D.H. Lawrence, Shorter Novels 1 (Heron Books)

Reading the classics is like travel, you know? Partly it's familiar, but also it's kind of strange, and the customs often turn out to be not at all what you'd expected.

D.H. Lawrence is a hinge figure in the history of the novel, and of literature more broadly, in that his particular strain of realism meant that he differed from previous writers (and from most of his peers, or at least his male peers) in the depiction of gender relations and of women's internal lives. The novellas or long short stories that make up Shorter Novels 1 in Heron Books' 1968 fancy-pants leather-bound edition of Lawrence's works all date to the 1920s, with elements from a little earlier than that, but when you read Lawrence, it kind of feels like the century since his death has somehow been a shorter hundred years than you might think.

These are recognizable character types, albeit dated (of course! how could they not be), and the emotional dynamics in which they find themselves feels more familiar than it often does in fiction of that vintage, so one/I can imagine the world within which these characters are moving, as well as the engines both internal and external that keep them moving in the way that they do.

A nice jaunt outside my normal range, in other words, and kind of refreshing even if I don't know that I'll go back to Lawrence again any time soon. I'm open to persuasion, absolutely, but  it'll probably take another earnest loan from another Beer & Books club member before I climb back into Lawrenciana!