⋙ Libro Free The Rainbow Modern Library 100 Best Novels DH Lawrence Keith Cushman 9780375759659 Books

The Rainbow Modern Library 100 Best Novels DH Lawrence Keith Cushman 9780375759659 Books

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The Rainbow Modern Library 100 Best Novels DH Lawrence Keith Cushman 9780375759659 Books

Banned, condemned, vilified both as unpatriotic and a pornographer dressing up his offensive portrayals in pretty language; in other words, some contemporaries weren't too pleased with D. H. Lawrence and his expansive excursion through recent English industry, life, love, and yearning, The Rainbow (Oxford World's Classics). Court ordered confiscation greeted the novel's publication. Why? Here was a writer who questioned the very foundations of what it meant to be British, of material progress, of family life and sexuality, a writer who dared to show people's sexual lives as they were, and to enliven these expositions in language reserved for describing religious experiences. Sounds pretty darn radical, even by today's much more liberal standards.

Structurally, The Rainbow is a family saga that follows the lives of the Brangwen family -- Tom, Anna, and Ursula (who continues, along with artist sister Gudrun, in Women in Love (Oxford World's Classics)) -- of East Midlands over three generations, from around 1840 through 1905. It incorporates the progression of British industry, in particular how it expands around the Brangwen homestead, Marsh Farm, and treats consequences of it critically. Lawrence is also critical of the redoubtable British military, focusing on the Boer War and Ursula's shattered lover, military engineer Skrebensky. But publishing at the opening of WWI, he won himself no friends among the stalwart loyalists.

When Lawrence comes up, most think of sex. There's plenty of it in The Rainbow, though none of it explicit or lurid. It's more a part of life, a legitimate expression of one's feelings. And it's usually ecstatic, as powerful as a religious experience; hence, Lawrence's use of religious language -- and many biblical allusions -- to heighten the experience. For example, toward the end of the novel, well after Ursula and Skrebensky have broken their engagement, he returns to England. They reunite and once again make love. Lawrence gives us a description that conveys an idea radical for its day, along with a nod to the eternal (with his characteristic repetition):

"Then he turned and kissed her, and she waited for him. The pain to her was the pain she wanted, the agony was the agony she wanted. She was caught up, entangled in the powerful vibration of the night. The man, what was he? -- a dark, powerful vibration that encompassed her. She passed away as on a dark wind, far, far away, into the pristine darkness of paradise, into the original immortality. She entered the dark fields of immortality.

"When she rose, she felt strangely free, strong. She was not ashamed, -- why should she be? He was walking beside her, the man who had been with her."

To appreciate why The Rainbow got many in a sweat of indignant condemnation, you're probably best to put yourself in the period, to forget the present and what has transpired between 1915 and today. Lawrence wasn't simply dealing in sex, he was giving life to ideas that ran against the societal grain of the times, and that tends to scare the heck out of most anybody anywhere anytime.

This Oxford World's Classics edition features a very helpful introduction by Professor Kate Flint, an extensively annotated text, and a timeline of Lawrence's life.


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The Rainbow Modern Library 100 Best Novels DH Lawrence Keith Cushman 9780375759659 Books Reviews

Beautifully written, baring the souls of it's protagonists, and I suspect, the author. The book follows the interior lives of two related families and finally the daughter of one. The skill and intimacy with which the author describes the wills and desires of the characters will leave you in admiration. The skillfullness of the portraits is deep and wonderous. Especially moving to me, as a retired teacher, was the insightful descriptions of the toll it takes to teach in a poor neughborhood. However, if you are looking for a rolling, rollicking plot line, you wont find it here. Very little happens except in the mind and spirits of the characters as the generations suceed one another.
The Rainbow explores the depth and breadth of emotional and sexual relationships, both domestic and premarital. The fuel for this demanding novel derives from the artist’s attempt to understand and depict the evolving role of women in domestic, labor, and sexual relationships. Lawrence recognizes and supports women’s agency, but he is not entirely comfortable with it. That makes this work powerful; Lawrence strides into a difficult and discomfiting subject. While he supports women and their growing independence and demands for personal agency, it frightens him, makes him uncomfortable. In a world in which the power of the church is eroding Lawrence’s religious allusions abound. The generations of Brangwens are moving forward into a new world but like Moses on Mount Pisgah they see the promised land they will not enter; the arching rainbow of the title is a promise through which they look toward a world yet to be realized.

Lawrence’s saga follows four generations of the family Brangwen as they are carried into a world spiraling away from their fertile farmland in mid-19th century England. The organization of family and labor become dispersed and impersonal. Collier towns spring up, heralding the power of emerging industrial and commercial forces. Lawrence depicts a rapidly changing society in which both personal and communal entities are engaged in a tug-of-war between degraded humanity and individual expression.

This is a difficult book. Difficult when published in 1915 because it presented in stark, rich, and bitter opposition to accepted convention genuine human relationships. Difficult today for the same reasons and more. Scandalous at publication and powerful today. Lawrence’s prose demands attention, careful reading, and a willingness to learn. This is not your curl up in a chair because it is a rainy Saturday afternoon kind of read. If you are looking for a compelling story that will challenge you to better understand the world we have inherited and created, you won’t do better than The Rainbow.
Banned, condemned, vilified both as unpatriotic and a pornographer dressing up his offensive portrayals in pretty language; in other words, some contemporaries weren't too pleased with D. H. Lawrence and his expansive excursion through recent English industry, life, love, and yearning, The Rainbow (Oxford World's Classics). Court ordered confiscation greeted the novel's publication. Why? Here was a writer who questioned the very foundations of what it meant to be British, of material progress, of family life and sexuality, a writer who dared to show people's sexual lives as they were, and to enliven these expositions in language reserved for describing religious experiences. Sounds pretty darn radical, even by today's much more liberal standards.

Structurally, The Rainbow is a family saga that follows the lives of the Brangwen family -- Tom, Anna, and Ursula (who continues, along with artist sister Gudrun, in Women in Love (Oxford World's Classics)) -- of East Midlands over three generations, from around 1840 through 1905. It incorporates the progression of British industry, in particular how it expands around the Brangwen homestead, Marsh Farm, and treats consequences of it critically. Lawrence is also critical of the redoubtable British military, focusing on the Boer War and Ursula's shattered lover, military engineer Skrebensky. But publishing at the opening of WWI, he won himself no friends among the stalwart loyalists.

When Lawrence comes up, most think of sex. There's plenty of it in The Rainbow, though none of it explicit or lurid. It's more a part of life, a legitimate expression of one's feelings. And it's usually ecstatic, as powerful as a religious experience; hence, Lawrence's use of religious language -- and many biblical allusions -- to heighten the experience. For example, toward the end of the novel, well after Ursula and Skrebensky have broken their engagement, he returns to England. They reunite and once again make love. Lawrence gives us a description that conveys an idea radical for its day, along with a nod to the eternal (with his characteristic repetition)

"Then he turned and kissed her, and she waited for him. The pain to her was the pain she wanted, the agony was the agony she wanted. She was caught up, entangled in the powerful vibration of the night. The man, what was he? -- a dark, powerful vibration that encompassed her. She passed away as on a dark wind, far, far away, into the pristine darkness of paradise, into the original immortality. She entered the dark fields of immortality.

"When she rose, she felt strangely free, strong. She was not ashamed, -- why should she be? He was walking beside her, the man who had been with her."

To appreciate why The Rainbow got many in a sweat of indignant condemnation, you're probably best to put yourself in the period, to forget the present and what has transpired between 1915 and today. Lawrence wasn't simply dealing in sex, he was giving life to ideas that ran against the societal grain of the times, and that tends to scare the heck out of most anybody anywhere anytime.

This Oxford World's Classics edition features a very helpful introduction by Professor Kate Flint, an extensively annotated text, and a timeline of Lawrence's life.