The weather is miserable, and his latest novel is dividing critics…
It’s January 1924 and D.H. Lawrence visits Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Paris. Unfortunately, the weather isn’t very good which puts him in a bit of a strop. His writing is as divisive as ever. His novel Kangaroo is dismissed as ‘a book no one should read’ but a review in The TLS claims there has ‘never been more of an artist in vision and word.’ Thus, it has been the case ever since.
He makes plans to return to New Mexico but only on the condition there is no repeat of the ‘vileness of 1923.’ For this to happen, he advises Mabel Dodge Luhan – the wealthy benefactor who will be putting him up - ‘You must learn not to care, not to think, and simply to laugh. I am sure seriousness is a disease, today.’ But will he take his own advice…
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly as part of the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre project.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1922, click here.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1923, click here.
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