The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence (novels for beginners .txt) ๐
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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.
Lydiaโs 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 thirdโand perhaps most famousโpart 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 Brangwenโs 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 careerโa concept both new and frightening to her family, who are just a generation removed from the era when a womanโs 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 Ursulaโs 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 Lawrenceโs 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
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Ah, if only she and Skrebensky could get out, dismount into this enchanted land where nobody had ever been before! Then they would be enchanted people, they would put off the dull, customary self. If she were wandering there, on that hill-slope under a silvery, changing sky, in which many rooks melted like hurrying showers of blots! If they could walk past the wetted hay-swaths, smelling the early evening, and pass in to the wood where the honeysuckle scent was sweet on the cold tang in the air, and showers of drops fell when one brushed a bough, cold and lovely on the face!
But she was here with him in the car, close to him, and the wind was rushing on her lifted, eager face, blowing back the hair. He turned and looked at her, at her face clean as a chiselled thing, her hair chiselled back by the wind, her fine nose keen and lifted.
It was agony to him, seeing her swift and clean-cut and virgin. He wanted to kill himself, and throw his detested carcase at her feet. His desire to turn round on himself and rend himself was an agony to him.
Suddenly she glanced at him. He seemed to be crouching towards her, reaching, he seemed to wince between the brows. But instantly, seeing her lighted eyes and radiant face, his expression changed, his old reckless laugh shone to her. She pressed his hand in utter delight, and he abided. And suddenly she stooped and kissed his hand, bent her head and caught it to her mouth, in generous homage. And the blood burned in him. Yet he remained still, he made no move.
She started. They were swinging into Cossethay. Skrebensky was going to leave her. But it was all so magic, her cup was so full of bright wine, her eyes could only shine.
He tapped and spoke to the man. The car swung up by the yew trees. She gave him her hand and said goodbye, naive and brief as a schoolgirl. And she stood watching him go, her face shining. The fact of his driving on meant nothing to her, she was so filled by her own bright ecstacy. She did not see him go, for she was filled with light, which was of him. Bright with an amazing light as she was, how could she miss him.
In her bedroom she threw her arms in the air in clear pain of magnificence. Oh, it was her transfiguration, she was beyond herself. She wanted to fling herself into all the hidden brightness of the air. It was there, it was there, if she could but meet it.
But the next day she knew he had gone. Her glory had partly died downโ โbut never from her memory. It was too real. Yet it was gone by, leaving a wistfulness. A deeper yearning came into her soul, a new reserve.
She shrank from touch and question. She was very proud, but very new, and very sensitive. Oh, that no one should lay hands on her!
She was happier running on by herself. Oh, it was a joy to run along the lanes without seeing things, yet being with them. It was such a joy to be alone with all oneโs riches.
The holidays came, when she was free. She spent most of her time running on by herself, curled up in a squirrel-place in the garden, lying in a hammock in the coppice, while the birds came nearโ โnearโ โso near. Oh, in rainy weather, she flitted to the Marsh, and lay hidden with her book in a hayloft.
All the time, she dreamed of him, sometimes definitely, but when she was happiest, only vaguely. He was the warm colouring of her dreams, he was the hot blood beating within them.
When she was less happy, out of sorts, she pondered over his appearance, his clothes, the buttons with his regimental badge, which he had given her. Or she tried to imagine his life in barracks. Or she conjured up a vision of herself as she appeared in his eyes.
His birthday was in August, and she spent some pains on making him a cake. She felt that it would not be in good taste for her to give him a present.
Their correspondence was brief, mostly an exchange of postcards, not at all frequent. But with her cake she must send him a letter.
โDear Anton. The sunshine has come back specially for your birthday, I think.
โI made the cake myself, and wish you many happy returns of the day. Donโt eat it if it is not good. Mother hopes you will come and see us when you are near enough.
โI am
โYour Sincere Friend,
โUrsula Brangwen.โ
It bored her to write a letter even to him. After all, writing words on paper had nothing to do with him and her.
The fine weather had set in, the cutting machine went on from dawn till sunset, chattering round the fields. She heard from Skrebensky; he too was on duty in the country, on Salisbury Plain. He was now a second lieutenant in a Field Troop. He would have a few days off shortly, and would come to the Marsh for the wedding.
Fred Brangwen was going to marry a schoolmistress out of Ilkeston as soon as corn-harvest was at an end.
The dim blue-and-gold of a hot, sweet autumn saw the close of the corn-harvest. To Ursula, it was as if the world had opened its softest purest flower, its chicory flower, its meadow saffron. The sky was blue and sweet, the yellow leaves down the lane seemed like free, wandering flowers as they chittered round the feet, making a keen, poignant, almost unbearable music to her heart. And the scents of autumn were like a summer madness to her. She fled away from the little, purple-red button-chrysanthemums like a frightened dryad, the bright yellow little chrysanthemums smelled so strong, her feet seemed to dither in a drunken dance.
Then her
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