Our Fortnightly Book Review

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 17, 6 November 1931, Unnumbered Page

Our Fortnightly Book Review

SON OF WOMAN The Story of D. H. Lawrence |

By

JOHN MIDDLETON

MURRY

HIS story of the life and achievement of the dark genius known to the world as D. H. Lawrence has been ably and sympathetically treated by Mr. Middleton Murry in his. biography with the arresting title, "Son of Woman" ~A difficult task, the elucidation of the bewildered quest of an elusive goal by a brilliant intellect and tortured and tempestuous soul. ‘The account of the life, and analysis of Lawrence’s achievement and intention, are entirély unreticent. Nothing is glossed over, extenuated, or marred by undue partisanship. Obviously Mr. Murry has written a wholly unbiased impression of the wanderings and vain strivings of the poct-novelist’s body, soul and spirit, and attempted to differentiate between strongly sexual physical nature and the soaring spirit in ever-rectrring pursuit of the Grail. Writhing body coupled with vision of the sublime; contrast heaped upon contrast; bewildering inconsistencies; of these Mr. Murry takes firm hold and succeeds in presenting a coherent pen-portrait of one who, it is claimed, possessed unparalleled spiritual quality, and whose wallowings in sexuality were but the attempt of tormented soul to find oblivion. We are shown the childhood of Lawrence in poverty-stricken and (liscordant home, where a mother, neglected and ill-treated, is loved passionately by the small son who was her devoted champion till the day of her death and after. The influence of this "mother-complex" is insisted upon as the keynote of many dire struggles in later life with the world of women. That his mother was the being in his life whom he most deeply loved there can be no doubt, and even after her death her memory kept him from fulfilling himself in the full, free and contented love-life of normality. His soul was in bondage. Perhaps his loveliest lines were written on her death: I kiss you good-bye, my darling, Tt ts finished between us here. Oh, if I were as calm.as you are, Sweet and still on your bier! Oh, God, tf I had not to leave you Alone, my dear! From 17 to 21 years old. Lawrence taught miners’ children in a rough elementary school, but a few years afterwards made entrance into the literary world, some of his poems being accepted by Ford Madox Hueffer for "The Ynglish Review." Mr. Murry takes the novels, poems and psychological studies in chronological order and, speaking out of intimate knowledge and great love for the unhappy writer, strives to elucidate their bearing upon the life-story of the author of "Sons and Lovers,’ "Kangaroo," "Psycho-Analysis and the Unconscious," and the rest; claiming that each was. a thinly-veiled description of the vagaries of Lawrence’s own tortured soul and body. Women were sought as a means of escape from anguish of sensitive spirit, and the cleavage between flesh and sublimifty of idealism is insisted upon with unnecessarily lengthy asseveration. , After his mother’s death, freed from her overpowering claim, Lawrence met the woman destined to become his wife, his "brown bird" who hovered over his heart. or a time he found happiness in his marriage, but, fortunately or unfortunately, he was not of the stuff to find content in life’s everyday. The golden time was -soon over, the struggle renewed, and rebellion against his dependence upon woman was uppermost. The only thing, says Mr. Murry, that could be done was that Lawrence should cease to depend upon woman,, should cease to find in her the sole refuge from the isolation which threatened him with intolerable horror; and this he could not do. It is the age-old battle between flesh and spirit, but intensified a thousand-fold in the personality of this dreamer of divine heights, egoist and sensualist, soaring idealist who repudiated his ideals,

There is, perhaps, over-much discussion of the ever-recurring chasm between dream and actuality, which no rainbow coul?l bridge; but Mr. Murry’s book is of extreme interest, not only because of his scholarly treatment of his subject, but also for the sidelights shed on the friendship of himself and his wife, Katherine Mansfield, for the distraught genius whom they loved. The book is transparently sincere, entirely honest; although there are those who may disagree with Mr. Murry’s estimate of the inherent nobility of Lawrence’s character and the overs whelming importance of his message to mankind.