When I wrote about D.H. Lawrence’s The Fox, I mentioned that Henry is “cunning, sly, shrewd, stealthy,” but I didn’t really explain about the repetition of descriptions like this throughout the story. But based on my recent reading of The Fox and the stories in Wintry Peacock (and failure to remember much of anything of Lady Chatterley’s Lover), this seems to be a feature of Lawrence’s writing. He gets very preoccupied with some characteristic, and repeats, repeats, repeats—but doesn’t sound bad doing so. At least to me. I find it poetic, or something.
For example, in “England, My England,” Lawrence is concerned with, among other things, Englishness. Egbert and Winifred are husband and wife, Egbert the product of fine breeding and Winifred from “strong-limbed, thick-blooded people, true English, as holly trees and hawthorn are English.” Now, that’s a whole thing on its own, one I’m not going to write about (let’s hope someone already has, especially what with Winifred’s being Catholic and all on top of it). I’m more interested in how many times Lawrence finds a way to tell us the same thing.
On Winifred, and family: “more vigorous, more robust and Christmassy” “ruddy fire” “hot blood-desire” “strong, heavy limbs” “old dark, Catholic blood-authority”
On Egbert, and their child who resembles him: “a born rose” “supple, handsome body” “fine texture of his flesh and hair” “tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth” “lovely little blonde daugher” “exquisite blonde thing” “white, slim, beautiful limbs” “light little cowslip” “blonde, winsome, touching little thing”
Again, the actual contrasts here are very good. But shouldn’t it feel like Lawrence is pounding it into us? For example:
Poor Winifred: she was still young, still strong and ruddy and beautiful like a ruddy hard flower of the field. Strange—her ruddy, healthy face, so sombre, and her strong, heavy, full-blooded body, so still.
He really gets stuck on “ruddy” there. Why doesn’t it sound like too much? Does it sound like too much to someone other than me?
In “The Blind Man” (really great, by the way), a similar type of passage on the childishness of the blind man:
They moved away. Pervin heard no more. But a childish sense of desolation had come over him, as he heard their brisk voices. He seemed shut out—like a child that is left out. He was aimless and excluded, he did not know what to do with himself. The helpless desolation came over him. He fumbled nervously as he dressed himself, in a state almost of childishness. He disliked the Scotch accent in Bertie’s speech, and the slight response it found on Isabel’s tongue. He disliked the slight purr of complacency in the Scottish speech. He disliked intensely the glib way in which Isabel spoke of their happiness and nearness. It made him recoil. He was fretful and beside himself like a child; he had almost a childish nostalgia to be included in the life circle. And at the same time he was a man, dark and powerful and infuriated by his own weakness. By some fatal flaw, he could not be by himself, he had to depend on the support of another. And this very dependence enraged him. He hated Bertie Reid, and at the same time he knew the hatred was nonsense, he knew it was the outcome of his own weakness.
“a childish sense” “like a child” “helpless” “childishness” “like a child” “a childish nostalgia” “a man” “his own weakness” “his own weakness”
It should be like getting hit over the head, like the way Henry in The Fox is almost continuously being identified with the fox, and Banford is almost being continuously described as red-eyed, &tc. But that’s not at all the feeling I actually get from it. Instead it feels rhythmic, it feels like Lawrence is choosing his words carefully, like he knows these are the right words and isn’t afraid of them.
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