Discriminating

Finished D. H. Lawrence's collection of short stories England, My England early today. There are only ten stories all told, none of any great length, but it's taken me several months to complete them. I remain sceptical regarding Lawrence's status as a great writer. The poetry, for the most part, yes; the fiction, not so sure. At one point in the penultimate story a woman is said to be passionately kissing his knees, and this of a gentleman whose clothes are wet through because he's just dragged her out of a lake in which she was trying to drown herself. Somehow I just can't visualise the scene. A couple of sentences later she's said to be kissing said knees indiscriminately. This rather begs the question of how one discriminates when kissing knees (especially through wet trousers.)

I think this will be my last Lawrence for a while. In fact after this and my recent bout with Saul Bellow I need to read some stuff where I'm just a simple fanboy - and there's plenty of that.