Product Description

Lawrence called Aaron’s Rod ‘the last of my serious English novels - the end of The Rainbow, Women in Love line.’ Written in the years following the First World War, Aaron’s Rod questions many of the accepted social and political institutions of Lawrence’s own generation and raises issues still important in our time. Aaron’s Rod, completed in 1921,was censored by both Lawrence’s American and English publishers. The Cambridge Edition of the novel, based on the only authoritative surviving typescript, restores these cut passages and eliminates the errors and house-styling of previous editions. The volume contains an introduction setting out the genesis of the novel, its transmission, publishing history and reception, as well as explanatory notes and a textual apparatus. The appendix contains some early cancelled passages from the novel, here published for the first time, which reveal the kinds of conceptual and stylistic changes that often occurred in Lawrence’s revisions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1033897 in Books
• Published on: 1988-05-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

An Under-rated Work of Art
Most of the critical acclaim of Lawrence's writing centres on his early novels such as Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow and Women in Love, thus somewhat debasing his latter works. Aaron's Rod is such a work. Based during the period after the First World War it centres on Aaron Sisson. Feeling distracted and stuck in a society which is unable to adapt to the devastation of the war Aaron leaves his wife and children on Christmas Eve to begin a new life. He journeys from his home town to the continent via London paying his way by means of his acclaimed flute playing.

On his travels Aaron meets a variety of people who provide him with insights into what is possible in society. Though these meetings and friendships Aaron undertakes a period of introspection which leads him to believe that the society he has left behind is destined to be further undermined by its degenerative nature. Finally, in Italy, Aaron is brought face to face with the truth about post war Europe. The Fascists and Socialists are at odds with one another. The Fascists rise to power has angered the Socialists and there are a number of incidents which are brought to life by Lawrence's own experiences and his sense of place. Lawrence uses one of these incidents for the climax of the novel. Aaron is our drinking with his new friends when a bomb explodes in the cafe. This bomb breaks Aaron's flute and he feels as if there is nothing left for him as his flute is his life. The final chapter is a mind blowing foray into the psychology and philosophy of the time. Lawrence inter-twines a fantastic array of psychologicl analysis and fiction to leave us questioning our own lives and the way we lead them. As anyone who reads this book will understand it is not that the ending of an object is the ending of life but the opportunity to begin anew, as Aaron himself finds out in the opening pages of the book.

Lawrence's works are of outstanding quality throughout. This book has been criticised by many for having a disjointed narrative and a broken story line. It is precisely these charcteristics that make this novel a joy to read. The way in which Lawrence manipulates his characters and situations is magnificent and his ability to close a story is without question one of the best of British writers in the early twentieth century. It is without doubt that Lawrence is a complex writer and this shows throught his work, but the latter novels, with the exception of Lady Chatterley's Lover, are without question the finest he wrote. If you read any Lawrence book in the near future read this one; it has been a truely under-rated work of art.