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There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Under-rated Work of Art,
By A Customer
This review is from: Aaron's Rod (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
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.
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3.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews) 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An odyssey of passion, individuality and art,
By TheIrrationalMan - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Aaron's Rod (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
Aaron Sisson, a coal miner and amateur flutist in the Midlands, abandons his wife and two children and escapes to Italy in the hope of throwing off the trammels of his environment and realising his individual potentials. His dream is to become recognised as a master flutist. In Florence, he mixes in intellectual and artistic circles and has an affair with an aristocratic lady who redeems him in his own eyes. Like the majority of Lawrence's novels, the central theme is the relations between men and women, though this time, it is given a twist owing to Lawrence nourishing his mind on a reading of Nietzsche, who was then gradually becoming recognised in England. In his analysis of the concept of "love" between the sexes, Lawrence perceives it as a function of the will to power, a cycle of reciprocal domination and surrender, in which the man must conquer and the woman must submit. Elements of the rejection of the "herd morality" on Aaron's part and his endeavour at self-development are both ideas of peculiarly Nietzschean provenance. The fact that Aaron realises himself through music is another echo of Nietzsche, who regarded music as the purest and most supreme of the arts, in which the passions achieve immense gratification. The title refers to the rod of Aaron in the Old Testament, one of Moses's renegade priests who built the golden calf in the desert for the worship of the Israelites. The rod, his symbol of authority and independence, finds its echo in Aaron's flute, which is broken later in the novel during an anarchist riot. There is a price to pay, Lawrence seems to imply, for daring to oppose orthodoxy and to try to create a new life for oneself. Unlike Lawrence's more famous works, such as "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and "Women in Love", which are both admirable for their rich, poetic prose, "Aaron's Rod" is drably written and occasionally tedious, with a narrative that is sometimes poorly connected, as it dwells on irrelevancies. However, the message, that of an individual fulfilling his duty to himself, is an encouraging and refreshing one.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blue Ball'd,
By Christopher Nelson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Aaron's Rod (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
Strangely, this was my first full-length D.H. Lawrence novel. Thankfully, I'd read enough of his short stories and essays to know that Aaron's Rod isn't indicative of his artistic capabilities. I was more impressed by the concept behind the novel than its execution. Essentially, Aaron Sisson's abandonment of his family and job in order to join a travelling orchestra is meant to symbolize the power and passion of "individual freedom," "personal friendship", "masculinity" and "art". I think he only half-succeeds. Just as Aaron comes across as an "incomplete" man searching for meaning in post World War I Europe, I think the novel is too loosely constructed, and Lawrence's characters, too thinly drawn. But on a symbolic level, they are full of Lawrentian psychology. The characters of Rawden Lilly, Struthers, the Bricknells, and others all overtly represent various aspects of male and female polarities; however, they are un-memorable and sometimes difficult to relate to. I was hoping this would be more of an "artist's novel" containing interesting descriptions of Aaron's life in Florence with his bohemian friends, and to a certain extent it is, but Lawrence seemed more interested in symbolism than in telling a good story. Though scattered as a story, the concepts of individuality and society are clearly portrayed throughout "Aaron's Rod", and towards the end, when the anarchist's bomb goes off, we sense a "breaking" (the blue ball/ornament at the beginning, and the flute/rod at the end) of an outdated mode of thinking (i.e. patriarchy, male dominance, etc.) in favor not necessarily of feminity, but an integration of the two. This particular Penguin edition has an excellent introduction and helpful end-notes by Steven Vine which help explain Lawrence and his symbolism to those unfamiliar with his works. I might re-read this novel once I've read more of Lawrence, and come back to it one day from a different viewpoint, but for now, I'd have to say that unless you're a real Lawrence afficionado, I'd hold off on this one until you figure out whether or not you like Lawrence enough to proceed to something as scattered, cold, and dry as this novel comes across. 4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
For aficionados only,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Aaron's Rod (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
If you've not read any Lawrence this is not the book to start with. It fails as a novel because there is no story to speak of, just a string of scenes to initiate discussion of the issues Lawrence wished to explore. Apologists describe it as picaresque, but there is far more unity to most novels that deserve that descriptor. Nonetheless, there are wonderful scenes that fitfully jar this book to life, Lawrence's admirable command of language, and a brooding homoeroticism aching to burst out. Try this book after you've hit the major works (i.e. Women in Love, etc.).
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