Overview

The first full-length account of D.H. Lawrence’s rich engagement with a country he found both fascinating and frustrating, D.H. Lawrence’s Australia focuses on the philosophical, anthropological and literary influences that informed the utopian and regenerative visions that characterise so much of Lawrence’s work. David Game gives particular attention to the four novels and one novella published between 1920 and 1925, what Game calls Lawrence’s 'Australian period,' shedding new light on Lawrence’s attitudes towards Australia in general and, more specifically, towards Australian Aborigines, women and colonialism. He revisits key aspects of Lawrence’s development as a novelist and thinker, including the influence of Darwin and Lawrence’s rejection of eugenics, Christianity, psychoanalysis and science. While Game concentrates on the Australian novels such as Kangaroo and The Boy in the Bush, he also uncovers the Australian elements in a range of other works, including Lawrence’s last novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence lived in Australia for just three months, but as Game shows, it played a significant role in his quest for a way of life that would enable regeneration of the individual in the face of what Lawrence saw as the moral collapse of modern industrial civilisation after the outbreak of World War I.

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9781472415059

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Reviews

'This is a fine book with an original approach to D. H. Lawrence's writings on Australia. The topic has never been marked out so well nor been covered with such close attention before. The continuity of the Australian works with the rest of Lawrence's writings is given a compelling demonstration'. Paul Eggert, Loyola University Chicago, USA

'This is a fine book with an original approach to D. H. Lawrence's writings on Australia. The topic has never been marked out so well nor been covered with such close attention before. The continuity of the Australian works with the rest of Lawrence's writings is given a compelling demonstration'. Paul Eggert, Loyola University Chicago, USA 'David Game's book diligently musters every bit of evidence of Lawrence's interest in Australia, and discusses his Australian books with sympathy and perception. He makes a convincing argument for rereading Kangaroo and The Boy in the Bush in the light of Lawrence's ideas about the degeneration of industrial society, and in the context of his whole life and work. Perhaps it is time we forgave Lawrence for his criticisms of the Australian way and celebrated the extraordinary events that left us with his acute and still pertinent observations about our society.' Susan Lever, University of Sydney, Australia, Inside Story e-journal

Author Information

David Game is a Visiting Fellow at the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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