemns him for dessicating the life in a false and distorted spiritual vision.
Lawrence's work comes most alive far from theory, in his novels especially but also in his poems.
In terms of pure ideas his contribution , at least in this work, is more negative than anything else.

D.H. Lawrence's revelation
Written in response to widespread condemnation of the sexuality and libertine lifestyles presented in his books, Apocalypse was the final attempt by D. H. Lawrence to make himself understood. The modern readerwill probably detect a full throttle blitz against the puritanical deaconsof the Church of England and his establishment tormentors. Launched fromthe most contentious and abstruse of the Bible's books, Revelations,Lawrence levels his antipathy at a rigid, superficially moral, life denyingexposition of Christian thought. He argues that the confining nature ofliving the 'good' life in expectation of reward in Heaven cuts to the rootof an immensely rich potential for experience and passion presented in theworld. He continuously falls back on opaque codices-- of arcanecivilizations that he states more fully explored the metaphysical realm.Lawrence divines a heroic age where apparent creation and destiny were seenas integral and complete. Robert Graves's 'The White Goddess'comprehensively analyzes the same mythological, magical architecture, butLawrence uses it in a much more targeted and critical way.

Lawrence sawthe aesthetic brilliance of Revelations as a bridge to a more mysterious,immediate, compelling theology. At the same time he condemns theapocalyptic churches who interpret the book as the evocation of Hell andJudgement, rather than in its potent poetic symbolism. He goes so far as toaccuse John of Patmos of not presenting a revelation at all, butofappropriating a truer, more ancient historiography for eccliastical andpolitical reasons. Not above placing his own eccentric opinions ofgovernment in this tract, he could be accused of mounting his own pulpit,if with literary distinction. His claim of an affirming devotion to thevisible universe as the only 'true' route to the holy can be countered byreading some of the lively writings of Christian ascetics. This treatise,however, is not about them. It is aimed squarely at the convention seeking,socially regulating, sanctimonious attitudes that had censored andprosecuted him.Not surprisingly it did not raise his stock much among hiscritics, but it is an essential text in understanding the underlyingmotives behind his works.

Great Last Work and Testament
Attacks everything blindly and madly promoted by the dominant ideas of the dominant socio-economic classes and strongest institutionalized influences in the current civilization of inauthenticity and death.

The power ofmoney must go, according to Lawrence, as the power of the sun mustreturn--as it indeed has always been the power of life whether we recognizeit or not. Also, the power of blood must be reasserted. As human beings weare connected to all things. However, this perspective is suppressed as itconstitutes a threat to the status quo.

Lawrence here sees no salvationin either democracy or western monotheism; but solely inhuman beingsconnecting up once again to the universal forces of nature from which comelife's vitality.

Fascinating Lawrence "diversions-on-a-theme".
Although Lawrence's writings are noted for more earthly activities, he shows a surprising knowledge of Biblical matters.In this book he analyzes the last book of the Bible-- Revelations-- and not too favorably at that. I cannot argue with his facts because I am not as familiar with them as as heis.What I find fascinating about this essay-book are his observations ondemocracy, and especially about life.

The last page or two contain one ofhis most remarkable and inspiring observations about the individual and hissoul.Lawrence often argues that you cannot "save" you soul; youmust "live" it.Near the end of this book hewrites:

"What man most passionately want is his living wholeness andhis living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul." Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once andonce only, he is in the flesh and potent.For man, the vast marvel is tobe alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph isto be most vividly, most perfectly alive.Whatever the unborn and the deadmay know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in theflesh.The dead may look after the afterwards.But the magnificent hereand now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for atime.We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in theflesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos....I am part of the greatwhole, and I can never escape.But I can deny my connections, break them,and become a fragment.Then I am wretched."

The most poignantphrase in this passage is "...and ours for a short time only." Lawrence lived a shorter time that most of us will, but in his lifetime hisoutput was as perceptive and prodigious as any author who has ever written.Scattered throughout this book are irritating but illuminating thoughtslike: "But a democracy is bound in the end to be obscene, for it iscomposed of myriad disunited fragments, each fragment assuming to itself afalse wholeness, a false individuality.Modern democracy is made up ofmillions of frictional parts all asserting their ownwholeness."

Some people have taken that statement as proofthatLawrence is against democracy.But I consider it a valid danger fordemocracy, one that is being played out in the press every day.Topreserve democracy, the best of all possible forms of government, we haveto analyze and try to correct its failings and weaknesses.

Puzzle yourway through this book.I hope you will find it as rewarding as I did. ... Read more

Product Description
435 pages with index:Puritanism and the arts,Verse,Contemporaries and the importance of the novel;Americans, Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick'.Edgar Allan Poe;Whitman; ... Read more

Book Description
The past few years have seen a growing interest among evangelical leaders in the thought and life of the early Christian church. There is a desire to rediscover historical roots in the face of today's postmodern and increasingly post-denominational world. Evangelicals and Tradition is the first in a valuable new series of books edited by D. H. Williams. The series seeks to help today's church leaders recover the early church fathers' ancient understandings of Christian belief and practice for application to ministry in the twenty-first century. This first book traces the development and role of tradition in the early church, what kind of authority should be ascribed to tradition, and tradition's interaction with the Protestant hallmarks of ''Scripture alone'' and ''by faith alone.'' ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Renewing the Protestants
For those Protestants who have their reservations about the Christian tradition (largely quite "unProtestant") this book is for them. The author is himself a Baptist and an expert on both Church history and the Church Fathers. His goal is fourfold: 1) Demonstrate that Scripture and early tradition go hand in hand and that Scripture is part of tradition, given by the Church to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ correctly., 2) theology exists as a part of the worshipping community, and not as an abstraction. Without right worship, there is no right doctrine 3) our personal liberty in the Holy Spirit is a corporate liberty. That is, we exist as "members one of another" who cannot go off and "do our own thing" 4) the Protestant tradition must be reintegrated into the greater catholic tradition to properly understand itself and the Gospel. In short, the author doesn't try to make a Protestant into a Catholic, but to dispel the myths surrounding the Tradition to show the Protestant what it means to be a Christian in context.

I would recommend the author's other book, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, more than this book, good as it is. Please see my other reviews for similar books on similar topics, mostly geared to the conversation between Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

unique travel piece
D.H. Lawrence writes like a painter would write were he to. What is most real in the writings of Lawrence is the physical world, and of course the body. Mornings in Mexico is really a slight work but with a charm to it. There is a relating of facts (especially about Indian life and thought) that you would expect from a travel piece but the charm is in the kind of easy sauntering pace that the narrative keeps. That feeling that it is vacation time and there really is no hurry. The house he lives in for his stay in Mexico and the surrounding markets and open fields in which he walks and the balcony he stands on in the morning with parrot are all pleasantly described. It feels like a place you want to be. The way time away should feel. There is a slight mournful air to the fact that the Americans are beginning to spoil the place, it is as if the Americans have brought that intruder time itself into this timeless land. It's not so much the details you will remember as the overall feel of the work. And Lawrence himself. And here he seems at ease, searching as always but not desperately so, which is a nice Lawrence to spend time with.

Mexico - by a first rate traveller
Lawrence was a good traveller in these parts and he spent a lot of time carefully observing the Indians he met along the way.He was particularly interested in the ways of thought of the Indians and their religious beliefs and the ways their ideas differed from yours and mine. On simple concepts like time and distance, for example: "To an Indian, time is a vague, foggy reality.There are only three times: en la manana (morning); en la tarde (afternoon); en la noche (night).But to the white monkey (you and me) there are exact spots of time, such as five o'clock and half past three." The Indian's concept of God was different from ours."With the Indians...there is strictly no god.The Indian does not consider himself as created and therefore external to God, or the creature of God. There is, in our sense of the word, no God. But all is godly. There is no great mind directing the universe. Yet the mystery of creation, the wonder and fascination of creation shimmers in every leaf and stone... There is no God looking on. The only God there is is involved all the time in the dramatic wonder and inconsistency of creation. God is immersed, as it were, in creation, not to be separated or distinguished.There can be no ideal God." Lawrence does a wonderful job of digging into this exotic culture and explaining to us the significance of Indian rituals and dances. I particularly liked one of his statements: "The Indian is completely immersed in the wonder of his own drama." There is also a lovely example of descriptive travel writing in "Market Day", a chapter that makes you slow down your reading pace to savor the beautiful descriptions of small things like a bird's flight or flowers in a doorway. I guess this is the difference between reading and information-processing, which we do so much of today. ... Read more

Book Description
The past few years have seen a growing interest among evangelical leaders in the thought and life of the early Christian church. There is a desire to rediscover historical roots in the face of today's postmodern and increasingly post-denominational world. Evangelicals and Tradition is the first in a valuable new series of books edited by D. H. Williams. The series seeks to help today's church leaders recover the early church fathers' ancient understandings of Christian belief and practice for application to ministry in the twenty-first century. This first book traces the development and role of tradition in the early church, what kind of authority should be ascribed to tradition, and tradition's interaction with the Protestant hallmarks of ''Scripture alone'' and ''by faith alone.'' ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Renewing the Protestants
For those Protestants who have their reservations about the Christian tradition (largely quite "unProtestant") this book is for them. The author is himself a Baptist and an expert on both Church history and the Church Fathers. His goal is fourfold: 1) Demonstrate that Scripture and early tradition go hand in hand and that Scripture is part of tradition, given by the Church to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ correctly., 2) theology exists as a part of the worshipping community, and not as an abstraction. Without right worship, there is no right doctrine 3) our personal liberty in the Holy Spirit is a corporate liberty. That is, we exist as "members one of another" who cannot go off and "do our own thing" 4) the Protestant tradition must be reintegrated into the greater catholic tradition to properly understand itself and the Gospel. In short, the author doesn't try to make a Protestant into a Catholic, but to dispel the myths surrounding the Tradition to show the Protestant what it means to be a Christian in context.

I would recommend the author's other book, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, more than this book, good as it is. Please see my other reviews for similar books on similar topics, mostly geared to the conversation between Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
... Read more

Product Description
Lawrence's critique of Classic American Literature. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (48)

Still shocking as a work of literature
Well-formatted for the Kindle, with an easy-to-navigate table of contents.The novel itself is striking -- "right between the eyes."Passion has rarely felt so naked, and yet so much of the passion in _Women in Love_ is the passion of intellectual debate.The characters are desperate to know, *finally*, who they are, and flummoxed by their need for such explanation.

Tough at first, But worth the work
First off, I LOVED the Rainbow, the prequel to this book. I was very excited to get into this book and see how the characters developed further. In the beginning I felt the same interest as I did with the Rainbow, but as many others have stated, somewhere in the middle the reading got a litte tedious. Birkin was such a preachy kind of character, constantly spouting off stuff without ever convincingly proving he believed it himself! Luckily, Ursula seemed to tone that down in him. I did have a point where I debated finishing the book but I figured I had already committed to seeing how things worked out with everyone. Man, what a payoff at the end! BIG twist ending!!! Maybe that was Lawrence's way of rewarding his readers for allowing him his theological or philosophical rants and loving him anyway. He threw in the big exciting finish. Well, I say if you like Lawrence and you liked the Rainbow, this one might feel like a little more work but give it a chance and you're sure to get a satisfying conclusion to these characters.

The charming, hilarious, and throught provoking story of two sisters.
This book is beautifully written.You could randomly pick almost any paragraph and read it and close the book and think to your self "wow, that was beautiful."It tells the story of sisters Gudrun and Brangwen, two young women in England who stand apart from the crowd and struggle with their quirky independence in a classist society.

Of course it isn't a gripper or a page turner.It took me over a year to finish reading this book.That's not to say it's not good-- on the contrary I say it's a testament to how good it is that I ever finished it.How many times have you put a book down for months and then returned to pick it up where you left off?I can think of one other book I did that with, but I did it several times with Women in Love.

It's slow, and in the beginning I couldn't really keep all the characters straight.But it's beautiful and it's hilarious!The langauge of the day, comsbined with the melodrama of Gudrun and Bragwen as they discuss the banal horror of spending the rest of their life with any of the men they know, is both charming and laugh-out-loud funny.

The book works as a period piece; you can see the structured class system of the England of the day nad the sisters who simply don't fit in with anyone.

The book also works as a philosophical piece; at times it reminds me of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.The chapters dedicated to the coal mines and the machine-like endeavors of the men who runs them must have inspired Ayn Rand's work.

This book is deifnitely worth reading, but perhaps best along side another book (or 10).

Women in Love: A Classic Novel by the first Freudian novelists who plumbed the human id
DH Lawrence was born in the coaltown of Eastwood located eight miles from Nottingham, England in the Midlands region of Great Britain. His father was feckless; his mother worshipped young Bert who was sensitive, reserved and bookish.
Lawrence grew up to leave this repressed environment to wander the world with his German wife Frieda. He remembered how the miners would enter the coalmines with clean clothes emerging hours later covered with black coal dust. Like those miners, Lawrence would also go "underground" exploring those human emotions we keep repressed. His themes were communication between the sexes concluding that we are basically alone in a godless universe. Plot and story are minimal in a Lawrence novel. The iconoclastic novelist was more interested in examining our motivations through stream of consciousness and dialgoue between his complex characters. These themes are evinced in "Women in Love" his brilliant sequel to "The Rainbow" dealingwith several generations of theBrangwen family.
The main characters in this 1920 novel are:
1. Ursula Brangwen: The plainer of the two Brangwen daughters. Ursula is a 26 year old teacher in a Midlands school. Her life is mundane. She is an intellectual who falls in love with the mecurial Rupert Birken.
Ursula is said to be a fictional recreation of Lawrence's wife Frieda.
She is fiercly independent but craves the warmth of a sexual/spiritual relationship with a man.
2. Gudrun Brangwen is the artistic sister of Brangwen. She is an art teacher in a local school. Gudrun has studied and worked abroad as a sculptress. She is artsy,loving life. Gudrun enters into a tempestuous affair with the owner of the town mining company. Her affair with the aristocratic Gerald Brangwen will end in tragedy. Gudrun wears bright clothing and is more outgoing than her sister Ursula. She too is independent wanting to go beyond sex or domestic life with a life partner.
She may have been based on Lawrence's New Zealand writer friend Katherine Mansfield.
3. Rupert Birkin is the fictionalized portrait of the author. Birkin is a school inspector who has a desire to create a new world free of the harsh Victorian conventional society he despises. His longtime lover is the wealthy Hermione. Birkin jilts the superficial Hermione for the enchanting and engimatic Ursula. As the novel ends he and Ursula are married, The Birkins leave England for a life of wandering much as did Frieda and D.H. Lawrence. Birkin, as well as Lawrence, hated modern industrialized society which made men and women into automatic machines in a souless society.
4. Gerald Crich is the owner of a large mining company in the area. Gerald can be very cruel as when he forces a horse he is astride to sit still while a train (the symbol of industrialized life) roars by to the dismay of the frightened creature. Crich is also seen strangling a rabbit. He has been a playboy with a mistress named Pussums. Crich has a torrid affair with Gudrud which ends in a tragedy. Crich is a handsome man who wants power in busines and his affair with Gudrud. He attempts to strangle her and control her every move. Crich is the least sympathetic and most tortured of the four major characters.
D.H. Lawrence's prose in this major novel is lyrical, poetic and detailed in its description of moods, nature and the emotions inherent to love. Lawrence knew the human psyche is a mine which needed exploration by a perceptive novelist. Lawrence is still worthy reading all of these years after the Brangwen girls story was first spun into gold by a literary giant.

Everything is here
this is definitely a five star book for david herbert. the only knock is it's a bit meandering, but thematically it encompasses so many things. i loved the character Loerke in the end as a foil to Gerald and perhaps a more succinct explanation for what Birkin was trying to get across all along. ... Read more

Book Description
Sons and Lovers is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence, and the price of family bonds. Repelled by her uneducated and sometimes violent husband, delicate Gertrude Morel devotes her life to her sons. But conflict is inevitable when Paul seeks relationships with women to escape the suffocating grasp of his mother. As profoundly affecting today as it was nearly a century ago, this is the peerless Lawrence at his most personal.
* Includes a new introduction, chronology, and further reading ... Read more

Book Description
D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love - 'the beginning of a new world', as he called it - suffered in the course of its revision, transcription, and publication some of the most spectacular damage ever inflicted upon one of his books. Until now no text of Women in Love has ever been published which is faithful to all of Lawrence's revisions. This edition, edited by scholars in England and America, clears the text of literally thousands of accumulated errors allowing its readers to read and understand the novelist's work as he himself created it. The edition includes the 'Foreword' Lawrence wrote in 1919 and two preliminary and discarded chapters which have attracted widespread critical and biographical discussion. The introduction gives a full history of the novel's composition, revision, publication and reception, and notes explain allusions and references; the textual apparatus records all variants between the base-text and the first printed editions. ... Read more