D.H. Lawrence, part 2

Anais Nin's first book was called D.H. Lawrence, An Unprofessional Study and was published in 1932. She wrote that Lawrence was a naturally religious man who had an instinctive sense of religion and said, "One can save one's pennies. How can one save one's soul? One can only live one's soul. The business is to live, really live. And this needs wonder." One character in Kangaroo says, "if a man is truly a man, true to his being, his soul saves itself in that way."

Lawrence further said, "great religious images are only images of our own experiences, or of our own sate of mind and soul." He worships the sun and the moon and goes on pilgrimages as part of his religion.

Anais writes a short chapter on Lawrence's take on death. One of his characters feels that emptiness in life (i.e. death in life) is worse than physical death. She feels the body is only one manifestation of the spirit and when you die, you move on to the invisible.

In a chapter called "Woman," Anais states that the core of a woman is her relation to man. Most men create the images and patterns, and a woman's role is to carry them out to please the men. The exception is women who are artists; they can create the images and patterns themselves. Lawrence says the men's images and patterns aren't that good in the first place.

Lawrence says there are two kinds of women: cocksure - up-to-date, modern women who have no doubts, and hensure - old-fashioned, demure women who go about their duties. He says there is no perfect relationship between man and woman because there is always conflict when each carries out his or her individuality. We think in terms of how things should be based on our own individuality rather than trying to understand how things are from the other individual's perspective.

In Kangaroo, a marriage is observed; the wife is smiling at another man and the husband is fine with this. They are husband and wife, and as long as she honors this connection/root between them, he does not care what she does with the rest of herself because there is a part of each of them that does not belong to the other. This part does not need to be asked about or even known because if it were, neither person is free. As long as the husband and wife are growing from the same root, all is good, even when there is resistance. In fact, Lawrence thinks resistance is good - the give and take creates strength, balance and unison.

Lawrence says, "Human love, human trust, are always perilous, because they break down. The greater the love, the greater the trust, and the greater the peril, the greater the disaster. Because to place absolute trust on another human being is in itself a disaster, both ways, since each human being is a ship that must sail its own course, even if it go in company with another ship." There are two ships and two captains in a relationship between two people.