SONS AND LOVERS was first published in the early months
of 1913. The Lawrence’s were living on Lake Garda at the time. It must have
been of some relief to Lawrence. It was many years in gestation, and featured
any number of drafts. Lawrence’s former fiancée, Jessie Chambers (Miriam in the
novel) was a heavy, early influence. She read and commented on many of the
drafts. Later she lost a lot of influence when they became estranged after
Lawrence became engaged to Louie Burrows who knew Jessie Chambers, and
especially diminished when Lawrence met his future wife, Frieda. Frieda helped
Lawrence see his past in a much different light. Sometime later Lawrence would
admit that he was under the influence of his mother too much, to the extent
that his ‘memoir’ of his boyhood struggles did a disservice to his father and
his father’s relationship with his family. It must have come as quite a shock
to Jessie Chambers when suddenly, one day, through Louie Burrows if I remember
correctly, she was told that Lawrence had eloped with a German woman (not far
from the start of the first war). The Lawrence of her girlhood and his boyhood,
as traced throughout Sons and Lovers, was much altered.
The first book I ever read about Lawrence was a
pictorial biography written by the celebrated champion of Lawrence, Keith
Sagar. It was when I was living in Wangaratta, and I visited the local
newsagent in search of something new. The account of Lawrence’s family and
upbringing, the closeness with his mother, the hatred of his father, the death
of an older brother, the struggles with women and the frustrations of sex, the
love of languages and learning and nature, the boyhood joy of going to the
rural property, ‘The Haggs’ to see Jessie and her family- this was the stuff
of wondrous excitement for me and it left me hungry for anything Lawrentian,
which still carries to a certain extent to this day. The next logical reading
excursion was ‘Sons and Lovers’, and here to my great surprise was pretty much
the Sagar story retold with a protagonist called Paul Morel, and a girlfriend
called Miriam. The rural property was there, the massive mother influence, and
the frustrations with sex and fascination for all birds, beasts and flowers- it
was all there amidst incredibly vivid, psychological writing.
I went to England in 1987 and stayed the night at a
YMCA in Nottingham. I spent the day in Eastwood where Lawrence grew up and
wandered the streets, found the various houses he lived in with his family, saw
the family graves at the local cemetery, and visited the local library to see
their Lawrence display, which constitutes some of the lovely homage that
Eastwood pays to its most celebrated citizen. I returned again in 1993 because
I couldn’t get enough of it and did much the same thing- lots of wandering
along the snowy footpaths and going to the Lawrence Birthplace Museum and
bypassing the tacky ‘White Peacock’ café opposite. My most recent trips were
made in 2002-2003. I was living in England at the time. I packed the car, and
with my wife I drove to Nottingham city centre randomly in search of a job and
a house to live in. For the next 2-3 months, after settling eventually in Old
Basford, I found myself within easy driving access to Nottingham University to
see the Lawrence collection at the library, and what’s more, Eastwood itself,
so I could make many trips to the library, the museum, the wooded areas
surrounding The Haggs, the four houses the Lawrence’s
lived in, and the pub that Arthur Lawrence frequented. This was real ‘Sons and
Lovers’ territory and it brought the wonderful book to life. I imagined the
lucky students in neighbouring counties like Leicestershire, and Derbyshire,
and even Yorkshire, going to Eastwood for school excursions whilst studying ‘Sons
and Lovers’, and witnessing the respectful painted trail along the small city’s
footpaths that follow in Lawrence’s former footsteps.
Last night I finished Geoff Dyer’s enigmatic ‘Out Of
Sheer Rage’, which was supposed to be a book about Lawrence, but ended up being
a book about writing a book about Lawrence. Much of it is intriguing, although
admittedly I skipped certain sections, my eye alert mostly to the passages
about the author. It is a book that I wished I had written- the pilgrimages to
the houses lived in, the fun of following the blue line trail around Eastwood,
ruminating on the fabulous letters and the best books. It is a good book to
read on the hundred year anniversary of Sons and Lovers. And now that I’ve
finished it I’m going to go back to the book published in 1913, about a boy and
then a young man visiting The Haggs farmhouse, wondrous and lit up inside.
