By: D.H. Lawrence Publisher: Signet Classics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Signet Classics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 544 Publication Date: March 06, 2007 Release Date: March 06, 2007
Book Description: Lush with religious and metaphysical imagery, this is the story of three generations of the Brangwen family, set against the decline of the rural English midlands. It peers into a family's sexual mores, exposing the sexual dynamics of marriage and physical love.
Utterly Gorgeous Writing!!! I had actually never read any of Lawrence's works before, though I had heard much praise about him. Saga type stories tend to interest me in the way you can trace growth in characters and really get into them, so I thought I would give this a try. So glad I did! Lawrence writes with some of the most beautifully lyrical and lush wording. Even when speaking of the dirty coal mines of England, you can almost feel the grime on your own skin, or when Ursula travels to the shore and plays in the surf you feel as if you're right there feeling and hearing the ocean on yourself. It reminded me somewhat of the way Fitzgerald writes. Also, seeing the growth and change in the different generations of one family was very interesting to me, especially the way that Lawrence as a man so keenly captured the struggles of girls developing into womanhood and accepting those changes and dealing with first loves and heartbreaks. If you come across this book, dont let it go!! I am currently reading this book's sequel Women in Love - let you know how it goes!
The Rainbow is one of D.H. Lawrence's finest achievements Daivd Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11, 1885 in the ugly mining area of Nottingham in the English Midlands. His father Arthur was a hardworking miner who opened the world of natural beauty to the lad. His mother was a woman who focused her attentions on "Bert" so the boy would develop his artistic inclinations. Together this ordinary couple produced a literary genius. Lawrence would change the novel and the way we read novels. In 1915 he wrote the Rainbow which tells the three generational tale of the Brangwen mining and farming family of Nottinghamshire. The generational stories revolve around: a. Tom and Lydia Brangwen-He is a strong man who marries the Polish widow Lydia. Together they have several children as they build a world of their own on their farm.The couple has difficult communicating well together except in the marital bed. b. Will and Anna Brangwen-Anna was the daughter of Lydia and her first husband a Polish physician who died young. While Will and Anna have a brood of children it is Anna who is in the spotlight. She weds her cousin Will. We see them making love; Anna dancing in the nude during a pregnancy and becoming an earth mother loving her man, home and land. c. Ursula is the oldest daughter of Will and Anna. She is a shy girl who blossoms in the novel. Ursuala becomes a schoolteacher in a grim urban school; falls in love and leaves Anton Skrebensky and returns home to her family and the friendship and love of her sister Ursula. These two girls will be the main characters in "Women in Love" the sequel to "The Rainbow." Ursula develops a lesbian relationship in this novel but is clearly bisexual in orientation. The novel ends with her miscarriage as she is chased by a herd of horses in the rain. That is the outline of the story. Nothing much happens on the surface; plot is there but is minimal. What Lawrence aimed for in this fiction was the experience of sexual awakening; the female organism and the stormy but essential relationship between the sexes. His language is poetic in beauty and bristles with the life force. His descriptions of nature are detailed and evocative making him the heir to Thomas Hardy. "The Rainbow" was removed from the bookstore due to the strict and puritanical English censorship during World War I. Lawrence's wife Frieda who was German was under suspicion as a spy and the couple had a terrible time. Today in our sexually liberated culture "The Rainbow" is far from shocking. What we remember is the beauty of the language and the sense of time passing in the genealogical study he gives to one English family. Lawrence hated modernity, industrialism and the rape of the English countryside due to mining. He is romantic yearning for a simpler time. This classic novel published in the Cambridge Edition by Penguin paperbacks is well worth your time and money.
emotion This book delves into the thoughts and feelings of the Brangwen family and their loves. It shows how beautiful life really is and does it in the most meticulous fashion. The Brangwen women display an air of grace and wonder as they examine the numerous changes occuring around them. Their character is the most beautiful aspect of the book. Anna and Ursula are dear protagonists and are hard not to love for their spry and dissenting yet caring personalities. This book is of medium length and is a very thorough look at life through women's eyes and emotions from a male novelist. A great read!
Man Alive Blood Alive is the key THE RAINBOW is the story of three generations of the Brangwen family. Beginning with the first, D. H. Lawrence shows the intricacies of human relations that frequently have no more going for them than just good looks or sexual passion. It seemed inexplicable to Lawrence that as many relations worked out as they did. His concern was in finding the rationale for the successes, and in THE RAINBOW he suggests that success in a relation is a function of the recognition that all relations begin in conflict, which in turn imply either a resolution which ends in success or a non-resolution which does not. The paradox that is inherent even in the first generation of Brangwens is that most people are by definition unique and therefore independent. It is only when they connect romantically that a fusion may occur--or perhaps not. It is this reaching out for connection, from man to woman, from man to society, that marks the underlying order of THE RAINBOW.
Tom Brangwen is of the first generation. He is decent enough but alone and feels a void that only a woman can fill. He sees a Polish woman named Lydia Lensky to whom he feels an instant attraction. They meet, they talk, and conventionally fall in love. But they are supremely different in nearly all areas, including their ages. She is older by six years and has a daughter from a previous marriage. But they recognize and accept the paradox that individuality must merge with a collective identity. This they do and the relationship is secure. It is here that Lawrence introduces the near mystical "blood" affinity that two people have--or not--in any ongoing relation. Tom and Lydia have it. They have children but the one who comes into focus is Lydia's child from before, Anna. As Anna grows into womanhood, she clearly does not "have" it. Her blood speaks in a whisper and her husband Will does not hear it even after having nine children. The divisions between them are real enough, but they are no more or less real than those that Tom and Lydia were able to solve. Neither Anna nor Will connect. They are simply two spouses who maintain their uniqueness and never merge. They do manage to have children, one of whom is Ursula, who will return as a mature woman in Lawrence's sequel, WOMEN IN LOVE. Ursula is relentless in her wish to connect with someone or something. She tries teaching, but remains unfulfilled. She has an affair with a Polish officer named Anton Skrebensky, and discovers that raw sexual passion is not enough to bridge the gap from where she is to where she wants to be. She even tries a lesbian relation with a schoolmate, Winifred Inger, a factor which undoubtedly led to the public outcry to ban Lawrence's book. That too is unfruitful. Ursula is crushed when she learns that Winifred marries Ursula's uncle. When Skrebensky pops up out of nowhere, they recommence their affair but she is sure that they are never going to connect. By the end of the book, Ursula has an epiphany. She sees a rainbow. In the world of Lawrence, a rainbow is a potent symbol of rebirth. Ursula sees it the same way. To her, the rainbow is a mystical piece of architecture that promises that someday she will connect perhaps in a manner not unlike Judy Garland seeking her Oz. Thus, Lawrence indicates that the rainbow is the visual objective correlative of the magical blood that as he writes in his famous letter will allow Ursula, "To be alive, to be man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point." Putting aside the sexist pronoun, that is indeed his point.
A classic on the struggles of the human spirit. Much criticism has been leveled at D. H. Lawrence, from varying levels of sophistication and experience, but here is a novel to justify his continuing high place among English novelists, now as much as ever.
The story line runs chronologically. The events detail three generations of the Brangwan family, and occur mostly around the turn of the twentieth century, in the same coal mining area where Lawrence came of age. The Industrial Revolution was in full sway and had changed the lives of most people, but the Brangwan family had managed to steer away from at least some of it's influences by owning a rich plot of farmland and also by being blessed with some artistic talent. Though the coal and iron mining that fed the Industrial Machine had a positive material advantage when considering the mean and menial conditions of previous centuries, the grime and ugliness, the pollution, and the conditions of hard labor were not always such an improvement and made some wonder what had gone wrong or whether there was a way out. Also at this time, England, in order to secure it's preeminence as a global power, had become exploitive in Africa and India, two places where the character Anton Skrebensky was stationed.
Most of the book is about the youth and coming to age of Ursula Brangwan. The book follows the lives of her Grandfather and parents, but that's mostly background, setting the stage for Ursula. What is especially notable is the focus that the author has into the inner lives of his characters: their struggles and what they are faced with, their emotions, desires, yearnings. The actual events have a secondary importance. Hardly anything very dramatic as an action or confluence of events ever occurs. What is of primary importance is the character's (especially Ursula's) own view of themselves and their own emotions in dealing with all the negatives that life could throw at them at that particular time and place.
There are long passages in the book about Ursula's relationship with Anton Skrebensky. Much of it is intertwined with descriptions of the forces of Nature or the beauties of Creation - descriptions for which Lawrence had a special affinity; devices that dramatize the character's inner lives. Ursula is usually not so desperate that she cannot afford to want freedom in her life, something that conflicts very much with Anton. Even so, though she is fortunate in some respects, as a young women she still has a limited range of possible choices other than marriage. The most obvious alternative is teaching school. One of the most powerful sections in the book, in my opinion, is her experience teaching in a working class school and the dilemma she faces there: having to sacrifice some of her principles not even to succeed, but just to get by.
One of the criticisms of Lawrence concerns his use of exaggeration in language. I don't think that criticism holds up well here. The exaggeration is a kind of device. And, human emotions are strong for any thinking and feeling human being who struggles for freedom over bondage, or sanctuary from madness.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
