The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence (novels for beginners .txt) π
Description
The Rainbow is an epic tale spanning three generations of Brangwens, a family of farmers living in Nottinghamshire around the time of the Industrial Revolution. The tale begins with Tom Brangwen, the very epitome of a rural English farmer leading the old way of life. We follow him as a youth easing in to the rhythm of rural existence. He soon falls in love with Lydia, a Polish immigrant he had hired as a housekeeper, and despite their vast cultural differences, the two marry. Their relationship is, in a word, satisfactory: the two face a language and culture barrier that prevents their minds from ever truly meeting, but they learn to be more or less content with their place in society and in raising their children.
Lydiaβs child by her first marriage, Anna, becomes the focus of the next part of the novel. She was born in England, and has a fiery and demanding temperament. She falls in love with Will, a nephew of Tom, and the two begin a rocky and difficult marriage. Will, a craftsman and not a farmer, is self-absorbed, and wants nothing more than for them to live their lives only for each other. But Anna wants to strike out in the world and become a part of society. The two must reconcile their clashing personalities and desires as they raise their many children.
The oldest of their children, Ursula, becomes the focus of the last thirdβand perhaps most famousβpart of the novel. Ursula is a deeply sensual being born in to the Victorian era, a time restrained in morality but exploding in energy and possibility, now worlds away from her grandfather Tom Brangwenβs quiet, traditional farming life. She leads a life unimaginable to her rural ancestors: indulging in travel abroad, waiting for marriage and pursuing her physical desires, and even taking on a careerβa concept both new and frightening to her family, who are just a generation removed from the era when a womanβs life was led at home. Her unhappiness with the contradiction in this new unbridled way of living and the strict social mores of the era becomes the main theme of this last part of the book.
The entire novel takes a frank approach to sexuality and physical desire, with sex portrayed unashamedly as a natural, powerful, pleasurable, and desirable force in relationships. In fact Ursulaβs story is the most famous part of the novel not just because of her unrestrained physicality and lust, but because she also experiments with a candidly-realized homosexual affair with one of her teachers. This unheard-of treatment of deeply taboo topics was poorly received by Lawrenceβs Edwardian contemporaries, and the book quickly became the subject of an obscenity trial that resulted in over 1,000 copies being burned and the book being banned in the U.K. for eleven years.
Though its charged portrayal of sexuality is what the book is remembered for, sexuality is only one of the themes Lawrence treats. The novel stands solidly on its rich description of both rural and city life, its wide-angled view of change over generations, and its exploration of hope for the human spirit in societies that heave not gently but quickly and violently into new eras.
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- Author: D. H. Lawrence
Read book online Β«The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence (novels for beginners .txt) πΒ». Author - D. H. Lawrence
She was very beautiful then, so wide opened, so radiant, so palpitating, exquisitely vulnerable and poignantly, wrongly, throwing herself to risk. It roused a sort of madness in him. Like a flower shaking and wide-opened in the sun, she tempted him and challenged him, and he accepted the challenge, something went fixed in him. And under all her laughing, poignant recklessness was the quiver of tears. That almost sent him mad, mad with desire, with pain, whose only issue was through possession of her body.
So, shaken, afraid, they went back to her parents in the kitchen, and dissimulated. But something was roused in both of them that they could not now allay. It intensified and heightened their senses, they were more vivid, and powerful in their being. But under it all was a poignant sense of transience. It was a magnificent self-assertion on the part of both of them, he asserted himself before her, he felt himself infinitely male and infinitely irresistible, she asserted herself before him, she knew herself infinitely desirable, and hence infinitely strong. And after all, what could either of them get from such a passion but a sense of his or of her own maximum self, in contradistinction to all the rest of life? Wherein was something finite and sad, for the human soul at its maximum wants a sense of the infinite.
Nevertheless, it was begun now, this passion, and must go on, the passion of Ursula to know her own maximum self, limited and so defined against him. She could limit and define herself against him, the male, she could be her maximum self, female, oh female, triumphant for one moment in exquisite assertion against the male, in supreme contradistinction to the male.
The next afternoon, when he came, prowling, she went with him across to the church. Her father was gradually gathering in anger against him, her mother was hardening in anger against her. But the parents were naturally tolerant in action.
They went together across the churchyard, Ursula and Skrebensky, and ran to hiding in the church. It was dimmer in there than the sunny afternoon outside, but the mellow glow among the bowed stone was very sweet. The windows burned in ruby and in blue, they made magnificent arras to their bower of secret stone.
βWhat a perfect place for a rendezvous,β he said, in a hushed voice, glancing round.
She too glanced round the familiar interior. The dimness and stillness chilled her. But her eyes lit up with daring. Here, here she would assert her indomitable gorgeous female self, here. Here she would open her female flower like a flame, in this dimness that was more passionate than light.
They hung apart a moment, then wilfully turned to each other for the desired contact. She put her arms round him, she cleaved her body to his, and with her hands pressed upon his shoulders, on his back, she seemed to feel right through him, to know his young, tense body right through. And it was so fine, so hard, yet so exquisitely subject and under her control. She reached him her mouth and drank his full kiss, drank it fuller and fuller.
And it was so good, it was very, very good. She seemed to be filled with his kiss, filled as if she had drunk strong, glowing sunshine. She glowed all inside, the sunshine seemed to beat upon her heart underneath, she had drunk so beautifully.
She drew away, and looked at him radiant, exquisitely, glowingly beautiful, and satisfied, but radiant as an illumined cloud.
To him this was bitter, that she was so radiant and satisfied. She laughed upon him, blind to him, so full of her own bliss, never doubting but that he was the same as she was. And radiant as an angel she went with him out of the church, as if her feet were beams of light that walked on flowers for footsteps.
He went beside her, his soul clenched, his body unsatisfied. Was she going to make this easy triumph over him? For him, there was now no self-bliss, only pain and confused anger.
It was high summer, and the hay-harvest was almost over. It would be finished on Saturday. On Saturday, however, Skrebensky was going away. He could not stay any longer.
Having decided to go he became very tender and loving to her, kissing her gently, with such soft, sweet, insidious closeness that they were both of them intoxicated.
The very last Friday of his stay he met her coming out of school, and took her to tea in the town. Then he had a motorcar to drive her home.
Her excitement at riding in a motorcar was greatest of all. He too was very proud of this last coup. He saw Ursula kindle and flare up to the romance of the situation. She raised her head like a young horse snuffing with wild delight.
The car swerved round a corner, and Ursula was swung against Skrebensky. The contact made her aware of him. With a swift, foraging impulse she sought for his hand and clasped it in her own, so close, so combined, as if they were two children.
The wind blew in on Ursulaβs face, the mud flew in a soft, wild rush from the wheels, the country was blackish green, with the silver of new hay here and there, and masses of trees under a silver-gleaming sky.
Her hand tightened on his with a new consciousness, troubled. They did not speak for some time, but sat, hand-fast, with averted, shining faces.
And every now and then the car swung her against him. And they waited for the motion to bring them together. Yet they stared out of the windows, mute.
She saw the familiar country racing by. But now, it was no familiar country, it was wonderland. There was the Hemlock Stone standing on its grassy hill. Strange it looked on this wet, early summer evening, remote, in
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