Like most of us, Lawrence is happy to get Chrimbo over and done with…
It’s December and Frieda’s daughters are coming to visit them in their latest home in Spotorno, 28 miles southwest of Genoa. Lawrence’s publisher Martin Secker is also in town. ‘He’s nice, but not a sparkling person.’ They share a turkey together on Christmas Day but otherwise, the festive period is uneventful, which Lawrence doesn’t mind as ‘I hate these strained rejoicings.’
Lawrence is content in his new surroundings, reflecting on how hard life had been on the ranch and whether they will return to New Mexico as ‘it seems so far, and difficult, and another world.’ But sends William Hawk $25 towards the upkeep of his horses because you never know: ‘when the year turns round, probably one’s feelings will turn too.’
World War I had a profound impact on Lawrence and other writers of his generation, motivating him in his quest to find ‘Rananim’ – a community of like-minded individuals who sort alternative values to those produced by modernity. This leads to a very interesting observation to S.S. Koteliansky that:
‘The war, somehow, gave us a bad kick in the wind, all of us: and we felt the damage most, in the after years. Now we’ve got to begin to rouse up a bit, or we shall all be old before we know where we are’ sentiments which will eventually form the opening paragraph to Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly as part of the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre project.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1922, click here, from 1923, click here, from 1924, click here, from 1925, click here.
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