Michaels, Jennifer E.

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

setting" (p. 5). In doing this he was "one of the first to create novels which express a new French-Canadian reality" (p. 68). By never losing sight of the dual traditions to which Langevin belongs, Bond's book thus becomes to some extent a comparative study with the added dimensions this term im-plies. Still, Bond does not digress to display his obviously impressive knowledge of French and Quebec literature. His focus through-out is clearly on Langevin. Bond gives a detailed and first-rate interpretation of each of Langevin's novels, as well as a very cred-ible and interesting explanation for Lan-gevin's silence of the sixties—a halt in his creative output which has greatly puzzled most critics. Bond attributes this silence to several things: to the oppressive darkness of Lan-gevin's view of life which obviously made him feel that "literature can do little to al-leviate either the great scourge of existence, or the smaller problems of everyday life" (p. 40); and to Langevin's preoccupation during this decade with Quebec's prob-lems—economic, cultural, and linguistic. In any case, as Bond shows very clearly, Lan-gevin was not exactly silent anyway during the sixties. Although he wrote no novels during mis period, he did write a great many articles, and, as Bond states, "The articles that he wrote during this time showthat he still believed words were not entirely use-less. The faith in the power of writing re-mained with him, and eventually he returned to the novel" (p. 45). In returning to the novel in the seventies, Langevin adopted the techniques of the nouveau roman which, as Bond explains "is largely an evocation of mental reality, and episodes are linked by thematic rather than causal ties, because this is how images are linked in the human mind" (p. 46). Lan-gevin's 1972 novel, L'Elan d'Amérique, is, Bond states correctly, "his boldest attempt to use form this way [to underline themes]. It is a complex, difficult novel, but a re-warding one for those who make the effort to unravel its complexities" (p. 46). Bond manages to do just this with the same blend of subtlety and common sense which the reader has learned to count on in the earlier chapters of The Temptation of Despair. So it is that, because of the difficulties involved in satisfactorily analyzing L'Elan d'Amérique, this chapter most clearly demonstrates Bond's prowess as a critic. Finally, Bond's ability is demonstrated by the way he never loses sight of the totality of the Langevin vision. As he moves from novel to novel, analyzing its parts, he never loses track of die basic themes which move the novelist throughout his work: the search for a father, life as a prison surrounded by death, the realization that in one's lover one invariably finds a stranger. Langevin's pre-occupation with the isolating complexities of human nature, expressed in his first book Evadé de la nuit ("An individual is never so simple that another can understand his total essence") extends to his final recognition in Une Chaîne dans le parc of a world where there is absolute human solitude—a world where, as Conrad says, "We live, as we dream—alone." Allison Mitcham KIM A. HERZINGER D.H. Lawrence in His Time: 1908-1915. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1982. Pp. 237. In this study, Herzinger sets out to place Lawrence within the cultural (not historical as the title might lead one to suppose) milieu of his time. An understanding of Law-rence's cultural context, and his responses and reactions to it, he argues, can contribute to a greater appreciation of Lawrence's work. Herzinger examines Lawrence's literary de-velopment until 1915 in the light of his con-tacts with the various cultural groups which dominated English literary life in these years (Edwardians, Georgians, Imagists, "Amyg-ists," Vorticists, Futurists, Cambridge and Bloomsbury). Lawrence's association with any given group was usually quite brief. Typically, his relationships widi diese groups were characterized by an initial interest and enthusiasm, followed by a period of reac-tion and doubt, which dien turned to dis-illusion and sometimes even disgust. Each time Lawrence hoped that a group would provide the nucleus of a new and vital way of life, and each time he was bitterly dis-appointed. (Herzinger thinks, in fact, that Lawrence's belief in the decadence of Eng-land was partially the result of his disap-pointing encounters widi these groups.) Brief Mentions 61 Herzinger describes Lawrence's connec-tion with the Edwardians, noting that his mentors, Ford Madox Ford and Edward Garnett, both leading Edwardians, intro-duced Lawrence into English cultural life. Lawrence soon became disenchanted with the Edwardians, however, and thought that the Georgians, whom he saw as being "pas-sionate, personal, constructive, and joyful" (p. 52), could bring about the regeneration of English culture he so ardently desired. The greater part of this study focuses on Lawrence's relationship to this group. Her-zinger points out certain affinities between Lawrence and the Georgians, in particular their common emphasis on the pastoral, their growing concern about the destructive effects of industrialism, and their search for community. He argues that Lawrence's early novels, The White Peacock and The Trespasser, are typically Georgian in many respects. As with the Edwardians, however, Lawrence became disillusioned with the Georgians. This is already evident in The Rainbow, but becomes even stronger at the outbreak of World War I. The war confirmed Law-rence's suspicions that the Georgian spirit of optimism was a false vision of reality: the Georgians, he thought, had become flaccid and sentimental; their natural vitality had deteriorated into an "artificial, aesthetically induced facsimile of it" (p. 118). Lawrence's bitter, pessimistic views about the future of England during these years is far removed from Georgian sensibility. Herzinger then turns to Lawrence's re-lationship with Futurism, Imagism, "Amyg-ism" (Ezra Pound's term for the Imagists once Amy Lowell had joined the group), and Vorticism. Futurism helped Lawrence break away from the Georgians and evolve a new style. Lawrence rejected, however, the pseudo-scientific tendency of the move-ment which led, he thought, to dissolution. Although Lawrence had close contacts with Imagism, "Amygism," and Vorticism, Her-zinger does not believe that Lawrence ac-tually learned anything new from these groups. What he gained from them was conceptual support for ideas that he had already developed on his own. Finally, Herzinger describes Lawrence's brief and painful association with Cam-bridge and Bloomsbury through his short-lived friendship with Bertrand Russell. Lawrence disliked Bloomsbury intensely since it seemed to stand for everything that was inimical to a vital way of living. In Cam-bridge and Bloomsbury, Lawrence felt "he had located the evil genius behind the con-tinuing decomposition of English character and English culture" (p. 176). Herzinger successfully places Lawrence within the literary movements of his time. He shows that Lawrence assimilated many new ways of thought and expression from his association with these different literary groups. In fact, he argues that much of what is considered to be characteristically Law-rentian is a result of these assimilations. Far from being a "snarling outsider" (p. 16), Lawrence emerges from this study as being much "nearer the center of his era" (p. 182) than is generally assumed. Jennifer E. Michaels ROBERT LOUIS JACKSON The Art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and Nocturnes Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. 380. Although Dostoevsky's Notes From the Dead House was praised highly by his contem-poraries, including such penetrating though differing intellects as Nietzsche and Tolstoi, the work has received considerably less crit-ical attention than the other fiction of the "mature" Dostoevsky. Indeed, recent critics (Wasiolek, Holquist, Peace, among others) exclude Notes From the Dead House from Dos-toevsky's "major fiction" and tend to ignore the work altogether. Now, in his latest book, The Art of Dostoevsky, the preeminent Dos-toevsky scholar Robert Louis Jackson at-tempts to redress this critical imbalance (he devotes five chapters and over half his study's pages to the novel) and assign a sem-inal position to the work in Dostoevsky's postexile fiction. Jackson, who admits a kinship "with the metaphysically and ontologically oriented group of Russian critics [Solov'ev, Rozanov, Ivanov, Berdjaev, among others]" (p. xii), reveals their influence in his philosophical approach to Notes From the Dead House as he focuses on the problems of evil, suffering, freedom, fate, conscience, moral responsi-bility, and environmental influence as they are reflected in Dostoevsky conception and depiction of man. Jackson asserts that a dis-cussion of these problems in the later Dos-toevsky "cannot even be posed without the most searching examination of House of the 62 The International Fiction Review, 10, No. 1 (1983) 

Kim A. Herzinger, D. H. Lawrence in His Time: 1908-1915

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/13604/14687

Kim A. Herzinger, D. H. Lawrence in His Time: 1908-1915

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals