The vague intimations of D.H. Lawrence

When all you have is a hammer, they say, all the world looks like a nail. When all you have is a sure sense that “things aren’t right,” all you can do is cast about, hoping to find a way to make it right. If you cannot believe in that, you are reduced to trying at least to keep your own life on the rails, which is task enough for most of us! These two quotes from D.H. Lawrence, like the one from Hemingway that I posted a bit ago, seem to me to demonstrate the dead-end that western civilization came to in the 20th century. Naturally artists noticed it first, but you’d have to be pretty complacent, pretty unthinking, not to know it now. Lawrence wrote this two generations ago:

“Well!” he said at last. “I agree to anything. The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it, though I’ll do my best. But you’re right. We must rescue ourselves as best we can.”

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

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