A review by seebrandyread
Aaron's Rod by D.H. Lawrence

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Aaron Sisson is having a midlife crisis. At least that’s what we’d probably call it today. He abandons his wife, children, and career at Christmas with no real explanation or plan except to go where the wind takes him, making his way by playing the flute. In his wandering, Aaron meets Rawdon Lilly, a man living more or less the way Aaron aspires to: married but standing on his own and secure in his singularity, traveling where and how he likes, only working (as a writer) when the need or desire arises. The novel pulls them apart and brings them together as they both navigate post WWI Europe in an attempt to figure out where their lives are going. One of the main hitches in Aaron’s plans is women. For Aaron, love means surrendering to someone else, and now that women have found more freedom and agency after the war, they have become the dominant sex (in his mind) which causes them to require the upperhand in a sexual or romantic relationship. Thus women and the war are co conspirators in the elimination of manhood as the men in this novel know it. For all of the talking and thinking Aaron does alone and with his friends, he never questions gender roles very critically. All of the conflict Aaron observes between the sexes, both real and imagined, comes from insisting on a rigid binary. He thinks one must have power over the other, and Lilly confirms that all people are driven by an urge to love or have power, but they never point those urges inward, never think that maybe they need power over or can’t love someone else because they don't have power over or love their own selves. This novel (which should've been a play) is a mess because Aaron is a mess or vice versa. Instead of a convertible or motorcycle as a stand-in for Aaron’s penis, he has his “rod” or flute. His story is neither interesting or unique by today’s standards, and he probably could have solved most of his problems with divorce and therapy.