D.H. Lawrence The Prussian Officer and other stories (1914)
This was Lawrence's first short story collection, originally published in 1914 by Duckworth and collecting material which had mostly already seen print in the English Review. Lawrence actually revised most of the stories for this collection, and even gave them a specific order so as to draw attention to the development of certain themes from one story to the next. Unfortunately Duckworth threw this order out of the window, bringing the two stories referring directly to the first world war to the fore presumably in order to cash in on an anticipated upsurge of militaristic and patriotic fervour. I gather that this revision somewhat undermined the author's intended thematic development, which is in any case a subtle detail even with everything running in the proper sequence, leaving the whole seeming patchy and uneven. This version restores Lawrence's running order, although I wonder if the power of the original hasn't been a little overplayed. Antony Atkins' introduction describes the collection as a story cycle wherein certain themes are revisited, developed, or expanded upon in subsequent stories, and in which we notice an occasional warm-up exercise for one of the novels, but the pattern is something you may not even have noticed had it not been mentioned.
Roughly speaking, these twelve stories trace an evolutionary path from spooky nineteenth century mysticism through to twentieth century realism, ultimately leading to Lawrence's own somewhat mystical brand of twentieth century realism; so this notional path may refer to English society and the elevation of the lower classes, to the course of literature around the turn of the century, or to Lawrence's own development as a writer. It's really a case of taking your pick depending on which seems the most interesting sequence. Most of the stories are respectable, and a few, such as Odour of Chrysanthemums or A Sick Collier, are exceptional; but elsewhere, Lawrence gets so lost in his own prose, rendering even the tiniest quirk of psychology as something poetic and mythological, that the narrative collapses under its own lack of momentum, possibly because whilst the novel grants him space in which to achieve escape velocity, the short form is not always so well-suited to what he was trying to achieve. The thematic sequencing of the stories compensates for the shortfall in places, but still leaves the whole a chewier read than I would ordinarily like.
It's hard to imagine what Duckworth were thinking, particularly given that the two first world war tales are hardly Bulldog Drummond material, focussing instead on class issues with a distinct anti-militaristic tone expressed as deserters and conscientious objectors who rebel against their commanding officers; and Lawrence sidesteps any issues of such tales lacking due patriotic fervour - as I presume would have been a concern at the time - by setting them behind enemy lines, doubtless drawing on his experience of eloping to Metz on the German border with Frieda von Richthofen.
There's plenty here which conforms to the quality promised by Lawrence's reputation, but it's probably not a casual read.
This was Lawrence's first short story collection, originally published in 1914 by Duckworth and collecting material which had mostly already seen print in the English Review. Lawrence actually revised most of the stories for this collection, and even gave them a specific order so as to draw attention to the development of certain themes from one story to the next. Unfortunately Duckworth threw this order out of the window, bringing the two stories referring directly to the first world war to the fore presumably in order to cash in on an anticipated upsurge of militaristic and patriotic fervour. I gather that this revision somewhat undermined the author's intended thematic development, which is in any case a subtle detail even with everything running in the proper sequence, leaving the whole seeming patchy and uneven. This version restores Lawrence's running order, although I wonder if the power of the original hasn't been a little overplayed. Antony Atkins' introduction describes the collection as a story cycle wherein certain themes are revisited, developed, or expanded upon in subsequent stories, and in which we notice an occasional warm-up exercise for one of the novels, but the pattern is something you may not even have noticed had it not been mentioned.
Roughly speaking, these twelve stories trace an evolutionary path from spooky nineteenth century mysticism through to twentieth century realism, ultimately leading to Lawrence's own somewhat mystical brand of twentieth century realism; so this notional path may refer to English society and the elevation of the lower classes, to the course of literature around the turn of the century, or to Lawrence's own development as a writer. It's really a case of taking your pick depending on which seems the most interesting sequence. Most of the stories are respectable, and a few, such as Odour of Chrysanthemums or A Sick Collier, are exceptional; but elsewhere, Lawrence gets so lost in his own prose, rendering even the tiniest quirk of psychology as something poetic and mythological, that the narrative collapses under its own lack of momentum, possibly because whilst the novel grants him space in which to achieve escape velocity, the short form is not always so well-suited to what he was trying to achieve. The thematic sequencing of the stories compensates for the shortfall in places, but still leaves the whole a chewier read than I would ordinarily like.
It's hard to imagine what Duckworth were thinking, particularly given that the two first world war tales are hardly Bulldog Drummond material, focussing instead on class issues with a distinct anti-militaristic tone expressed as deserters and conscientious objectors who rebel against their commanding officers; and Lawrence sidesteps any issues of such tales lacking due patriotic fervour - as I presume would have been a concern at the time - by setting them behind enemy lines, doubtless drawing on his experience of eloping to Metz on the German border with Frieda von Richthofen.
There's plenty here which conforms to the quality promised by Lawrence's reputation, but it's probably not a casual read.
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