Podcasts about dh lawrence

Frances Wilson has written biographies of Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, D.H. Lawrence, and, most recently, Muriel Spark. I thought Electric Spark was excellent. In my review, I wrote: “Wilson has done far more than string the facts together. She has created a strange and vivid portrait of one of the most curious of twentieth century novelists.” In this interview, we covered questions like why Thomas De Quincey is more widely read, why D.H. Lawrence's best books aren't his novels, Frances's conversion to spookiness, what she thinks about a whole range of modern biographers, literature and parasocial relationships, Elizabeth Bowen, George Meredith, and plenty about Muriel Spark.Here are two brief extracts. There is a full transcript below.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?And.Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking to Frances Wilson. Frances is a biographer. Her latest book, Electric Spark, is a biography of the novelist Muriel Spark, but she has also written about Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, DH Lawrence and others. Frances, welcome.Frances Wilson: Thank you so much for having me on.Henry: Why don't more people read Thomas De Quincey's work?Frances: [laughs] Oh, God. We're going right into the deep end.[laughter]Frances: I think because there's too much of it. When I chose to write about Thomas De Quincey, I just followed one thread in his writing because Thomas De Quincey was an addict. One of the things he was addicted to was writing. He wrote far, far, far too much. He was a professional hack. He was a transcendental hack, if you like, because all of his writing he did while on opium, which made the sentences too long and too high and very, very hard to read.When I wrote about him, I just followed his interest in murder. He was fascinated by murder as a fine art. The title of one of his best essays is On Murder as One of the Fine Arts. I was also interested in his relationship with Wordsworth. I twinned those together, which meant cutting out about 97% of the rest of his work. I think people do read his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I think that's a cult text. It was the memoir, if you want to call it a memoir, that kick-started the whole pharmaceutical memoir business on drugs.It was also the first addict's memoir and the first recovery memoir, and I'd say also the first misery memoir. He's very much at the root of English literary culture. We're all De Quincey-an without knowing it, is my argument.Henry: Oh, no, I fully agree. That's what surprises me, that they don't read him more often.Frances: I know it's a shame, isn't it? Of all the Romantic Circle, he's the one who's the most exciting to read. Also, Lamb is wonderfully exciting to read as well, but Lamb's a tiny little bit more grounded than De Quincey, who was literally not grounded. He's floating in an opium haze above you.[laughter]Henry: What I liked about your book was the way you emphasized the book addiction, not just the opium addiction. It is shocking the way he piled up chests full of books and notebooks, and couldn't get into the room because there were too many books in there. He was [crosstalk].Frances: Yes. He had this in common with Muriel Spark. He was a hoarder, but in a much more chaotic way than Spark, because, as you say, he piled up rooms with papers and books until he couldn't get into the room, and so just rented another room. He was someone who had no money at all. The no money he had went on paying rent for rooms, storing what we would be giving to Oxfam, or putting in the recycling bin. Then he'd forget that he was paying rent on all these rooms filled with his mountains of paper. The man was chaos.Henry: What is D.H. Lawrence's best book?Frances: Oh, my argument about Lawrence is that we've gone very badly wrong in our reading of him, in seeing him primarily as a novelist and only secondarily as an essayist and critic and short story writer, and poet. This is because of F.R. Leavis writing that celebration of him called D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, because novels are not the best of Lawrence. I think the best of his novels is absolutely, without doubt, Sons and Lovers. I think we should put the novels in the margins and put in the centre, the poems, travel writing.Absolutely at the centre of the centre should be his studies in classic American literature. His criticism was- We still haven't come to terms with it. It was so good. We haven't heard all of Lawrence's various voices yet. When Lawrence was writing, contemporaries didn't think of Lawrence as a novelist at all. It was anyone's guess what he was going to come out with next. Sometimes it was a novel [laughs] and it was usually a rant about-- sometimes it was a prophecy. Posterity has not treated Lawrence well in any way, but I think where we've been most savage to him is in marginalizing his best writing.Henry: The short fiction is truly extraordinary.Frances: Isn't it?Henry: I always thought Lawrence was someone I didn't want to read, and then I read the short fiction, and I was just obsessed.Frances: It's because in the short fiction, he doesn't have time to go wrong. I think brevity was his perfect length. Give him too much space, and you know he's going to get on his soapbox and start ranting, start mansplaining. He was a terrible mansplainer. Mansplaining his versions of what had gone wrong in the world. It is like a drunk at the end of a too-long dinner party, and you really want to just bundle him out. Give him only a tiny bit of space, and he comes out with the perfection that is his writing.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?Frances: I think that the way I approach biography is that there is a code to crack, but I'm not necessarily concerned with whether I crack it or not. I think it's just recognizing that there's a hell of a lot going on in the writing and that, in certain cases and not in every case at all, the best way of exploring the psyche of the writer and the complexity of the life is through the writing, which is a argument for psycho biography, which isn't something I necessarily would argue for, because it can be very, very crude.I think with the writers I choose, there is no option. Muriel Spark argued for this as well. She said in her own work as a biographer, which was really very, very strong. She was a biographer before she became a novelist. She thought hard about biography and absolutely in advance of anyone else who thought about biography, she said, "Of course, the only way we can approach the minds of writers is through their work, and the writer's life is encoded in the concerns of their work."When I was writing about Muriel Spark, I followed, as much as I could, to the letter, her own theories of biography, believing that that was part of the code that she left. She said very, very strong and very definitive things about what biography was about and how to write a biography. I tried to follow those rules.Henry: Can we play a little game where I say the names of some biographers and you tell me what you think of them?Frances: Oh my goodness. Okay.Henry: We're not trying to get you into trouble. We just want some quick opinions. A.N. Wilson.Frances: I think he's wonderful as a biographer. I think he's unzipped and he's enthusiastic and he's unpredictable and he's often off the rails. I think his Goethe biography-- Have you read the Goethe biography?Henry: Yes, I thought that was great.Frances: It's just great, isn't it? It's so exciting. I like the way that when he writes about someone, it's almost as if he's memorized the whole of their work.Henry: Yes.Frances: You don't imagine him sitting at a desk piled with books and having to score through his marginalia. It sits in his head, and he just pours it down on a page. I'm always excited by an A.N. Wilson biography. He is one of the few biographers who I would read regardless of who the subject was.Henry: Yes.Frances: I just want to read him.Henry: He does have good range.Frances: He absolutely does have good range.Henry: Selina Hastings.Frances: I was thinking about Selina Hastings this morning, funnily enough, because I had been talking to people over the weekend about her Sybil Bedford biography and why that hadn't lifted. She wrote a very excitingly good life of Nancy Mitford and then a very unexcitingly not good life of Sybil Bedford. I was interested in why the Sybil Bedford simply hadn't worked. I met people this weekend who were saying the same thing, that she was a very good biographer who had just failed [laughs] to give us anything about Sybil Bedford.I think what went wrong in that biography was that she just could not give us her opinions. It's as if she just withdrew from her subject as if she was writing a Wikipedia entry. There were no opinions at all. What the friends I was talking to said was that she just fell out with her subject during the book. That's what happened. She stopped being interested in her. She fell out with her and therefore couldn't be bothered. That's what went wrong.Henry: Interesting. I think her Evelyn Waugh biography is superb.Frances: Yes, I absolutely agree. She was on fire until this last one.Henry: That's one of the best books on Waugh, I think.Frances: Yes.Henry: Absolutely magical.Frances: I also remember, it's a very rare thing, of reading a review of it by Hilary Mantel saying that she had not read a biography that had been as good, ever, as Selina Hastings' on Evelyn Waugh. My goodness, that's high praise, isn't it?Henry: Yes, it is. It is. I'm always trying to push that book on people. Richard Holmes.Frances: He's my favourite. He's the reason that I'm a biographer at all. I think his Coleridge, especially the first volume of the two-volume Coleridge, is one of the great books. It left me breathless when I read it. It was devastating. I also think that his Johnson and Savage book is one of the great books. I love Footsteps as well, his account of the books he didn't write in Footsteps. I think he has a strange magic. When Muriel Spark talked about certain writers and critics having a sixth literary sense, which meant that they tuned into language and thought in a way that the rest of us don't, I think that Richard Holmes does have that. I think he absolutely has it in relation to Coleridge. I'm longing for his Tennyson to come out.Henry: Oh, I know. I know.Frances: Oh, I just can't wait. I'm holding off on reading Tennyson until I've got Holmes to help me read him. Yes, he is quite extraordinary.Henry: I would have given my finger to write the Johnson and Savage book.Frances: Yes, I know. I agree. How often do you return to it?Henry: Oh, all the time. All the time.Frances: Me too.Henry: Michael Holroyd.Frances: Oh, that's interesting, Michael Holroyd, because I think he's one of the great unreads. I think he's in this strange position of being known as a greatest living biographer, but nobody's read him on Augustus John. [laughs] I haven't read his biographies cover to cover because they're too long and it's not in my subject area, but I do look in them, and they're novelistic in their wit and complexity. His sentences are very, very, very entertaining, and there's a lot of freight in each paragraph. I hope that he keeps selling.I love his essays as well, and also, I think that he has been a wonderful ambassador for biography. He's very, very supportive of younger biographers, which not every biographer is, but I know he's been very supportive of younger biographers and is incredibly approachable.Henry: Let's do a few Muriel Spark questions. Why was the Book of Job so important to Muriel Spark?Frances: I think she liked it because it was rogue, because it was the only book of the Bible that wasn't based on any evidence, it wasn't based on any truth. It was a fictional book, and she liked fiction sitting in the middle of fact. That was one of her main things, as all Spark lovers know. She liked the fact that there was this work of pure imagination and extraordinarily powerful imagination sitting in the middle of the Old Testament, and also, she thought it was an absolutely magnificent poem.She saw herself primarily as a poet, and she responded to it as a poem, which, of course, it is. Also, she liked God in it. She described Him as the Incredible Hulk [laughs] and she liked His boastfulness. She enjoyed, as I do, difficult personalities, and she liked the fact that God had such an incredibly difficult personality. She liked the fact that God boasted and boasted and boasted, "I made this and I made that," to Job, but also I think she liked the fact that you hear God's voice.She was much more interested in voices than she was in faces. The fact that God's voice comes out of the burning bush, I think it was an image for her of early radio, this voice speaking, and she liked the fact that what the voice said was tricksy and touchy and impossibly arrogant. He gives Moses all these instructions to lead the Israelites, and Moses says, "But who shall I say sent me? Who are you?" He says, "I am who I am." [laughs] She thought that was completely wonderful. She quotes that all the time about herself. She says, "I know it's a bit large quoting God, but I am who I am." [laughs]Henry: That disembodied voice is very important to her fiction.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's the telephone in Memento Mori.Frances: Yes.Henry: Also, to some extent, tell me what you think of this, the narrator often acts like that.Frances: Like this disembodied voice?Henry: Yes, like you're supposed to feel like you're not quite sure who's telling you this or where you're being told it from. That's why it gets, like in The Ballad of Peckham Rye or something, very weird.Frances: Yes. I'm waiting for the PhD on Muriel Sparks' narrators. Maybe it's being done as we speak, but she's very, very interested in narrators and the difference between first-person and third-person. She was very keen on not having warm narrators, to put it mildly. She makes a strong argument throughout her work for the absence of the seductive narrative. Her narratives are, as we know, unbelievably seductive, but not because we are being flattered as readers and not because the narrator makes herself or himself pretty. The narrator says what they feel like saying, withholds most of what you would like them to say, plays with us, like in a Spark expression, describing her ideal narrator like a cat with a bird [laughs].Henry: I like that. Could she have been a novelist if she had not become a Catholic?Frances: No, she couldn't. The two things happened at the same time. I wonder, actually, whether she became a Catholic in order to become a novelist. It wasn't that becoming a novelist was an accidental effect of being a Catholic. The conversion was, I think, from being a biographer to a novelist rather than from being an Anglican to a Catholic. What happened is a tremendous interest. I think it's the most interesting moment in any life that I've ever written about is the moment of Sparks' conversion because it did break her life in two.She converted when she was in her mid-30s, and several things happened at once. She converted to Catholicism, she became a Catholic, she became a novelist, but she also had this breakdown. The breakdown was very much part of that conversion package. The breakdown was brought on, she says, by taking Dexys. There was slimming pills, amphetamines. She wanted to lose weight. She put on weight very easily, and her weight went up and down throughout her life.She wanted to take these diet pills, but I think she was also taking the pills because she needed to do all-nighters, because she never, ever, ever stopped working. She was addicted to writing, but also she was impoverished and she had to sell her work, and she worked all night. She was in a rush to get her writing done because she'd wasted so much of her life in her early 20s, in a bad marriage trapped in Africa. She needed to buy herself time. She was on these pills, which have terrible side effects, one of which is hallucinations.I think there were other reasons for her breakdown as well. She was very, very sensitive and I think psychologically fragile. Her mother lived in a state of mental fragility, too. She had a crash when she finished her book. She became depressed. Of course, a breakdown isn't the same as depression, but what happened to her in her breakdown was a paranoid attack rather than a breakdown. She didn't crack into nothing and then have to rebuild herself. She just became very paranoid. That paranoia was always there.Again, it's what's exciting about her writing. She was drawn to paranoia in other writers. She liked Cardinal Newman's paranoia. She liked Charlotte Brontë's paranoia, and she had paranoia. During her paranoid attack, she felt very, very interestingly, because nothing that happened in her life was not interesting, that T.S. Eliot was sending her coded messages. He was encoding these messages in his play, The Confidential Clerk, in the program notes to the play, but also in the blurbs he wrote for Faber and Faber, where he was an editor. These messages were very malign and they were encoded in anagrams.The word lived, for example, became devil. I wonder whether one of the things that happened during her breakdown wasn't that she discovered God, but that she met the devil. I don't think that that's unusual as a conversion experience. In fact, the only conversion experience she ever describes, you'll remember, is in The Girls of Slender Means, when she's describing Nicholas Farrington's conversion. That's the only conversion experience she ever describes. She says that his conversion is when he sees one of the girls leaving the burning building, holding a Schiaparelli dress. Suddenly, he's converted because he's seen a vision of evil.She says, "Conversion can be as a result of a recognition of evil, rather than a recognition of good." I think that what might have happened in this big cocktail of things that happened to her during her breakdown/conversion, is that a writer whom she had idolized, T.S. Eliot, who taught her everything that she needed to know about the impersonality of art. Her narrative coldness comes from Eliot, who thought that emotions had no place in art because they were messy, and art should be clean.I think a writer whom she had idolized, she suddenly felt was her enemy because she was converting from his church, because he was an Anglo-Catholic. He was a high Anglican, and she was leaving Anglo-Catholicism to go through the Rubicon, to cross the Rubicon into Catholicism. She felt very strongly that that is something he would not have approved of.Henry: She's also leaving poetry to become a prose writer.Frances: She was leaving his world of poetry. That's absolutely right.Henry: This is a very curious parallel because the same thing exactly happens to De Quincey with his worship of Wordsworth.Frances: You're right.Henry: They have the same obsessive mania. Then this, as you say, not quite a breakdown, but a kind of explosive mania in the break. De Quincey goes out and destroys that mossy hut or whatever it is in the orchard, doesn't he?Frances: Yes, that disgusting hut in the orchard. Yes, you're completely right. What fascinated me about De Quincey, and this was at the heart of the De Quincey book, was how he had been guided his whole life by Wordsworth. He discovered Wordsworth as a boy when he read We Are Seven, that very creepy poem about a little girl sitting on her sibling's grave, describing the sibling as still alive. For De Quincey, who had lost his very adored sister, he felt that Wordsworth had seen into his soul and that Wordsworth was his mentor and his lodestar.He worshipped Wordsworth as someone who understood him and stalked Wordsworth, pursued and stalked him. When he met him, what he discovered was a man without any redeeming qualities at all. He thought he was a dry monster, but it didn't stop him loving the work. In fact, he loved the work more and more. What threw De Quincey completely was that there was such a difference between Wordsworth, the man who had no genius, and Wordsworth, the poet who had nothing but.Eliot described it, the difference between the man who suffers and the mind which creates. What De Quincey was trying to deal with was the fact that he adulated the work, but was absolutely appalled by the man. Yes, you're right, this same experience happened to spark when she began to feel that T.S. Eliot, whom she had never met, was a malign person, but the work was still not only of immense importance to her, but the work had formed her.Henry: You see the Wasteland all over her own work and the shared Dante obsession.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's remarkably strong. She got to the point of thinking that T.S. Eliot was breaking into her house.Frances: Yes. As I said, she had this paranoid imagination, but also what fired her imagination and what repeated itself again and again in the imaginative scenarios that recur in her fiction and nonfiction is the idea of the intruder. It was the image of someone rifling around in cupboards, drawers, looking at manuscripts. This image, you first find it in a piece she wrote about finding herself completely coincidentally, staying the night during the war in the poet Louis MacNeice's house. She didn't know it was Louis MacNeice's house, but he was a poet who was very, very important to her.Spark's coming back from visiting her parents in Edinburgh in 1944. She gets talking to an au pair on the train. By the time they pull into Houston, there's an air raid, and the au pair says, "Come and spend the night at mine. My employers are away and they live nearby in St. John's Wood." Spark goes to this house and sees it's packed with books and papers, and she's fascinated by the quality of the material she finds there.She looks in all the books. She goes into the attic, and she looks at all the papers, and she asks the au pair whose house it is, and the au pair said, "Oh, he's a professor called Professor Louis MacNeice." Spark had just been reading Whitney. He's one of her favourite poets. She retells this story four times in four different forms, as non-fiction, as fiction, as a broadcast, as reflections, but the image that keeps coming back, what she can't get rid of, is the idea of herself as snooping around in this poet's study.She describes herself, in one of the versions, as trying to draw from his papers his power as a writer. She says she sniffs his pens, she puts her hands over his papers, telling herself, "I must become a writer. I must become a writer." Then she makes this weird anonymous phone call. She loved the phone because it was the most strange form of electrical device. She makes a weird anonymous phone call to an agent, saying, "I'm ringing from Louis MacNeice's house, would you like to see my manuscript?" She doesn't give her name, and the agent says yes.Now I don't believe this phone call took place. I think it's part of Sparks' imagination. This idea of someone snooping around in someone else's room was very, very powerful to her. Then she transposed it in her paranoid attack about T.S. Eliot. She transposed the image that Eliot was now in her house, but not going through her papers, but going through her food cupboards. [laughs] In her food cupboards, all she actually had was baked beans because she was a terrible cook. Part of her unwellness at that point was malnutrition. No, she thought that T.S. Eliot was spying on her. She was obsessed with spies. Spies, snoopers, blackmailers.Henry: T.S. Eliot is Stealing My Baked Beans would have been a very good title for a memoir.Frances: It actually would, wouldn't it?Henry: Yes, it'd be great.[laughter]Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now. Anything can happen. This is one of the reasons Spark was attracted to Catholicism because anything can happen, because it legitimizes the supernatural. I felt so strongly that the supernatural experiences that Spark had were real, that what Spark was describing as the spookiness of our own life were things that actually happened.One of the things I found very, very unsettling about her was that everything that happened to her, she had written about first. She didn't describe her experiences in retrospect. She described them as in foresight. For example, her first single authored published book, because she wrote for a while in collaboration with her lover, Derek Stanford, but her first single authored book was a biography of Mary Shelley.Henry: Great book.Frances: An absolutely wonderful book, which really should be better than any of the other Mary Shelley biographies. She completely got to Mary Shelley. Everything she described in Mary Shelley's life would then happen to Spark. For example, she described Mary Shelley as having her love letters sold. Her lover sold Mary Shelley's love letters, and Mary Shelley was then blackmailed by the person who bought them. This happened to Spark. She described Mary Shelley's closest friends all becoming incredibly jealous of her literary talent. This happened to Spark. She described trusting people who betrayed her. This happened to Spark.Spark was the first person to write about Frankenstein seriously, to treat Frankenstein as a masterpiece rather than as a one-off weird novel that is actually just the screenplay for a Hammer Horror film. This was 1951, remember. Everything she described in Frankenstein as its power is a hybrid text, described the powerful hybrid text that she would later write about. What fascinated her in Frankenstein was the relationship between the creator and the monster, and which one was the monster. This is exactly the story of her own life. I think where she is. She was really interested in art monsters and in the fact that the only powerful writers out there, the only writers who make a dent, are monsters.If you're not a monster, you're just not competing. I think Spark has always spoken about as having a monster-like quality. She says at the end of one of her short stories, Bang-bang You're Dead, "Am I an intellectual woman, or am I a monster?" It's the question that is frequently asked of Spark. I think she worked so hard to monsterize herself. Again, she learnt this from Elliot. She learnt her coldness from Elliot. She learnt indifference from Elliot. There's a very good letter where she's writing to a friend, Shirley Hazzard, in New York.It's after she discovers that her lover, Derek Stanford, has sold her love letters, 70 love letters, which describe two very, very painfully raw, very tender love letters. She describes to Shirley Hazzard this terrible betrayal. She says, "But, I'm over it. I'm over it now. Now I'm just going to be indifferent." She's telling herself to just be indifferent about this. You watch her tutoring herself into the indifference that she needed in order to become the artist that she knew she was.Henry: Is this why she's attracted to mediocrities, because she can possess them and monsterize them, and they're good feeding for her artistic programme?Frances: Her attraction to mediocrities is completely baffling, and it makes writing her biography, a comedy, because the men she was surrounded by were so speck-like. Saw themselves as so important, but were, in fact, so speck-like that you have to laugh, and it was one after another after another. I'd never come across, in my life, so many men I'd never heard of. This was the literary world that she was surrounded by. It's odd, I don't know whether, at the time, she knew how mediocre these mediocrities were.She certainly recognised it in her novels where they're all put together into one corporate personality called the pisseur de copie in A Far Cry from Kensington, where every single literary mediocrity is in that critic who she describes as pissing and vomiting out copy. With Derek Stanford, who was obviously no one's ever heard of now, because he wrote nothing that was memorable, he was her partner from the end of the 40s until-- They ceased their sexual relationship when she started to be interested in becoming a Catholic in 1953, but she was devoted to him up until 1958. She seemed to be completely incapable of recognising that she had the genius and he had none.Her letters to him deferred to him, all the time, as having literary powers that she hadn't got, as having insights that she hadn't got, he's better read than she was. She was such an amazingly good critic. Why could she not see when she looked at his baggy, bad prose that it wasn't good enough? She rated him so highly. When she was co-authoring books with him, which was how she started her literary career, they would occasionally write alternative sentences. Some of her sentences are always absolutely-- they're sharp, lean, sparkling, and witty, and his are way too long and really baggy and they don't say anything. Obviously, you can see that she's irritated by it.She still doesn't say, "Look, I'm going now." It was only when she became a novelist that she said, "I want my mind to myself." She puts, "I want my mind to myself." She didn't want to be in a double act with him. Doubles were important to her. She didn't want to be in a double act with him anymore. He obviously had bought into her adulation of him and hadn't recognised that she had this terrifying power as a writer. It was now his turn to have the breakdown. Spark had the mental breakdown in 1950, '45. When her first novel came out in 1957, it was Stanford who had the breakdown because he couldn't take on board who she was as a novelist.What he didn't know about her as a novelist was her comic sense, how that would fuel the fiction, but also, he didn't recognize because he reviewed her books badly. He didn't recognise that the woman who had been so tender, vulnerable, and loving with him could be this novelist who had nothing to say about tenderness or love. In his reviews, he says, "Why are her characters so cold?" because he thought that she should be writing from the core of her as a human being rather than the core of her as an intellect.Henry: What are her best novels?Frances: Every one I read, I think this has to be the best.[laughter]This is particularly the case in the early novels, where I'm dazzled by The Comforters and think there cannot have been a better first novel of the 20th century or even the 21st century so far. The Comforters. Then read Robinson, her second novel, and think, "Oh God, no, that is her best novel. Then Memento Mori, I think, "Actually, that must be the best novel of the 20th century." [laughs] Then you move on to The Ballad of Peckham Rye, I think, "No, that's even better."The novels landed. It's one of the strange things about her; it took her so long to become a novelist. When she had become one, the novels just landed. Once in one year, two novels landed. In 1959, she had, it was The Bachelors and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, both just completely extraordinary. The novels had been the storing up, and then they just fell on the page. They're different, but samey. They're samey in as much as they're very, very, very clever. They're clever about Catholicism, and they have the same narrative wit. My God, do the plots work in different ways. She was wonderful at plots. She was a great plotter. She liked plots in both senses of the world.She liked the idea of plotting against someone, also laying a plot. She was, at the same time, absolutely horrified by being caught inside someone's plot. That's what The Comforters is about, a young writer called Caroline Rose, who has a breakdown, it's a dramatisation of Sparks' own breakdown, who has a breakdown, and believes that she is caught inside someone else's story. She is a typewriter repeating all of her thoughts. Typewriter and a chorus repeating all of her thoughts.What people say about The Comforters is that Caroline Rose thought she is a heroine of a novel who finds herself trapped in a novel. Actually, if you read what Caroline Rose says in the novel, she doesn't think she's trapped in a novel; she thinks she's trapped in a biography. "There is a typewriter typing the story of our lives," she says to her boyfriend. "Of our lives." Muriel Sparks' first book was about being trapped in a biography, which is, of course, what she brought on herself when she decided to trap herself in a biography. [laughs]Henry: I think I would vote for Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means as my favourites. I can see that Memento Mori is a good book, but I don't love it, actually.Frances: Really? Interesting. Okay. I completely agree with you about-- I think Loitering with Intent is my overall favourite. Don't you find every time you read it, it's a different book? There are about 12 books I've discovered so far in that book. She loved books inside books, but every time I read it, I think, "Oh my God, it's changed shape again. It's a shape-shifting novel."Henry: We all now need the Frances Wilson essay about the 12 books inside Loitering with Intent.Frances: I know.[laughter]Henry: A few more general questions to close. Did Thomas De Quincey waste his talents?Frances: I wouldn't have said so. I think that's because every single day of his life, he was on opium.Henry: I think the argument is a combination of too much opium and also too much magazine work and not enough "real serious" philosophy, big poems, whatever.Frances: I think the best of his work went into Blackwood's, so the magazine work. When he was taken on by Blackwood's, the razor-sharp Edinburgh magazine, then the best of his work took place. I think that had he only written the murder essays, that would have been enough for me, On Murder as a Fine Art.That was enough. I don't need any more of De Quincey. I think Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is also enough in as much as it's the great memoir of addiction. We don't need any more memoirs of addiction, just read that. It's not just a memoir of being addicted to opium. It's about being addicted to what's what. It's about being a super fan and addicted to writing. He was addicted to everything. If he was in AA now, they'd say, apparently, there are 12 addictions, he had all of them. [laughs]Henry: Yes. People talk a lot about parasocial relationships online, where you read someone online or you follow them, and you have this strange idea in your head that you know them in some way, even though they're just this disembodied online person. You sometimes see people say, "Oh, we should understand this more." I think, "Well, read the history of literature, parasocial relationships everywhere."Frances: That's completely true. I hadn't heard that term before. The history of literature, a parasocial relationship. That's your next book.Henry: There we go. I think what I want from De Quincey is more about Shakespeare, because I think the Macbeth essay is superb.Frances: Absolutely brilliant. On Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.Henry: Yes, and then you think, "Wait, where's the rest of this book? There should be an essay about every play."Frances: That's an absolutely brilliant example of microhistory, isn't it? Just taking a moment in a play, just the knocking at the gate, the morning after the murders, and blowing that moment up, so it becomes the whole play. Oh, my God, it's good. You're right.Henry: It's so good. What is, I think, "important about it", is that in the 20th century, critics started saying or scholars started saying a lot, "We can't just look at the words on the page. We've got to think about the dramaturgy. We've got to really, really think about how it plays out." De Quincey was an absolute master of that. It's really brilliant.Frances: Yes.Henry: What's your favourite modern novel or novelist?Frances: Oh, Hilary Mantel, without doubt, I think. I think we were lucky enough to live alongside a great, great, great novelist. I think the Wolf Hall trilogy is absolutely the greatest piece of narrative fiction that's come out of the 21st century. I also love her. I love her work as an essayist. I love her. She's spooky like Spark. She was inspired.Henry: Yes, she is. Yes.Frances: She learnt a lot of her cunning from Spark, I think. She's written a very spooky memoir. In fact, the only women novelists who acknowledge Spark as their influencer are Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel, although you can see Spark in William Boyd all the time. I think we're pretty lucky to live alongside William Boyd as well. Looking for real, real greatness, I think there's no one to compare with Mantel. Do you agree?Henry: I don't like the third volume of the trilogy.Frances: Okay. Right.Henry: Yes, in general, I do agree. Yes. I think some people don't like historical fiction for a variety of reasons. It may take some time for her to get it. I think she's acknowledged as being really good. I don't know that she's yet acknowledged at the level that you're saying.Frances: Yes.Henry: I think that will take a little bit longer. Maybe as and when there's a biography that will help with that, which I'm sure there will be a biography.Frances: I think they need to wait. I do think it's important to wait for a reputation to settle before starting the biography. Her biography will be very interesting because she married the same man twice. Her growth as a novelist was so extraordinary. Spark, she spent time in Africa. She had this terrible, terrible illness. She knew something. I think what I love about Mantel is, as with Spark, she knew something. She knew something, and she didn't quite know what it was that she knew. She had to write because of this knowledge. When you read her, you know that she's on a different level of understanding.Henry: You specialise in slightly neglected figures of English literature. Who else among the canonical writers deserves a bit more attention?Frances: Oh, that's interesting. I love minor characters. I think Spark was very witty about describing herself as a minor novelist or a writer of minor novels when she was evidently major. She always saw the comedy in being a minor. All the minor writers interest me. Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green. No, they have heard Elizabeth Bowen has been treated well by Hermione Lee and Henry Green has been treated well by Jeremy Treglown.Why are they not up there yet? They're so much better than most of their contemporaries. I am mystified and fascinated by why it is that the most powerful writers tend to be kicked into the long grass. It's dazzling. When you read a Henry Green novel, you think, "But this is what it's all about. He's understood everything about what the novel can do. Why has no one heard of him?"Henry: I think Elizabeth Bowen's problem is that she's so concise, dense, and well-structured, and everything really plays its part in the pattern of the whole that it's not breezy reading.Frances: No, it's absolutely not.Henry: I think that probably holds her back in some way, even though when I have pushed it on people, most of the time they've said, "Gosh, she's a genius."Frances: Yes.Henry: It's not an easy genius. Whereas Dickens, the pages sort of fly along, something like that.Frances: Yes. One of the really interesting things about Spark is that she really, really is easy reading. At the same time, there's so much freight in those books. There's so much intellectual weight and so many games being played. There's so many books inside the books. Yet you can just read them for the pleasure. You can just read them for the plot. You can read one in an afternoon and think that you've been lost inside a book for 10 years. You don't get that from Elizabeth Bowen. That's true. The novels, you feel the weight, don't you?Henry: Yes.Frances: She's Jamesian. She's more Jamesian, I think, than Spark is.Henry: Something like A World of Love, it requires quite a lot of you.Frances: Yes, it does. Yes, it's not bedtime reading.Henry: No, exactly.Frances: Sitting up in a library.Henry: Yes. Now, you mentioned James. You're a Henry James expert.Frances: I did my PhD on Henry James.Henry: Yes. Will you ever write about him?Frances: I have, actually. Just a little plug. I've just done a selection of James's short stories, three volumes, which are coming out, I think, later this year for Riverrun with a separate introduction for each volume. I think that's all the writing I'm going to do on James. When I was an academic, I did some academic essays on him for collections and things. No, I've never felt, ever, ready to write on James because he's too complicated. I can only take tiny, tiny bits of James and home in on them.Henry: He's a great one for trying to crack the code.Frances: He really is. In fact, I was struck all the way through writing Electric Spark by James's understanding of the comedy of biography, which is described in the figure in the carpet. Remember that wonderful story where there's a writer called Verica who explains to a young critic that none of the critics have understood what his work's about. Everything that's written about him, it's fine, but it's absolutely missed his main point, his beautiful point. He said that in order to understand what the work's about, you have to look for The Figure in the Carpet. It's The Figure in the CarpetIt's the string on which my pearls are strung. A couple of critics become completely obsessed with looking for this Figure in the Carpet. Of course, Spark loved James's short stories. You feel James's short stories playing inside her own short stories. I think that one of the games she left for her biographers was the idea of The Figure in the Carpet. Go on, find it then. Find it. [laughs] The string on which my pearls are strung.Henry: Why did you leave academia? We should say that you did this before it became the thing that everyone's doing.Frances: Is everyone leaving now?Henry: A lot of people are leaving now.Frances: Oh, I didn't know. I was ahead of the curve. I left 20 years ago because I wasn't able to write the books I wanted to write. I left when I'd written two books as an academic. My first was Literary Seductions, and my second was a biography of a blackmailing courtesan called Harriet Wilson, and the book was called The Courtesan's Revenge. My department was sniffy about the books because they were published by Faber and not by OUP, and suggested that somehow I was lowering the tone of the department.This is what things were like 20 years ago. Then I got a contract to write The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, my third book, again with Faber. I didn't want to write the book with my head of department in the back of my mind saying, "Make this into an academic tome and put footnotes in." I decided then that I would leave, and I left very suddenly. Now, I said I'm leaving sort of now, and I've got books to write, and felt completely liberated. Then for The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, I decided not to have footnotes. It's the only book I've ever written without footnotes, simply as a celebration of no longer being in academia.Then the things I loved about being in academia, I loved teaching, and I loved being immersed in literature, but I really couldn't be around colleagues and couldn't be around the ridiculous rules of what was seen as okay. In fact, the university I left, then asked me to come back on a 0.5 basis when they realised that it was now fashionable to have someone who was a trade author. They asked me to come back, which I did not want to do. I wanted to spend days where I didn't see people rather than days where I had to talk to colleagues all the time. I think that academia is very unhappy. The department I was in was incredibly unhappy.Since then, I took up a job very briefly in another English department where I taught creative writing part-time. That was also incredibly unhappy. I don't know whether other French departments or engineering departments are happier places than English departments, but English departments are the most unhappy places I think I've ever seen.[laughter]Henry: What do you admire about the work of George Meredith?Frances: Oh, I love George Meredith. [laughs] Yes. I think Modern Love, his first novel, Modern Love, in a strange sonnet form, where it's not 14 lines, but 16 lines. By the time you get to the bottom two lines, the novel, the sonnet has become hysterical. Modern Love hasn't been properly recognised. It's an account of the breakdown of his marriage. His wife, who was the daughter of the romantic, minor novelist, Thomas Love Peacock. His wife had an affair with the artist who painted the famous Death of Chatterton. Meredith was the model for Chatterton, the dead poet in his purple silks, with his hand falling on the ground. There's a lot of mythology around Meredith.I think, as with Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green, he's difficult. He's difficult. The other week, I tried to reread Diana of the Crossways, which was a really important novel, and I still love it. I really recognise that it's not an easy read. He doesn't try, in any way, to seduce his readers. They absolutely have to crawl inside each book to sit inside his mind and see the world as he's seeing it.Henry: Can you tell us what you will do next?Frances: At the moment, I'm testing some ideas out. I feel, at the end of every biography, you need a writer. You need to cleanse your palate. Otherwise, there's a danger of writing the same book again. I need this time, I think, to write about, to move century and move genders. I want to go back, I think, to the 19th century. I want to write about a male writer for a moment, and possibly not a novelist as well, because after being immersed in Muriel Sparks' novels, no other novel is going to seem good enough. I'm testing 19th-century men who didn't write novels, and it will probably be a minor character.Henry: Whatever it is, I look forward to reading it. Frances Wilson, thank you very much.Frances: Thank you so much, Henry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Paul Hartnoll of electronic music duo Orbital talks about the reissue of the band's Brown album which was originally released in 1993, with the addition of 23 extra tracks of rarities and previously unreleased material and about the intersection between dance music and politics. Frances Wilson, who has previously published acclaimed biographies of D H Lawrence and Thomas De Quincy tells us about her latest book Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, about the great Scottish writer, poet and essayist. And the creator of Netflix's new detective series Dept. Q, Scott Frank, who previously wrote and directed The Queen's Gambit and has written the scripts for Hollywood movies from Minority Report to Marley & Me, talks to us about adapting bestselling Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen's books for the screen and why he's transposed the setting for the series from Copenhagen to Edinburgh. Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan

May's Book: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence Kathryn's Edamame Salad Other books: The Mystery Guest by Grégoire BouillierThe English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton Endure by Alex HutchinsonReal Americans by Rachel KhongOur Instagram: somethingwereadpodOur email: somethingweread@gmail.comJune's Book The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen Closing poem: “Praising Spring” by Linda Gregg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is one of the most famous novelists of his era - and one of the most difficult to pin down. Was he a tasteless, avant-garde pornographer? Or the greatest imaginative novelist of his generation (as E.M. Forster once said)? What should we know about his hard-luck childhood and turbulent adult life? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer David Ellis (D.H. Lawrence: A Critical Life) about the struggle to capture and convey the essence of Lawrence's life and works. PLUS Dorian Lynskey (Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World), an expert in literature about cataclysmic events, stops by to discuss the last book he - and others - might turn to at the very end. Additional listening: 508 Lord Byron (with David Ellis) 694 Apocalyptic Literature (with Dorian Lynskey) 87 Man in Love: The Passions of D.H. Lawrence The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com . Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us on a jam packed episode of Ye Olde Guide!This is the second part of three episodes on NottinghamIn the Science & industry section we discover the history of the Lace industry and the big companies that grew in Nottingham like Boots chemist, Raleigh Cycles and Players Cigarettes.  We will learn about the contributions of the Universities in Nottingham.In the Arts & Culture section we discuss the legacies of Robin Hood, Nottingham's sporting clubs and several writers who were heavily influenced by the city including Graham Greene, DH Lawrence, and Alan Sillitoe.  We learn about Lord Byron, Paul Smith and the Goose Fair.Check out part 1 for the introduction to our historical guide to NottinghamSend us a text

Lasting from the ninth century BC right up until Roman conquest in the first century BC, the Etruscans were a powerful ancient civilisation who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, and rubbed shoulders with the other iconic ancient cultures of their day. Often painted as a mysterious people whose culture has now largely vanished from view, researcher Lucy Shipley instead presents us with a very different picture. Speaking to Emily Briffett, she delves into the archaeological and written records to bring us closer to this fascinating civilisation – and uncover why it captivated the likes of the Medici, DH Lawrence and the Roman emperor Claudius. (Ad) Lucy Shipley is the author of The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations (Reaktion Books, 2017). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Etruscans-Lost-civilizations-Lucy-Shipley/dp/1780238320/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hoy escucharemos varios temas del grupo inglés EYELES IN GAZA. Martyn Bates y Pete Becker crecen en la escena musical inglesa de los años 70, con influencias folk y pop, con lecturas de Huxley y Milton, de DH Lawrence y Dylan Thomas. Más tarde, de Rilke. Se trata de una propuesta de Ignacio Castro Rey, con quien compartimos hoy nuestros micrófonos. Filósofo, Crítico de arte, música y cine, creador en encuentros y debates, Ignacio Castro es autor de libros artículos y volúmenes colectivos entre los que destacamos Antropofobia. Inteligencia artificial y crueldad calculada (Pre-Textos, 2024). Ignacio Castro desarrolla su labor filosófica en dos vertientes indisociables. Castro parte de una afirmación filosófica de la inmediatez terrenal, una existencia común que apenas posee hoy representación política. Desde ahí realiza una crítica constante de la violencia contemporánea del nihilismo. Más información en el email lacasadelsonido@rtve.esy en el sitio web  www.ignaciocastrorey.comEscuchar audio

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Read by Juliet Prew Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Recorded by Academy of American Poets staff for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on December 29, 2024. www.poets.org

durée : 00:42:46 - Signes des temps - par : Marc Weitzmann - Alors que paraît dans la bibliothèque de la Pléiade "L'Amant de lady Chatterley : et autres romans" de David Herbert Lawrence, Marc Weitzmann s'entretient avec les traducteurs Marc Porée et Laurent Bury. - réalisation : Luc-Jean Reynaud - invités : Marc Porée Angliciste, professeur émérite de l'ENS; Laurent Bury Traducteur, critique.

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This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing, and much much more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod to sign up from just £3 a month. In this patrons episode we thought we'd begin to explore the academic discipline of Cultural Studies. Tim and Jeremy (both Cultural Studies professors themselves remember) explain the ways in which academic study of popular cultural was developing in the mid-70s, including the political motivations informing academics developing the discipline, in the wake of sociology and social anthropology. They talk about analysis of subculture, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Mods, Rockers, nostalgia, Cool Jazz, with a healthy dash of DH Lawrence thrown in for good measure.  In our next episode we'll discuss in detail the seminal book Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. Books: William Foote White - Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian SlumC. Wright Mills - The Power ElitesRaymond Williams - Culture and SocietyRichard Hoggart - The Uses of Literacy DH Lawrence - Lady's Chatterly's LoverStan Cohen - Folk Devils and Moral Panics Paul Willis - Profane Culture Tracklist:Lennie Tristano - CrosscurrentsEwan McColl & Peggy Seeger - The Black Velvet BandThe Who - The Kids are AlrightBuddy Holly - Not Fade Away

Amanda Holmes reads D. H. Lawrence's “Snake.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jackie and Greg bear witness to the decadence and raging sexuality of a small English mining town for Ken Russell's WOMEN IN LOVE from 1969. Topics of discussion include the film's origins as an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's classic novel, the quartet of characters at the center of the film, how it was cutting edge for its time, and why it resonates with Greg so much.The continuation of our "Personal Prints" series where Jackie and Greg venture off the Sight & Sound list to explore films that are special and/or formative to them.Check us out on Instagram: instagram.com/sceneandheardpodCheck us out at our official website: sceneandheardpod.comGraphic Design: Molly PintoMusic: Andrew CoxEditing: Greg KleinschmidtGet in touch at hello@sceneandheardpod.comSupport the Show.Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/SceneandHeardPodorSubscribe just to get access to our bonus episodes: buzzsprout.com/1905508/subscribe

Here we narrate D.H. Lawrence's "The Man Who Loved Islands," where isolation becomes both a refuge and a prison. This gripping audiobook tells the story of Mr. Carthcart, a man who seeks solitude by purchasing a series of increasingly remote islands, each retreat further distancing him from the human connections he undervalues. But as he delves deeper into his self-imposed exile, Carthcart finds that nature's overpowering presence grows ever more formidable, threatening to erase any trace of his existence. Well-known literary critic Margaret Drabble hails this narrative as one of the finest examples of English short stories, masterfully weaving allegory and literal narrative into a profound exploration of human isolation. This story delves deeply into the psyche of a man who is fundamentally incapable of forming real human connections or adapting to a shared existence. With each island retreat, Carthcart's disconnect grows, turning each new haven into a more desolate and isolating place than the last. Perfect for those who are captivated by the complexities of solitude and the human condition, this audiobook offers a compelling narrative that captures the tragic consequences of a life lived at the margins of society. Listen and uncover the depth of Lawrence's insight into the inevitable downfall that comes from fleeing the very essence of humanity: our need for each other. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"When British author D.H. Lawrence first published one of his last novels, Lady Chatterley's Lover, in 1928, he knew it was going to stir up controversy. Some might even say he wrote it that way on purpose, a result of career-long persecution and harassment from the British government for not adhering to their standards of living. In 1960, thirty years after the author died, Penguin Books was about to publish an unabridged version of Lady Chatterley in the form of an affordable paperback. The government was not having it, which led to one of the best known literary obscenity trials of the 20th century.Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.Instagram: @literaryscandalsSelected bibliography:• The book that changed Britain: Why the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial still matters 60 years later, Penguin Books• Inside the Game-Changing Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Esquire

Here we narrate D.H. Lawrence's "The Man Who Loved Islands," where isolation becomes both a refuge and a prison. This gripping audiobook tells the story of Mr. Carthcart, a man who seeks solitude by purchasing a series of increasingly remote islands, each retreat further distancing him from the human connections he undervalues. But as he delves deeper into his self-imposed exile, Carthcart finds that nature's overpowering presence grows ever more formidable, threatening to erase any trace of his existence. Well-known literary critic Margaret Drabble hails this narrative as one of the finest examples of English short stories, masterfully weaving allegory and literal narrative into a profound exploration of human isolation. This story delves deeply into the psyche of a man who is fundamentally incapable of forming real human connections or adapting to a shared existence. With each island retreat, Carthcart's disconnect grows, turning each new haven into a more desolate and isolating place than the last. Perfect for those who are captivated by the complexities of solitude and the human condition, this audiobook offers a compelling narrative that captures the tragic consequences of a life lived at the margins of society. Listen and uncover the depth of Lawrence's insight into the inevitable downfall that comes from fleeing the very essence of humanity: our need for each other.

In the spotlight is D.H. Lawrence, the great and controversial novelist, and Richard Kaye, professor of literature in the English department at Hunter College, part of the city university system in Manhattan. Since 2017, Mr. Kaye has been the editor of The D. H. Lawrence Review, the 50-year-old journal dealing with the life and work of the British writer. We discuss: >> The censorship of Lawrence's novels>> Lady Chatterly's Lover>> D.H. Lawrence's status as one of the greatest writers of his century>> His modernist works>> His take on social alienation and industrialization>> His championing of sexuality, vitality and instinct>> Etc. Learn more about D.H. Lawrence here: https://www.dhlawrencesociety.com Learn more about Richard Kaye here: https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/english/richard-kaye/richard-kaye Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” “Family Recipes: A Novel About Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century” and “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play.” Buy them on any major bookselling site. Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program. 

Why does the Prussian officer pick on his orderly so much? Seriously, what's eating the guy? D.H. Lawrence, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.  Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.  The Vintage Episode for the week is “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, from the Arabian Nights. Be sure to check it out on Tuesday.  If you enjoy the show, please become a monthly supporter, and help us continue to highlight these amazing stories.  Please go to http://classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a monthly supporter for as little as $5 a month. As a thank you gesture, we'll send you a coupon code every month for $8 off any audiobook order. Give more, and you get more! It's a great way to help us keep producing sparkling audiobook content.  Go to http://classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a supporter today. I've been having fun designing the specials for our Kickstarter for the next Arsène Lupin book – The Golden Triangle. Boxed sets, special editions, enamel pins – I've got a lot to do, and I want to get it all ready so we can hit the ground running. Keep an ear open for when we pull the trigger!   Today's story is about two soldiers – an officer and his orderly. The officer is a little older, comes from a wealthy family, has squandered his inheritance and must make a living in the military. He's angry and ornery all the time.  This orderly is the opposite – he's young and sensitive. His name is Schöner, which means “more beautiful” in German. I hope you like it.   And now, The Prussian Officer, by D.H. Lawrence. Follow this link to become a monthly supporter: Follow this link to subscribe to our newsletter and join us on Zoom for the Classic Tales Book Club:   Follow this link to subscribe to our YouTube Channel:   Follow this link to subscribe to the Arsène Lupin Podcast:   Follow this link to follow us on Instagram:   Follow this link to follow us on Facebook:    Follow this link to follow us on TikTok:  

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This intimate portrait of a coal-miner's family fastens on each member in turn: Walter Morel, the collier; Gertrude, his wife; and the children: William, Annie, Arthur, and Paul. When Mrs. Morel begins to be estranged from her husband because of his poor financial sense and his drinking habits, she comes to inhabit the lives of her children - most particularly, her sons. She is determined that they will grow to be something more than men that come home blackened with coal dust every day and roaring with drink every night. As each grows up and moves away, she must release him. But Paul, she holds; they have a bond that defies time and the attractions of young women.Lawrence originally intended the book's title to be "Paul Morel" and it is on this son - and his lovers - that he spends the bulk of his tale. The strong mother can make a success of her son, but if he cannot learn to leave his mother's apron strings, will he really be a better man than his father?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Lady Chatterley's Lover, sex politics, and what DH Lawrence means by a "crisis." --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/unfortunately-required/support

Today's show is a recording of a live reading by beloved poet, legendary convenor and photographer Michael Reynolds. In this recording, he is performing at the Cherry Poets in Cremorne on the 13th of January 2024. This recording includes a reading of "Snake" by DH Lawrence

Superguest Mike Palindrome joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of D.H. Lawrence's short story "Tickets, Please" (1918), a "war of the sexes" modernist story in which some innocent flirtation turns to revenge and violence. PLUS literature aficionado Myron Tuman returns to the podcast to discuss his selection for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Banned in many countries until the 1960s, David Herbert Lawrence's 1928 novel is both racier and tamer than you might imagine. What more would you expect from a book that uses both "the love experience" and [BLEEP] to describe, well, adult behavior? Caveat lictor: this episode features discussions of Adult Situations.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Advertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A new year marks a new trove of material entering the public domain. This year's entries include works from 1928 like Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera," music from Cole Porter, and literature from Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, and Agatha Christie. But the real star of show is Mickey Mouse, whose very first appearance in "Steamboat Willie" is now without copyright. Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, joins us to explain what that means. It's also been one year since we launched WNYC's Public Song Project, and we have plans for that in store. Keep your eyes peeled and ears open for more info to come soon.

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Disney's earliest Mickey and Minnie Mouse enter public domain as US copyright expiresSummary: A short animated film released in 1928 that features non-speaking versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse has entered the public domain, which means anyone can now use their copyright-less image however they choose, ending a long period in which all variations of these characters were assiduously protected by Disney lawyers.Context: US copyright law gives the creators of characters like Mickey Mouse 95 years of protection before they're no longer exclusive and can be repurposed, remixed, and appropriated by anyone for any use or reason; earlier US copyright law only protected such works for 55 years, but Congress recently upped that by 20 years and then by another 20 years, keeping Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain first in 1984, then in 2004—efforts that were lobbied for by Disney and which have caused the relevant law to be nicknamed “the Mickey Mouse Protection Act” in some corners of the legal profession; a new swathe of works lose their copyright every year, and 2024 also brings Winnie the Pooh's friend Tigger, a silent film called The Circus starring Charlie Chaplin, and DH Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover into the public domain.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Powerful earthquake slams Japan, residents flee some coastal areasSummary: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 destroyed dozens of buildings and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes in central Japan; the government issued a major tsunami warning for coastal residents, the first since early 2011, but that warning was later downgraded.Context: Residents in and around afflicted areas have been warned to prepare for more quakes and potential tsunamis, readying themselves for a quick evacuation if necessary, and transportation has been disrupted by the closing of train lines, highways, and at least one airport due to damage or concerns about potential damage to their infrastructure; Russia and North Korea also issued tsunami warnings following the quake, but those warnings have also now been downgraded.—ReutersArgentina formally announces it won't join the BRICS alliance in Milei's latest policy shiftSummary: The Argentine government has formally announced that it won't be joining the BRICS bloc of developing countries, marking a promise kept by recently elected Argentine President Milei.Context: The BRICS bloc—an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—is in the process of opening up to more countries as part of a larger ambition to challenge the geopolitical and economic dominance of the world's currently wealthiest nations, and Argentina was one of the six initial invitees; Argentina is in the midst of a staggering economic crisis, which is part of why Milei, who says he wants to blow the whole thing up and rebuild it from scratch, basically, was elected, but his opposition to joining the group is seemingly more ideological than practical, as he says he wants to align Argentina with countries like the US and Israel, not countries like China.—The Associated PressThe number of unhoused people in the United States has reached a new post-2007 high (which is when the Department of Housing and Urban Development started tracking homelessness in the country); 653,104 Americans were tallied as experiencing homelessness in 2023, which is up by about 12% from 2022—that increase ostensibly the result of a reduction in social safety net programs following the truncation of pandemic-era programs and sharp rent increases.—Chartr>112,000Number of deaths attributed to overdoses of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in the United States in 2023—a new, grim milestone.Many such deaths result from opioid addictions sparked by injuries or the escalatory use of less powerful drugs like heroin, while others are accidentally exposed when it's erroneously sold to them as some other type of black-market drug, like ADHD or depression medication.—NPR NewsTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Denton Loving is the author of Crimes Against Birds (Main Street Rag) and Tamp (Mercer University Press). He is also the editor of Seeking Its Own Level: an anthology of writings about water (MotesBooks). He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. His work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, The Kenyon Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Threepenny Review, and Ecotone. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire in England, and he died in 1930 at Vence in the south of France. Though Lawrence is best known for his novels—he's the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover and nearly a dozen others—he also published short stories, plays, essays, criticism, and more than a dozen collections of poetry. Links:Read "Copperhead," "Foundation," and "Hurtling"Read "Humming-Bird"Denton LovingDenton Loving's website"Five Poems by Denton Loving" at Salvation South"Three Poems by Denton Loving" at Harvard Divinity Bulletin"Under the Chestnut Tree" at EcotoneVideo: WANA (Writers Association of Northern Appalachia) Live! Reading Series featuring Denton LovingReview of Tamp at Southern Review of BooksD.H. LawrenceBio, Poems, and Prose at The Poetry FoundationBio and Poems at Poetry.orgMentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser

A little teaser for what's coming in Abridgd...Too Far! Next on our list is D H :Lawrence's lurid tale of sex, life, sex, culture, sex, politics, sex, social justice and SEX: Lady Chatterley's Lover This trailer will get the juices flowing in expectation. And if you haven't heard our first three episodes - "The Great Gatsby", "Jane Eyre" and "The War of the Worlds", then now is your time to catch up! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke reads "Odour of Chrysanthemums," D.H. Lawrence's story about a woman waiting for her husband, a coal miner, to come home. Then Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, stops by to discuss his trip to the Proust Conference and his thoughts on Lawrence's classic short story. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A group of young people are out and about one snowy night in Hampstead, Northwest London, when strange laughter and mysterious voices seem to be changing both themselves and the world around them. This original recording is an audio presentation by Jasper L'Estrange for EnCrypted Horror. “The Last Laugh” by D. H. Lawrence (1925). You can hear me discuss this story by joining as a YouTube channel member or becoming a Patreon patron and listening to The EnCrypted Postmortem.

Discussing SONS AND LOVERS by DH Lawrence + the inescapable ancestral doom of human desire + the effulgent glow of hope in the distance of life on Earth. Find Vyl on Twitter: twitter.com/vylpill And on the Patreon exclusive SIRENS, Zach and Vyl review Otessa Moshfegh: patreon.com/imsopopular (ISP S4.E09)

DH Lawrence described outcasts living by the Thames, Mina Loy made art from trash, calling her pieces “refusées", Wyndham Lewis moved from England to America in search of stability after burning many bridges in Britain. In this conversation about new research, Jade Munslow Ong discusses the way widening the canon of writers traditionally labelled as “modernist” might allow a greater understanding of attitudes towards homelessness and poverty in the early decades of the twentieth century. Dr Laura Ryan has a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Galway where she is researching modernism and homelessness investigating the work of writers who were literally homeless, including D. H. Lawrence, Claude McKay, Jean Rhys and Tom Kromer, and also looking at depictions of homelessness in modernist texts by George Orwell, Mina Loy and Samuel Beckett. Dr Nathan Waddell is Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century Literature at the University of Birmingham. He is writing new books about Wyndham Lewis and about George Orwell. He has also edited collections of essays on Lewis, who featured in books already published by Nathan called Modernist Nowheres and Moonlighting. Nathan is also editing The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell. You can hear Nathan in a Free Thinking episode exploring futurism in a collection of discussions about modernism on the website of the Radio 3 Arts and Ideas programme Dr Jade Munslow Ong is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Salford where she is working on a project entitled South African Modernism 1880-2020. You can hear about some of the authors featured in her Essay for Radio 3 called The South African Bloomsberries. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio This podcast is made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can sign up for more episodes of the Arts and Ideas podcast wherever you find your podcasts or look at the collection of discussions focused on New Research available via the Free Thinking programme website.

Author, poet and performer Michael Rosen is one of Britain's best loved and most prolific children's writers, having published hundreds of books over nearly fifty years, including his much-loved We're Going On Bear Hunt, the story of an exciting family outing, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. As a broadcaster he is well known to Radio 4 listeners as the host of Word of Mouth. He was appointed as Children's Laureate in 2007 and was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize in 2023, the citation noting his “ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope”. In conversation with John Wilson, Michael recalls the early influence of his parents, who were both active members of the British Communist Party, and the many books that lined the walls of the Rosen family home. He chooses, as a key cultural inspiration, a reproduction of a 16th century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Netherlandish Proverbs. Depicting ordinary people in various comic situations which represented well-known proverbs of the day, it captured the imagination of young Michael and his friends. He reveals how he started writing his own poetry in response to works by Gerard Manley Hopkins and D H Lawrence whilst at school, and remembers how We're Going On A Bear Hunt was inspired by various folk tales from around the world. Michael also discusses the impact on his work of the death of his son Eddie at the age of 18 in 1999, and in discovering more about the fate of Jewish family members during the Holocaust. Producer: Edwina Pitman

D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” is no liar. It’s got a rocking horse. It’s got a winner. It’s all there on the tin!

Is a young man's philandering ever really a victimless crime? D.H. Lawrence, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.  Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.  We are proudly supported by our listeners. We couldn't do this without you. Your monthly donation helps in so many ways, and it also gives you access to more classic titles.  Go to http://classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a financial supporter today. A $5 dollar monthly donation gets you an $8 monthly coupon code for any audiobook order. Thank you so much.  App users can watch a short video of me talking about another thing I love about the classics, if that's your idea of a good time.  If you're in the mood for a good contemporary thriller, check out Immortal Red, by Keith Hummel on Audible. The link is in the show notes. When a biologist discovers a jellyfish that holds the secret to immortality, things start to spin out of control. Tapping into his years of medical experience, Hummel's convincing thriller spans the globe as governments and mercenaries conspire to acquire the real essence of eternal life. I had a great time recording it. That's Immortal Red, by Keith Hummel. Don't miss it!  David Herbert Lawrence was a novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist. His best known novels, including “Sons and Lovers”, “The Rainbow”, and “Lady Chatterley's Lover”, were subjects of censorship trials for their radical use of strong language and sexuality. Lawrence was largely maligned and estranged during his career. However, E.M. Forster in an obituary notice challenged this view, dubbing Lawrence, “the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation”.  Today's story isn't particularly racy at all, please don't worry about that. But it's elegantly written, and very powerful in it's message. It's from a collection of short stories written from 1913 – 1922, and takes place during World War I. Written a hundred years before the “Me Too” movement, this is one of the issues we're still struggling with as a species. See if the punishment fits the crime. Then ask yourself why you came to that conclusion.  And now, Tickets, Please, by D.H. Lawrence.  Follow this link to pick up Immortal Red, by Keith Hummel on Audible.com    Follow this link to become a monthly supporter:    Follow this link to subscribe to the Arsène Lupin Podcast:   Follow this link to subscribe to our YouTube Channel:   Follow this link to follow us on Instagram:   Follow this link to follow us on Facebook:    Follow this link to follow us on TikTok:    

249 - Daughter Mabel was unconcerned about her future; she clearly had unexpected plans in mind. Tuck in and decide which assessment rings true: D.H. Lawrence truly was “the greatest imaginative novelist” or “a tasteless p____grapher.”

Controversial, compulsive, and overwhelmingly charismatic, D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But, as Mark argues in this episode, the quintessential Lawrence lies in his shorter fiction. Focusing on five stories that span Lawrence's career, Mark and Seamus discuss the strange mix of uninhibitedness and meticulous detail that make Lawrence's work essential reading.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Why do we write?" Sally asks herself this week, as she reads a novella by the 20th century writer DH Lawrence, a story of longing, dreams, desire and self-liberation. Sally is interrupted by the arrival of a gang of noisy pheasants, who annoy the local cat, the aloof and enigmatic Plucky. Sally reflects on the unknowable interiority of everyone - not just cats; and while spring cleaning, she finds a talismanic object - a faded cover of a much-loved, much-read book. Returning to Lawrence, she discusses how the bright shining physically grounded objects of the story generate a fairytale world, a place of enchantment and spells. DH  Lawrence was born in 1885; the initials stand for David Herbert. He achieved as much infamy as fame in his lifetime for writings which promoted sexuality, vitality and the power of instinct; they were seen as scandalous and shocking to the sensibilities of the time. It wasn't until after his death in 1930 that Lawrence gained a favourable critical reputation; Philip Larkin said Lawrence “had more genius .. than any man could be expected to handle", while EM Forster called him "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation". Lawrence's critical reputation dipped again in the 1970s and he remains controversial today; in this episode, Sally highlights his desire to restore to literature an apprehension of the intimacy of the body and the physical presence of things. The producer of the podcast is Andrew Smith: https://www.fleetingyearfilms.com The extra voice in this episode is Emma Fielding. Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far. Special thanks go to Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.  

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. In this final essay of the series, Geoff Dyer retraces a pilgrimage to New Mexico, where DH Lawrence's ashes were supposedly built into a concrete shrine near Taos at the request of his estranged wife Frieda. But were they actually his ashes? Dyer is a multi-award winning novelist and non-fiction writer. His many books include Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H. Lawrence, and his latest The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings, which was published in 2022. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Louise and Virginia do a deep dive into the very contentious topic of Cancel Culture and the trend of cancelling books and authors. They also touch on the subject of banning books (and indeed burning books), which always have the opposite effect of that sought. Virginia and Lou both have very strong opinions on the subject and it's such an interesting conversation. They also discuss a few great non-bookish things they've been diving into of late.BooksThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, 2006, DoubledayAll the Bright Places by John Boyne, 2022, DoubledaySlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, 1969Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence, 1928.The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Edited by CH RolpheTV ShowsVardy v Rooney-BingeMurder on the Homefront – NetflixSignificant Others – ABC iViewNolly – FoxtelPodcastThe Banned Books Podcast

On today's episode, I whisper some classic poems by some of poetry's greatest writers. Enjoy! --- SHOW PARTNERS: Jupiter Organic CBD Get 10% off your order of Jupiter CBD by visiting GetJupiter.com and using code ASMR at checkout https://www.getjupiter.com/share/asmr BetterHelp https://TryBetterHelp.com/Relax 10% off exclusive offer to Sleep and Relax ASMR listeners. BetterHelp is the largest online counseling platform worldwide. They offer convenient, discreet and affordable access to a licensed therapist. Available worldwide. Magic Mind Get 20% off your first Magic Mind order at www.MagicMind.co/ASMR --- Buy us a coffee! buymeacoff.ee/sI5ZB4N --- DOWNLOAD: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sleep-and-relax-asmr/id1133320064 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/sleepandrelaxasmr Radio Public: https://radiopublic.com/sleep-and-relax-asmr-6pAPm8 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4VvI482AIUgKZGfOWqjuyw Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/sleep-and-relax-asmr Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/id356618 TuneIn Radio: http://tunein.com/radio/Sleep-and-Relax-ASMR-p899136/ Pobean: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/tvjti-4fcb7/Sleep-and-Relax-ASMR-Podcast --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sleepandrelaxasmr/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sleepandrelaxasmr/support