D.H.Lawrence’s The
Trespasser, published, after The
White Peacock, in 1912 is very much of its time. Unlike the more famous Lady Chatterley’s Lover, this is a book
that might excite the interest of a modern publisher but wouldn’t be actually
published. The language, full of deeply poetic angst, is identifiably old
fashioned, and the plot is so thin, and no longer in any form unique, that no
current editor could consider publication.
We live in a different age and few these days would have the
patience to read this piece of literature in the way necessary to absorb fully
the subtlety of the nuanced language. As a step back into an earlier time, when
readers were prepared to mull over the words and ideas presented by an author,
it did an excellent job for me. But, I admit, there were descriptive passages I
skipped, wanting to get back to the emotional conflicts and leave the landscape
to my imagination.
Lawrence has a way of employing language in ways that most
writers wouldn’t dare, and he not only gets away with it, but produces evocative
and moving prose. If the story is thin, the characters most certainly are not.
This is a book all about character in its literal and metaphorical senses.
Modern readers, by which I mean those young enough to remain unaware of the
furore over Lady C (which I read in my late teens, when it was finally released
in UK), are unlikely to understand the moral dilemma at the heart of the novel.
When the idea of faithfulness in marriage has been as widely disparaged as it
has in modern literature, it must be hard to comprehend why anyone would put
themselves through the torture here described simply in order to satisfy the
whim of then current social and religious mores.
I’d like to report that I enjoyed the book, but it is a work
more to be endured, whilst the empathetic reader is compelled to discover an
outcome that is, in reality, inevitable. Those interested in Lawrence, studying
literature, or fascinated by portrayals of English life at the beginning of the
last century will find a great deal here. For the rest, I suspect the archaic
language and the lack of a modern plot will prevent any real enjoyment.
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