Celebrating Lawrence

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 20

Celebrating Lawrence

Plame Into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence. By Anthony Burgess. Heinemann, 1985. 209 pp, bibliography. $29.95. (Reviewed by Joan Curry)

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of D. H. Lawrence, Anthony Burgess has prepared this tribute to a fellow writer who, like Burgess himself, came from a working class background, grew up to live and work in self-impdsed exile away from his homeland, and whose works are still being criticised and evaluated more than half a century after , his death in the south of France.

Anthony Burgess represents that group of readers who, as adolescents, became aware of D. H. Lawrence as the author of what were then considered to be “dirty books.” Having got the sex out of the way, however, it became possible to read Lawrence with a more mature appreciation of his work. A lifetime of reading and writing experience has since enabled Burgess to put Lawrence in literary perspective and to place his “Women in Love” as one of the 10 best novels of this century. Critics disagree about Lawrence,

partly on the grounds of his loose, almost clumsy style. They Complain that he is repetitive, that he tends to preach, that his narrative point of view is often inconsistent Anthony Burgess is inclined to celebrate these qualities as Idiosyncratic virtues, enjoys being present in the smithy, as it were, while the work is being forged, and takes pleasure in the rough edges which some claim mar a work' of art while others declare give it texture. Lawrence’s work arose from the solar plexus rather than the head and he was not one to polish to perfection. “Lawrence seems to make poetry out of not caring a damn what poetry is supposed to be.” Burgess’s appreciation of Lawrence is not uncritical, however. He is aware of the uneven quality of the works and discusses their limitations as well as their strengths. He sets both prose and poetry in the context of Lawrence's life and times, showing how the work was inseparable from the life and how the puritan that was Lawrence became the prophet of the sexual revolution in English literature. The. book is aimed at the general reader, entertainingly and thoughtfully presented.