- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.; New edition edition (31 Mar 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0486443736
- ISBN-13: 978-0486443737
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.8 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 284,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'… provides a fascinating outline of Lawrence's career as editor, translator and reviewer. The commentary, in particular the impressively full explanatory notes, offer a most generous wealth of miscellaneous information. … the explanatory notes are a most valuable and interesting contribution to the volume.' Dr Dieter Mehl, Universität Bonn
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
Written in Lawrence's most productive period, Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1921) and Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922) were undertaken initially in response to psychoanalytic criticism of his novel Sons and Lovers. They soon developed more generally to propose an alternative to what Lawrence perceived as the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious and the incest motive. The essays also develop his ideas about the upbringing and education of children, about marriage, and about social and even political action. Lawrence described them as 'this pseudo-philosophy of mine which was deduced from the novels and poems, not the reverse. The absolute need one has for some sort of satisfactory mental attitude towards oneself and things in general makes one try to abstract some definite conclusions from one's experiences as a writer and as a man'. These conclusions form an illuminating guide to his works and therein lies their peculiar value.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Bertrand Russell called D.H. Lawrence a pure fascist. Why he did that, we can read in these abstruse, completely unscientific texts, which unveil the darker side of the author.
Unscientific
His `scientific' propositions can be childishly innocent, like `the great field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the dynamic psyche, the solar plexus, the lumbar ganglion, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion', or `coition is the bringing together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized electric blood of the female'.
A very damaging fascist evangel
But, his romantic anti-rationalism and anti-science stance leads him to very damaging recommendations: `Ideas are the most dangerous germs mankind has ever been injected with. They are introduced in schools and by means of newspapers. Therefore, the great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write - never.'
For him, `understanding is the devil. We don't want to educate children so that they may understand. Understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people.'
`I would rather listen to an (Afro-American) witch-doctor than to science.'
His perfect society
Society should be `built on a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibilities, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. Men have got to choose their leaders, and obey them to the death. And it must be a system of culminating aristocracy, a society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme leader.'
`It is the business of very few to understand and for the mass it is their business to believe and not to bother. When the leaders assume responsibilities, the populace (!) can again become free and happy and spontaneous.'
It is a wonder that someone who uttered such incredibly naïve, sharply elitist and pure fascist propaganda could write such literary masterpieces as `Sons and Lovers' or `The Rainbow.'
I recommend this book to all D.H. Lawrence fans.
However, this book is in no way a good introduction to his literary work.
Unscientific
His `scientific' propositions can be childishly innocent, like `the great field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the dynamic psyche, the solar plexus, the lumbar ganglion, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion', or `coition is the bringing together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized electric blood of the female'.
A very damaging fascist evangel
But, his romantic anti-rationalism and anti-science stance leads him to very damaging recommendations: `Ideas are the most dangerous germs mankind has ever been injected with. They are introduced in schools and by means of newspapers. Therefore, the great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write - never.'
For him, `understanding is the devil. We don't want to educate children so that they may understand. Understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people.'
`I would rather listen to an (Afro-American) witch-doctor than to science.'
His perfect society
Society should be `built on a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibilities, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. Men have got to choose their leaders, and obey them to the death. And it must be a system of culminating aristocracy, a society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme leader.'
`It is the business of very few to understand and for the mass it is their business to believe and not to bother. When the leaders assume responsibilities, the populace (!) can again become free and happy and spontaneous.'
It is a wonder that someone who uttered such incredibly naïve, sharply elitist and pure fascist propaganda could write such literary masterpieces as `Sons and Lovers' or `The Rainbow.'
I recommend this book to all D.H. Lawrence fans.
However, this book is in no way a good introduction to his literary work.
Format:Paperback
This is vitally uncomfortable read for those who wish to gain an insight into our modern psychological condition. As always Lawrence slashes and stabs with insight in his idiosyncratic manner, he does not pretend to wish to be scientific (in the modern positivist industrial sense) rather he presents his insights and lays them out as a framework to give context to his ideas. I found much of his framework borders upon the unhinged, but he knew that and stated it and in typically Lawrencesque fashion doesn't really care.
His insights are devastating and uncomfortably uncover much of the contradictions and deep neuroses embedded within modern family relationships. He was called many things for his dislike of the rise of mass-man - the modern product of industrialised education, media and work - but the man has a point and we fail to listen to his insight at our peril. He says much that Charles Dickens states so artfully in Hard Times without attracting the same vitriol, perhaps it is because Lawrence states these things in a very raw and unpolished manner that jars the nerves but by his own statement in the book this is what he intended. In that sense his book is a success. Since his work has remained severely under-read I think this is perhaps its weakness, but this is how he intended it!
He presents his basis of a psychology and explores the psychological underpin which produces the modern and post-modern personality and proposes his antidotes. I would say no more than, to the courageous read (and this work will require much reflection), to those who really prefer not to have your certainty in the infallibility of modern life challenged leave it well alone. This book delivers a well needed torpedo into the underbelly of modern and post-modern childrearing, relationships, sexuality and gender roles.
Alex Carberry - Author of Know Yourself
His insights are devastating and uncomfortably uncover much of the contradictions and deep neuroses embedded within modern family relationships. He was called many things for his dislike of the rise of mass-man - the modern product of industrialised education, media and work - but the man has a point and we fail to listen to his insight at our peril. He says much that Charles Dickens states so artfully in Hard Times without attracting the same vitriol, perhaps it is because Lawrence states these things in a very raw and unpolished manner that jars the nerves but by his own statement in the book this is what he intended. In that sense his book is a success. Since his work has remained severely under-read I think this is perhaps its weakness, but this is how he intended it!
He presents his basis of a psychology and explores the psychological underpin which produces the modern and post-modern personality and proposes his antidotes. I would say no more than, to the courageous read (and this work will require much reflection), to those who really prefer not to have your certainty in the infallibility of modern life challenged leave it well alone. This book delivers a well needed torpedo into the underbelly of modern and post-modern childrearing, relationships, sexuality and gender roles.
Alex Carberry - Author of Know Yourself
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
"I am I, the clue to the whole."
18 April 2012
Format:Hardcover
Do not go into this expecting to get something out of it, political, scientific, or otherwise.
This book is a poem, immense, winding, dazzling, exasperating. Like Poe's "Eureka!", this book is subversive. It dangles the pretty psycho-physics or plexuses and ganglions only to keep your monkey mind distracted, so that he may trick your body, your blood, and your soul into seeing the beauty that the mind kills with its egoism and idealism.
The digressions are the clue to the whole: "We still have in us the power to discriminate between our own idealism, our own self-conscious will, and that other reality, our own true spontaneous self. Certainly we are so overloaded and diseased with ideas that we can't get well in a minute. But we can set our faces stubbornly against the disease, once we recognize it."
"It is the hour of the stranger. Let the stranger now enter the soul."
"To be alone with one's own soul. Not to be alone without my own soul, mind you. But to be alone with one's own soul! This, and the joy of it, is the real goal of love. My own soul, and myself. Not my ego, my conceit of myself. But my very soul. To be at one in my own self. Not to be questing any more. Not to be yearning, seeking, hoping, desiring, aspiring. But to pause, and be alone."
To be alone. To face the facts of reality and your own eternal ignorance. This is what Lawrence suggests you do. Be curious at your own risk.
A brief attempt, a necessary failure: Lawrence here points, again and again, to the quick and marrow of life, to that thing that simply persists in existence, that thing that all words fail to grasp, that thing that pushes out and reaches beyond idealism, that thing that is always here, always now, that constant thing, that beautiful, terrifying soul that huddles in a pretend fear among the mass of men--"I am I, the clue to the whole."
This book is a hearty soup, but beware: within lies a most unique and devastating poison. If you're lucky, and you manage to get through it all, you walk away bewildered but sure of a certain, incomprehensible glimmering... All the while, inside, pulsing within your blood, the poison acts. Eventually, if you're lucky, you'll find yourself strangely hollowed out, every cell devoured and transformed.
If you're interested in unanswerable questions, in life, in trees and babies and mamas and papas, come take a look. Maybe you'll see some light through those tight-squeezed lids.
This book is a poem, immense, winding, dazzling, exasperating. Like Poe's "Eureka!", this book is subversive. It dangles the pretty psycho-physics or plexuses and ganglions only to keep your monkey mind distracted, so that he may trick your body, your blood, and your soul into seeing the beauty that the mind kills with its egoism and idealism.
The digressions are the clue to the whole: "We still have in us the power to discriminate between our own idealism, our own self-conscious will, and that other reality, our own true spontaneous self. Certainly we are so overloaded and diseased with ideas that we can't get well in a minute. But we can set our faces stubbornly against the disease, once we recognize it."
"It is the hour of the stranger. Let the stranger now enter the soul."
"To be alone with one's own soul. Not to be alone without my own soul, mind you. But to be alone with one's own soul! This, and the joy of it, is the real goal of love. My own soul, and myself. Not my ego, my conceit of myself. But my very soul. To be at one in my own self. Not to be questing any more. Not to be yearning, seeking, hoping, desiring, aspiring. But to pause, and be alone."
To be alone. To face the facts of reality and your own eternal ignorance. This is what Lawrence suggests you do. Be curious at your own risk.
A brief attempt, a necessary failure: Lawrence here points, again and again, to the quick and marrow of life, to that thing that simply persists in existence, that thing that all words fail to grasp, that thing that pushes out and reaches beyond idealism, that thing that is always here, always now, that constant thing, that beautiful, terrifying soul that huddles in a pretend fear among the mass of men--"I am I, the clue to the whole."
This book is a hearty soup, but beware: within lies a most unique and devastating poison. If you're lucky, and you manage to get through it all, you walk away bewildered but sure of a certain, incomprehensible glimmering... All the while, inside, pulsing within your blood, the poison acts. Eventually, if you're lucky, you'll find yourself strangely hollowed out, every cell devoured and transformed.
If you're interested in unanswerable questions, in life, in trees and babies and mamas and papas, come take a look. Maybe you'll see some light through those tight-squeezed lids.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Terrible unscientific fascist tracts
4 May 2010
Format:Paperback
Bertrand Russell called D.H. Lawrence a pure fascist. Why he did that, we can read in these abstruse, completely unscientific texts, which unveil the darker side of the author.
Unscientific
His `scientific' propositions can be childishly innocent, like `the great field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the dynamic psyche, the solar plexus, the lumbar ganglion, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion', or `coition is the bringing together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized electric blood of the female'.
A very damaging fascist evangel
But, his romantic anti-rationalism and anti-science stance leads him to very damaging recommendations: `Ideas are the most dangerous germs mankind has ever been injected with. They are introduced in schools and by means of newspapers. Therefore, the great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write - never.'
For him, `understanding is the devil. We don't want to educate children so that they may understand. Understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people.'
`I would rather listen to an (Afro-American) witch-doctor than to science.'
His perfect society
Society should be `built on a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibilities, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. Men have got to choose their leaders, and obey them to the death. And it must be a system of culminating aristocracy, a society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme leader.'
`It is the business of very few to understand and for the mass it is their business to believe and not to bother. When the leaders assume responsibilities, the populace (!) can again become free and happy and spontaneous.'
It is a wonder that someone who uttered such incredibly naïve, sharply elitist and pure fascist propaganda could write such literary masterpieces as `Sons and Lovers' or `The Rainbow.'
I recommend this book to all D.H. Lawrence fans.
However, this book is in no way a good introduction to his literary work.
Unscientific
His `scientific' propositions can be childishly innocent, like `the great field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the dynamic psyche, the solar plexus, the lumbar ganglion, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion', or `coition is the bringing together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized electric blood of the female'.
A very damaging fascist evangel
But, his romantic anti-rationalism and anti-science stance leads him to very damaging recommendations: `Ideas are the most dangerous germs mankind has ever been injected with. They are introduced in schools and by means of newspapers. Therefore, the great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write - never.'
For him, `understanding is the devil. We don't want to educate children so that they may understand. Understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people.'
`I would rather listen to an (Afro-American) witch-doctor than to science.'
His perfect society
Society should be `built on a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibilities, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. Men have got to choose their leaders, and obey them to the death. And it must be a system of culminating aristocracy, a society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme leader.'
`It is the business of very few to understand and for the mass it is their business to believe and not to bother. When the leaders assume responsibilities, the populace (!) can again become free and happy and spontaneous.'
It is a wonder that someone who uttered such incredibly naïve, sharply elitist and pure fascist propaganda could write such literary masterpieces as `Sons and Lovers' or `The Rainbow.'
I recommend this book to all D.H. Lawrence fans.
However, this book is in no way a good introduction to his literary work.
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