What do you think?
Rate this book
ინგლის�, ჩემი ინგლის�
მკითხველის წინაშე� ძალიან ემოციური, ფსიქოლოგიურა� დატვირთული მოთხრობები, რომლებიც ლიტერატური� დამფასებლებისთვი� საყვარელ� ავტორი� კალამს ეკუთვნის. ჭეშმარიტ� ბრიტანულ� იუმორი� დახატული პერსონაჟების გალერე� _ იქნება ეს საკუთა� ოჯახსა და მშობლიურ სოფელზ� შეყვარებულ� ულამაზეს� ჭაბუკი, ომში თვალისჩინდაკარგული კეთილშობილ� ინგლისელ�, თავდავიწყები� გატაცებული “მის გიჟი გოგო� თუ ქმრი� ორგულობი� გაბეზრებულ� ქალი _ სრულია� მოულოდნე� სიუჟეტურ განვითარებასთა� ერთა�, კითხვი� პროცესში მრავალ სასიამოვნო წუთს გვპირდებ�.
258 pages, Paperback
First published March 23, 1915
77 people are currently reading
391 people want to read
About the author
D.H. Lawrence
1,832books4,000followersDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.
Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
December 5, 2013
Lawrence writes beautifully, as ever, but I think novels give him the space to develop characters and situations. These short stories seem cut short. As soon as you begin to care about someone, they're gone. This collection is mostly about World War I, the way it changed British society, and the psychological and cultural cost of the war. Nothing seems right any more, and maybe it never was right.
March 1, 2022
Compelling, yet dreary and depressing as usual. Oh, why do I torture myself with D.H. Lawrence? Alas, I can't stay away...
August 12, 2013
I hesitated to be convinced by the previous reviews for this book for all of them were upsetting. I still dared to read the book. The title was very much appealing "England, my England", how can I resist it? Then, I decided I shall judge it for myself.
As I began reading, I had a sort of outrage over the book reviewers. It was finely written. But the more I went on through the pages, I felt compassion amongst my fellow readers of this book. It was a compilation of short stories tackling mainly some social issues from the era when it was written. Yes, you would enjoy every introductory text and you will soon find yourself being fond of the story until you come to the conclusion and find out that you were left hanging, bounded by questions that no more or less will forever be left unanswered. It was quite disturbing. Then, a new story sets in. And, the cycle will continue until you finish the book or close it halfway because of annoyance.
But these are short stories, it may be difficult to form a very detailed story in eight to ten pages. I'm having an empathy for the author here. But, I believe that even short stories have the right to completeness. So, the readers can express delight upon it.
The author had a gift for writing. It was just not well exercised on this book.
As I began reading, I had a sort of outrage over the book reviewers. It was finely written. But the more I went on through the pages, I felt compassion amongst my fellow readers of this book. It was a compilation of short stories tackling mainly some social issues from the era when it was written. Yes, you would enjoy every introductory text and you will soon find yourself being fond of the story until you come to the conclusion and find out that you were left hanging, bounded by questions that no more or less will forever be left unanswered. It was quite disturbing. Then, a new story sets in. And, the cycle will continue until you finish the book or close it halfway because of annoyance.
But these are short stories, it may be difficult to form a very detailed story in eight to ten pages. I'm having an empathy for the author here. But, I believe that even short stories have the right to completeness. So, the readers can express delight upon it.
The author had a gift for writing. It was just not well exercised on this book.
October 2, 2016
"He chose neither. As for atrocities, he despised the people who committed them as inferior criminal types. There was nothing national about crime."
November 9, 2020
Realmente no ha sido una historia que me haya entusiasmado pero tampoco puedo decir que la haya aborrecido. Simplemente no me ha llegado.
September 30, 2016
"England, My England" 4.5/5
"No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt England. The distinction between German and English was not for him the distinction between good and bad. It was the distinction between blue water-flowers and red or white bush-blossoms: just difference. The diferrence between the wild boar and the wild bear. And a man was no good or bad according to his nature, not according to his nationality."
"No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt England. The distinction between German and English was not for him the distinction between good and bad. It was the distinction between blue water-flowers and red or white bush-blossoms: just difference. The diferrence between the wild boar and the wild bear. And a man was no good or bad according to his nature, not according to his nationality."
August 5, 2020
3-1/2 Stars
Having only read one novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and now this my third short story, I have made up my mind on D. H. Lawrence. He really was good at his craft. Other than my first short story, The Rocking Horse Winner, which was just sad, all of his characters are all realistically flawed and feel true to life.
England, My England, is a story about a couple whose love and passion lead them to marry young, only to learn that as time goes by passion can fade and love mature. Lawrence does an excellent job at letting the reader see the inner problems and dilemmas for both. The ending is a little macabre, but memorable.
Having only read one novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and now this my third short story, I have made up my mind on D. H. Lawrence. He really was good at his craft. Other than my first short story, The Rocking Horse Winner, which was just sad, all of his characters are all realistically flawed and feel true to life.
England, My England, is a story about a couple whose love and passion lead them to marry young, only to learn that as time goes by passion can fade and love mature. Lawrence does an excellent job at letting the reader see the inner problems and dilemmas for both. The ending is a little macabre, but memorable.
February 2, 2024
I enjoyed this collection of stories set in the same hard-working world of coal mines and industry in which Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" was set. The writing is oddly beautiful, rich with the slang and tormented syntax of local speech. The characters, for the most part only semi-educated, push forward with their lives, unclear about where they're going or why, but they are, in their rough and ready way, sympathetic.
March 22, 2024
I’m a ruddy big mizzog anyway so the trouble and strife he portrays are not a big dampener for me. Actually enjoyed how a short story can let the author go wild - it lets the reader fill in the blanks with their own assumptions!
March 26, 2023
Great collection of short stories, all perfectly in the DH Lawrence vein- the isolation caused by both class and rural existence.
They also take place in the years before and after WW1, so there is this overarching theme of the decay of the British Empire, and how that takes shape in the minds of British men and women, predominantly in the middle class.
Funnily enough, the back of the book explicitly states that the short story reins in Lawrence's worst impulses, and I completely agree- the medium forces him to focus on one idea only, and as a result, the stories have his tell-tale grimness and resignation, but locked into one setting or character, and due to this, they become much more resonant and sharp.
They also take place in the years before and after WW1, so there is this overarching theme of the decay of the British Empire, and how that takes shape in the minds of British men and women, predominantly in the middle class.
Funnily enough, the back of the book explicitly states that the short story reins in Lawrence's worst impulses, and I completely agree- the medium forces him to focus on one idea only, and as a result, the stories have his tell-tale grimness and resignation, but locked into one setting or character, and due to this, they become much more resonant and sharp.
June 5, 2020
Not my favourite Lawrence , which isn't to say that this is not still the work of an outright genius. It goes without saying, there are times that you do not fully identify with an author's subject, but you still recognise the magnificence of his or her gift. Many of these stories were a little bleak and perhaps depressing. So often, Lawrence was able to uplift the very mundane. He could make the poorest and most benighted existence sparkle with some profound glimpse of that beauty which cannot be bought. That is the purpose of any literature after all, to capture the beauty of life. Lawrence had that ability, perhaps more than any other writer. But he also had to write from within his own experience and from out of his own perceptions. I actually get the feeling that perhaps he wrote these stories during a bout of depression or illness, or at the very least, a bout of cynicism. In fact, I think they were a collection that he had been developing for a while and they were published just as he left Europe for the USA. It sits very much in the context of The Lost Girl and has that same feeling about it, and it is for me in a stark contrast to Twilight in Italy and Etruscan Places, which are both so transcendent. Perhaps his experiences of the continent had hardened his opinions about his home country. There is a note of cynicism about the English poor that seems most at odds with the Italian peasants, for example, who seem freer, despite their poverty. It is as though Lawrence was disillusioned by the English and by England at this time. Such a musing profoundly alters one's apprehension of the title.
But there are glimpses nonetheless of the brilliance. And the writing is generally flawless. What else can one say?
But there are glimpses nonetheless of the brilliance. And the writing is generally flawless. What else can one say?
April 7, 2014
This was a dark and biting selection of stories from just after the first World War, yet none dealt directly with the war itself. That made the stories all the more readable and enjoyable to me.
The characters were sometimes hard to fathom thanks to social nicety and social acceptability of the time, for those that use the phrase the gold old days couldn't possibly mean the early 1920's, especially when concerning the female sex.
But the stories did as they should should and poked holes in those ideals and niceties.
Of the collection my favorites were Tickets Please, a man gets what's coming from a group of scorn ladies, The Blind Man, the peculiarity of the blind man was especially disarming, and Monkey Nuts, which was a somewhat humorous story about a timid man unwilling to do as expected, plus the cat-call Monkey Nuts was a fun bit of ridiculous.
A quick read and enjoyable.
The characters were sometimes hard to fathom thanks to social nicety and social acceptability of the time, for those that use the phrase the gold old days couldn't possibly mean the early 1920's, especially when concerning the female sex.
But the stories did as they should should and poked holes in those ideals and niceties.
Of the collection my favorites were Tickets Please, a man gets what's coming from a group of scorn ladies, The Blind Man, the peculiarity of the blind man was especially disarming, and Monkey Nuts, which was a somewhat humorous story about a timid man unwilling to do as expected, plus the cat-call Monkey Nuts was a fun bit of ridiculous.
A quick read and enjoyable.
June 25, 2016
A good read, but not for those who like happy endings.
October 1, 2016
"A man was good or bad according to his nature, not according to his nationality."
December 26, 2018
Superb collection of short stories.
November 25, 2019
The best fiction DHL ever wrote is collected in this book: No silly theories about things, just people who seem as alive as the human beings in the room next door.
October 28, 2023
D.H Lawrence is the reason I study literature. If there ever comes a time when I am bored of it, or jaded by it, Lawrence is the one person I can count on to rescue me –he is sublime. This man breathes poetry, even though it is suspended in prose, like rain falling down from the sky turning to ice before it reaches the ground. England, My England, is truly ‘unputdownable�.
Look at the first story itself. It is not a short story that “impresses� you so much for its content as for its treatment, for its evocation, for its writing, for its narrative. Lawrence has this unique gift of evoking ethereal, diverse sensations from even the most mundane, the most ordinary of all things and objects.
Egbert is an incapable young man, a ‘thorough Englishman� (Lawrence emphasises on that repeatedly) who can’t seem to take things into his own hands. His wife likes him, ‘but that was like play� � she cannot look upon him as a staunch pillar of support; for that, she seeks her father. And so, quite subtly yet vividly, Lawrence draws up a tug of power between the father and the husband; though Egbert, the husband, is all-too-incompetent to stand up for himself. This is how Lawrence describes him � ‘No, he was like a cat one has about the house, which will one day disappear and leave no trace.�
That alone should get you to read this. Apart from the most beautiful description of death I’ve ever read.
Of the other stories in the volume, I think ‘Tickets, Please� should serve as an antidote to the seemingly misogynistic ones like ‘You Touched Me� (which is sublime in its own right, as an evocation of how terrible a proportion a man’s sexual desire can take).
‘Tickets, Please� takes place in the dark, dank, coal-blackened world of the Midland railways, where regular female employment in the ticket-conductors� department is upending earlier, more unequal gender dynamics. But of course, the story is beset with a grim, unsettling, sinister sense of desire just held at bay by a few straight conventions. There is something of Thomas Hardy’s rural vulgarity here, but that is all –this, after all, is a world of bustling railways and evening cinemas where men and women make out ‘freely� and without qualms. Dank Victorian prurience hangs like a thin film of moisture over here; the overarching veneer is one of graphic, unrelenting openness –and ٳ’s modernity for you. Lawrence’s story is essentially a revenge story –a promiscuous, all-too-flirtatious man who dates too many girls working in the railways is beaten up by them all for his casual tendencies. The passionate, visceral streak of violence exhibited over here is characteristic of Lawrence; and I think the contemporary feminist can hold it as a piece of evidence regarding Lawrence’s views on women.
The third story, ‘The Blind Man�, is one of my all-time favourite short stories. Right from the start, Lawrence builds up alternating shades of light and darkness –there is rain and storm, plunging the horse-stable into darkness, and there is the warm exposure of electric light, which suffuses the whole house into visibility. It’s a story of a young couple living isolated in the countryside. Maurice, the husband, is blind, and reclusive; Isabel is the supportive wife. Her “friend� Bertie is supposed to come visiting them, although there is a tension, a covert animosity between him and Maurice; but the visit is made anyway. But the most marvellous thing is the springing up of an intimacy between Maurice and Bertie; it is essentially a story of accepting ‘the Other�, of coming to love him. Read it, if only to feel sympathy for the beggar-woman who approaches you in the train.
Still stranger is the story called ‘The Primrose Path�. It’s quite clear why it’s a ‘primrose path� for the story’s characters � it means a life of unrestrained pleasure. I think, for me, it’s this story, more than any others, that stands as an emblem of ushering in modernity. There’s a beautiful passage here in which Berry, the protagonist, is standing outside the railway station, looking at the swathes of people going around; and Lawrence instantly makes you visualise it as a �danse macabre of ugly criminals�. The story is essentially about a nephew meeting up with his wayward, pleasure-seeking uncle; and the story’s dismal, benumbing end poses a certain paralytic question: Can Man do no better? Is that all we have come to?
That, ultimately, seems to be the tone pervading most of the stories in the volume. Lawrence is dealing with a highly demotivated, frustrated, benumbed set of experiences –war-returned soldiers, men and women torn between desire and convention, and the lack of any overarching, governing thread that ties them all. It’s dismal, but it’s beautiful.
December 17, 2024
A collection with some spectacular stories and some that fall flat. The themes in this collection are his most interesting - the power of the unconscious mind. Many of these (and they are usually the best ones) explore this theme in different ways. These stories are similar in theme to the book of three novellas published later.
The opener, 'England, My England' is a masterpiece. The story is based on people Lawrence once stayed with. It moves in scope from individual to family to society. The parasitic failed artist Egbert has a lifeless marriage. An accident happens to one of his daughters that he is to blame for, and he joins the army. The final scene is dazzling. Egbert in the midst of a battle is only able to focus on gorse and holly and pays for it.
"Mechanism, the pure mechanical action of obedience at the guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul unburdened, brooding in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone, brooding on the face of the uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea."
'Tickets, Please' retells an incident that happened to Lawrence when he was young, and seemly scarred him. Basically, a bunch of girls beat the shit out of him. It has some nice descriptions of Nottinghamshire.
Another great story is 'The Blind Man', where a war veteran has gone blind and lives like a mole. His wife (who seems to be based on Catherine Carswell) brings a rival over and Maurice defeats his rival in a strange way.
'Monkey Nuts' and 'Wintry Peacock' are lesser affairs. The former I cannot remember much except I wrote down it seemed like a Charlie and Frank situation (from Always Sunny). The latter story earned Lawrence a fair sum when he sold it. I didn't like it but I did like the actual peacocks in the story.
'You Touched Me' (or 'Hadrian' as it is also known) is a story I didn't like when I read it but thinking back now appreciate it. It explores the compulsive pull between people even without their consent (will). It's quite creepy and Oedipal.
The next two were, again, lesser stories. 'Samson and Delilah' is about a man who returns home to his (justifyable upset) wife after fifteen years absence. Despite her anger she still comes back to him. 'The Primrose Path' is a quite terrible story where an uncle gone downunder blethers to his nephew.
Another excellent story is 'The Horse-Dealer's Daughter', concerned with similar forces to others in this collection, but unlike 'You Touched Me', more of a happy ending. The family of the "Horse-Dealer" are suffering from poverty and move to another town, except the daughter, who refuses to tell her family (that mistreat her) what she will do. A young doctor sees her and against his will becomes drawn to her. The horses march tied head to tail and the daughter matches to her mother's grave, then into a pond. The doctor nearly drowns trying to save her, and dries her off alone in her home. She compulses him to say he loves her. And he does, but this love is not what we might call love, it's this unconscious, compulsive force that binds them together.
The last tale, 'Fanny and Annie' (or 'The Last Straw ') is another lesser one. However some people disagree. The opening section (flame-lurid) is quite good. Here, a pompous, posh woman forces herself into a marriage she doesn't want.
Despite some lesser stories I thought this collection was excellent. The two best are the title story, and 'The Horse-Dealer's Daughter'.
The opener, 'England, My England' is a masterpiece. The story is based on people Lawrence once stayed with. It moves in scope from individual to family to society. The parasitic failed artist Egbert has a lifeless marriage. An accident happens to one of his daughters that he is to blame for, and he joins the army. The final scene is dazzling. Egbert in the midst of a battle is only able to focus on gorse and holly and pays for it.
"Mechanism, the pure mechanical action of obedience at the guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul unburdened, brooding in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone, brooding on the face of the uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea."
'Tickets, Please' retells an incident that happened to Lawrence when he was young, and seemly scarred him. Basically, a bunch of girls beat the shit out of him. It has some nice descriptions of Nottinghamshire.
Another great story is 'The Blind Man', where a war veteran has gone blind and lives like a mole. His wife (who seems to be based on Catherine Carswell) brings a rival over and Maurice defeats his rival in a strange way.
'Monkey Nuts' and 'Wintry Peacock' are lesser affairs. The former I cannot remember much except I wrote down it seemed like a Charlie and Frank situation (from Always Sunny). The latter story earned Lawrence a fair sum when he sold it. I didn't like it but I did like the actual peacocks in the story.
'You Touched Me' (or 'Hadrian' as it is also known) is a story I didn't like when I read it but thinking back now appreciate it. It explores the compulsive pull between people even without their consent (will). It's quite creepy and Oedipal.
The next two were, again, lesser stories. 'Samson and Delilah' is about a man who returns home to his (justifyable upset) wife after fifteen years absence. Despite her anger she still comes back to him. 'The Primrose Path' is a quite terrible story where an uncle gone downunder blethers to his nephew.
Another excellent story is 'The Horse-Dealer's Daughter', concerned with similar forces to others in this collection, but unlike 'You Touched Me', more of a happy ending. The family of the "Horse-Dealer" are suffering from poverty and move to another town, except the daughter, who refuses to tell her family (that mistreat her) what she will do. A young doctor sees her and against his will becomes drawn to her. The horses march tied head to tail and the daughter matches to her mother's grave, then into a pond. The doctor nearly drowns trying to save her, and dries her off alone in her home. She compulses him to say he loves her. And he does, but this love is not what we might call love, it's this unconscious, compulsive force that binds them together.
The last tale, 'Fanny and Annie' (or 'The Last Straw ') is another lesser one. However some people disagree. The opening section (flame-lurid) is quite good. Here, a pompous, posh woman forces herself into a marriage she doesn't want.
Despite some lesser stories I thought this collection was excellent. The two best are the title story, and 'The Horse-Dealer's Daughter'.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2024
England, My England is set of short stories by DH Lawrence. Written between 1913 and 1921, the First World War features large in some of these tales of ordinary and not so ordinary folk in the contemporary society. True to form, the writer does not spend much time describing lives of which he has no experience. Here there are no kings and queens, no lords and ladies, and very few private incomes. Here, there are working people, drawn, mainly from the English midlands and northern industrial towns. Some of them are propertied and have legacies to bequeath. Some of them are poor and live day to day.
Deliberately, I have chosen to read three books by Lawrence that I have not read before. One was a set of poems, one a novel, and England, My England, a collection of short stories. Personally, England, My England has left the longer-lasting impression because of the immediacy of the writing. The condensed nature of the short story seems to lend itself as a form to Lawrence’s style more than, say, poetry. Here the reader feels drawn in into these lives. They are the kinds of lives your neighs might have led, and thus, over the fence, you might also have been a participant.
Given DH Lawrence’s preferences of theme and style, it is the relations between men and women that form the principal bases of these books. Some of the men are rather lazy or diffident, some of them are passionate, some promiscuous. The same can be said of the women. A particularly poignant story titled “You Touched Me� describes family relations prior to the impending death of a man, head of a substantial household, who is re-drafting his will. Two daughters are still at home, having nursed their father through illness. The father had no male children of his own. He did adopt boy some years ago and brought him up, but the other siblings chose to keep him somewhat excluded from the inner family. What will happen to the inheritance?
The first story in the collection reminds us that warfare is indiscriminate when it claims its victims. There is no justice when it comes to where shells eventually explode. Repeatedly, however, in other stories, Lawrence reminds us how individuals and even whole communities respond to injustice with highly targeted revenge, accusation and action. Publicly stated opinion can explode like a munition.
Overall, these stories reminders repeatedly, though we have pasts and futures, it is largely how we react in the present that sets personal and collective agendas. We may have choices, but our options seem circumscribed by the expectation of others. Here, there are complicated people living complicated lives through this pristine, crystal-clear prose.
Deliberately, I have chosen to read three books by Lawrence that I have not read before. One was a set of poems, one a novel, and England, My England, a collection of short stories. Personally, England, My England has left the longer-lasting impression because of the immediacy of the writing. The condensed nature of the short story seems to lend itself as a form to Lawrence’s style more than, say, poetry. Here the reader feels drawn in into these lives. They are the kinds of lives your neighs might have led, and thus, over the fence, you might also have been a participant.
Given DH Lawrence’s preferences of theme and style, it is the relations between men and women that form the principal bases of these books. Some of the men are rather lazy or diffident, some of them are passionate, some promiscuous. The same can be said of the women. A particularly poignant story titled “You Touched Me� describes family relations prior to the impending death of a man, head of a substantial household, who is re-drafting his will. Two daughters are still at home, having nursed their father through illness. The father had no male children of his own. He did adopt boy some years ago and brought him up, but the other siblings chose to keep him somewhat excluded from the inner family. What will happen to the inheritance?
The first story in the collection reminds us that warfare is indiscriminate when it claims its victims. There is no justice when it comes to where shells eventually explode. Repeatedly, however, in other stories, Lawrence reminds us how individuals and even whole communities respond to injustice with highly targeted revenge, accusation and action. Publicly stated opinion can explode like a munition.
Overall, these stories reminders repeatedly, though we have pasts and futures, it is largely how we react in the present that sets personal and collective agendas. We may have choices, but our options seem circumscribed by the expectation of others. Here, there are complicated people living complicated lives through this pristine, crystal-clear prose.
March 5, 2020
A more unified and consistent effort than its predecessor, 'The Prussian Officer'. we have to wait until the seventh of these ten stories for the shadow of World War I to recede. Only the title piece, the best of the bunch, actually takes us on to the battlefield, where its hero doesn't last long. Elsewhere, there are signs of the decline in Lawrence's talent that began after 'Women in Love' and might have been related to his increasingly poor health. He's not yet the witless fascist bore who inflicted 'The Plumed Serpent' or 'The Woman who Rode Away' on us, but from the repetitiveness and the willfully limited semantic fields in some places, it's only a matter of time. It's a pity because Lawrence at his best remains a writer the implosion of whose reputation since the '70s has been a real loss. No, he never was the paragon Leavis claimed him to be and he always had his faults but there was a wit and perceptiveness in a lot of his earlier stuff that makes him worth the effort. Some of that is still evident here.
July 6, 2022
It reminds me somewhat of James Joyce's Dubliners. Similar gloomy tales of individuals in a time of hardship (the Great War being the culprit this time) in early Twentieth century England. People are overcome by feelings, situations, makes them do things they rationally would not want, but it just happens to them, with no way to counter it. The stories tend to not give a conclusion to the problem posed either, and the reader leaves the characters in each tale as they usually found them: lost in their own web of (little) difficulties and distractions.
April 11, 2024
Lawrence should stick to novels.This book was a collection of shorts with awkward relationships between the characters (which was fine). What was annoying was reading along and suddenly the story stops with loose ends unresolved and the reader bewildered. It was as if Lawrence was writing along and looked up at the clock and saw it was time for the evening news and just put a period after the last word he had written.
May 28, 2020
Fairly grim short stories set in rural England around the First World War. I love D H Lawrences descriptions of people and places. In a few pages Lawrence draws you into a whole new world. The people and their surroundings come alive, so much so that I had to stop reading the story England, My England, because I sensed something bad was about to happen to the main protagonist...
February 3, 2018
One of Lawrence's many collections of short stories. I chose this one since it contains 'Tickets Please!' which is one of my favourites and a story which is still relevant today in terms of sexual politics.
April 5, 2021
*Leído la historia corta de England, my England
April 16, 2022
Short stories with packed ith raw, powerful emotion. I found myself unexpectedly enthralled by "Jimmy and the desperate woman".
April 29, 2022
If you like short stories with anticlimactic endings, this book is for you.
December 27, 2022
He had no desire to give himself to the world, and still less had he any desire to fight his way in the world. No, no, the world wasn't worth it.
September 25, 2023
A very enjoyable short story collection. If there is a theme then it probably the inherent dissatisfaction within relationships, presented here in World War One era England.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.