D.H. Lawrences Final Fictions: A Lacanian Perspective

(Hardback)

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D.H. Lawrences Final Fictions: A Lacanian Perspective explores how literature thinks; more specifically, how the reading of fiction influences behavior. Lawrence writes passionately about our alienation from ourselves, from other people, and from the cosmos. He believes that we need to heed the voices of our unconscious, and he shows us how to meld body and mind so that, psychoanalytically speaking, Id and Ego can come together. In this endeavor there is a salient convergence between Lawrence's writings and those of Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst.

In this book, Stoltzfus examines the poetics of seven major fictions that Lawrence wrote between 1925 and 1930, five productive years that are referred to as his fabulation period. In each of the book's seven chapters, in tandem with Lacan's writings, Stoltzfus analyzes seven major characters, four of whom move from alienation to the renewal of self and the cosmos. He argues that Lawrence's fiction is simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive by showing us how to circumvent dysfunction. Stoltzfus brings literature and psychoanalysis together in readings that are both aesthetic and epistemological. They are recipes for curing the Anthropocene.

Reviews

Ben Stoltzfuss Lacanian study of five stories and two novellas from late in Lawrences career demonstrates that contemporary critical theory can bring fresh illumination to a classic modernist. Stoltzfuss readings of the seven fictions trace a progression from malady to remedy, an encouraging pattern for our troubled times. D. H. Lawrence effectively reinforced by Lacan emerges once again as a visionary writer with a compelling message of harmony and balance.

-- Keith Cushman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This book gracefully connects the four subjects in its title: Lawrence, Lacan, the Anthropocene and the short story. The authors clear exposition makes Lacanian theory accessible to the psychoanalytic novice. In his trenchant summary of twentieth-century intellectual history, Stoltzfus places Lawrence in a global historical context. Lawrences prophecy of our doomed world has come true; his cure is needed now more than ever. Stoltzfus sensitively responds to other critics readings, especially those of Lawrences detractors. He resurrects Lawrence from critical misreadings that may arise from projective identifications that negatively misconstrue the authors intent. The Introduction could stand alone as a paean to literary modernism. With elegant simplicity Stoltzfus describes our current inability to concentrate, connect with others, or halt our destruction of the conditions needed to sustain life on the planet. Adroitly applying Lacanian theory, Stoltzfus performs close readings that are as apt as they are playful. Comparing Lawrences writing method to Hemingways and Camuss unveils the secret of making a powerful short story. To read Stoltzfus is to remember why we loved Lawrence in the first place.

-- Jill Franks, University of Massachusetts Amherst

In this exciting new book, the polymath Ben Stoltzfus amazes us yet again with his audaciously imaginative approach to literary arts, calling this book an exploration of how literature thinks (!) This exploration focuses on D. H. Lawrences reinvention of the language of fiction. Stoltzfus shows how, in these late stories, Lawrence joined conscious artifices like plot and character to linguistic figures (gaps, puns, repetitions, metaphorical slippages, and homonyms) charged by their impulsion from the unconscious. This linkage creates a climacteric space where desire lurks instead of remaining submerged, a la Hemingways iceberg theory of writing. While Lawrence rejected Freuds unconscious (especially his incest taboo) and says he deduced his own version of the unconscious from novels and poems, Stoltzfus nonetheless finds a Laurentian affinity with Lacans own unique reading of Freuds theories.

Stoltzfus scholarship is meticulous and never pedantic. His deep and abiding concern for the widest cultural/historical implications of literary works is joined with his unparalleled ability for exposition of some of the most complex psychoanalytic thinking.

-- Juliet Flower MacCannell, University of California, Irvine

Author Bio

Ben Stoltzfus is professor emeritus of comparative literature, creative writing, and French at the University of California, Riverside.