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A review by hadeanstars
Aaron's Rod by D.H. Lawrence
4.0
Having completed all of Lawrence's major works I am now into the outliers, novellas, short story collections and lesser known materials, which is a happy and unhappy place to be all at once. This is an interesting story, and although not well known, is nonetheless a classic Lawrence. Surely, everything that Lawrence wrote has to be quintessentially Lawrencian, I hear you cry? Well, perhaps, but this novel starts uncomfortably, because it does not really feel like his work, and it is a bit of a labour in truth. It seems as though he does not really love it and his protagonist, Aaron, appears similarly lost and uncertain, talking politics in the pub, clashing with the proletariat and the bourgeois alike, and not really fitting in anywhere. He cuts an increasingly isolated and unhappy figure, self-exiled from all society, even that of his own family.
A health crisis pitches him into a new paradigm and he leaves the foggy shores of his native land for the continent and makes his way to Italy. Now Lawrence light begins to burn, as all the old unhappiness - and at times bitterness - that Lawrence contended with in his own life, is somehow got rid of in a catharsis of excitement as he revels in his new world. His interest is wrenched into narrow focus by the dusky, soft, full-bosomed Marchesa whom he delights in seducing in his mind's eye. There is a scene where he plays the flute and she accompanies him, they reach a climax of expressive freedom together as though it were a love act and their affair is begun. All the wrestling with the battle of the sexes is under way, and we are into classic Lawrence at last, grappling with the imponderable intricacies of the union of man with woman, its impossibilities and promises. The final third is a work of genius. But you need to be committed to get there.
A health crisis pitches him into a new paradigm and he leaves the foggy shores of his native land for the continent and makes his way to Italy. Now Lawrence light begins to burn, as all the old unhappiness - and at times bitterness - that Lawrence contended with in his own life, is somehow got rid of in a catharsis of excitement as he revels in his new world. His interest is wrenched into narrow focus by the dusky, soft, full-bosomed Marchesa whom he delights in seducing in his mind's eye. There is a scene where he plays the flute and she accompanies him, they reach a climax of expressive freedom together as though it were a love act and their affair is begun. All the wrestling with the battle of the sexes is under way, and we are into classic Lawrence at last, grappling with the imponderable intricacies of the union of man with woman, its impossibilities and promises. The final third is a work of genius. But you need to be committed to get there.