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Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence
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About This Book
An electrifying, revelatory new biography of D. H. Lawrence, with a focus on his difficult middle years "Never trust the teller," wrote D. H. Lawrence, "trust the tale." Everyone who knew him told stories about Lawrence, and Lawrence told stories about everyone he knew. He also told stories about himself, again and again: a pioneer of autofiction, no writer before Lawrence had made so permeable the border between life and literature. In Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence, acclaimed biographer Frances Wilson tells a new story about the author, focusing on his decade of superhuman writing and travel between 1915, when The Rainbow was suppressed following an obscenity trial, and 1925, when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Taking after Lawrence's own literary model, Dante, and adopting the structure of The Divine Comedy, Burning Man is a distinctly Lawrentian book, one that pursues Lawrence around the globe and reflects his life of wild allegory. Eschewing the confines of traditional biography, it offers a triptych of lesser-known episodes drawn from lesser-known sources, including tales of Lawrence as told by his friends in letters, memoirs, and diaries. Focusing on three turning points in Lawrence's pilgrimage (his crises in Cornwall, Italy, and New Mexico) and three central adversaries--his wife, Frieda; the writer Maurice Magnus; and his patron, Mabel Dodge Luhan--Wilson uncovers a lesser-known Lawrence, both as a writer and as a man. Strikingly original, superbly researched, and always revelatory, Burning Man is a marvel of iconoclastic biography. With flair and focus, Wilson unleashes a distinct perspective on one of history's most beloved and infamous writers.
Reviews
"Wilson is a sympathetic but not uncritical reader of Lawrence's texts."
"Wilson too is on form and on fire ..."
"This is a bold, fervent contribution to Lawrence studies, full of spirit and insight and enviably agile prose."
"A distinctly original perspective on an iconic writer."
"Will it restore Lawrence's reputation?"
"But Lawrence's flaws — his confusion and inconsistency, his lack of self-understanding, the overall sense that he lacked a coherent self — also impose themselves on the book, making it feel less than fully cohesive and, ultimately, somewhat unsatisfying."
"Another Wilson asset is the depth of her research."
"There are, without question, areas in which Wilson shines."
"[an] ambitious but flawed study ..."
"As the pages of the biography continue, though, the path mapped out by Dante often seems to be not only an insightful analogy but sometimes even a story that Lawrence himself might have constructed ..."
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