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Short stories
1138 pages
A feverish plunge into the untamed wilderness of the human psyche, where polite society is shed in favor of primal, dangerous awakenings.
What it feels like
Reading these stories feels like stepping out of a stifling, over-furnished drawing room into a blinding, sun-baked desert. The prose pulses with a feverish, sensuous energy, drawing you into an atmosphere that is at once intoxicating and deeply unsettling. There is a steady, hypnotic rhythm to the narrative as it strips away the veneers of polite society to expose the raw, primal currents of human desire and spiritual hunger. It is a restless, probing experience, steeped in the mystical and the untamed. Readers who crave intense psychological landscapes and atmospheric, symbolic writing will find themselves completely absorbed by this dangerous, intoxicating journey toward liberation and self-discovery.
- Mood
- primal
- sun-baked
- restless
- feverish
- Tone
- intense
- satirical
- probing
- mystical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- spiritual liberation · stifling modern society · primal awakening · the untamed wilderness · human versus animal nature
- The writing
- Sensuous, rhythmic, and heavily symbolic, the sentences pulse with an almost feverish, hypnotic intensity.
- The arc
- The journey moves from a state of suffocating societal constraint into a dangerous, profound, and often unsettling spiritual awakening.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave deeply psychological, atmospheric fiction that explores the raw, untamed edges of human desire and the rejection of polite society.
Content notes
- colonialist attitudes
- sexism
- animal cruelty
- sexual coercion
- human sacrifice
About the book
"In his introduction, James Lasdun discusses the theme of liberation and the ways in which it is conveyed in these works. Using the restored texts of the Cambridge edition, this volume includes further reading, a new chronology and notes by Paul Poplawski."--BOOK JACKET.
In 'The Woman Who Rode Away' a woman's religious quest in Mexico brings great danger - and astonishing self-discovery, while 'The Princess' portrays the intimacy between an aloof woman and her male guide as she ventures into the wilderness of New Mexico in search of new experiences.".
"These three works, all written in 1924, explore profound psychological voyages of liberation. In 'St. Mawr', Lou Witt buys a beautiful, untamable bay stallion and discovers an intense emotional affinity with the horse that she cannot feel with her husband. This superb novella displays Lawrence's mastery of satirical comedy in a scathing depiction of London's fashionable high society.
Description from Open Library.
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