Kangaroo

by D.H. Lawrence

Book by Lawrence, D. H.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Australia, Literature, Historical Fiction, Politics, Novels

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

David 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[Petra can't settle back to chickens & cats life · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just finished Accidental Death of an Anarchist and this book goes well with it. Political, socialist or anarchist, not sure yet. I have generally identified myself as a socio-anarchist, so I quite enjoy books exploring aspects of this political philosophy.

Exchange between two men, one an Australian, one, who is probably the author himself, English:

"We won't be having women in if we can help it. I don't believe in it, do you?"

"No, not in real politics, no."

****

I got the wrong end of the stick with the book. So this is a rant. It's nothing to do with anarchism of any variety, more to do with the glory of a dictatorship as the ideal form of government for the White man. Or at least that's the bit I'm up to. Maybe I've still got the wrong end of the stick!

in the rag the Dailymail.co.uk there was a report on Tahrir Square in Egypt, where barricades had to be formed between lines the of men protesting and the women who also wanted to protest because the men were beating up the women, for up to 45 minutes at a time and 91 got raped in two days. The comments, the negative ones are almost all, the women knew what to expect with all the men there. The women should stay at home. The women know that this is men's business.

Under Sadaat, the women went to universities, wore make-up and any outfits they fancied, as did Sadaat's wife. Under Mubaarak, the same, except for the growing influence of Islamic Fundamentalism. Under Morsi, things grew much worse for them, women were beaten when appearing in public places, raped in prisons when they were arrested for no good reason, subjected to 'virginity' tests when they accused men of rape (a woman who is not a virgin cannot be raped apparently). Things are going to get worse there, they want to see Iran in Egypt or Afghanistan. And all of this we condemn.

But do we condemn it when a 'perfectly reasonable' bloke, an Australian guy spouts the same philosophy?

That guy's philosophy is behind all the media's discussion of the events in most of the world. That politics and running countries is a man's game and it is men that matter. Women? Women's rights? Uh, what has that got to do with insurrection, independence or anything? Luxuries of the first world is what they are. And that is where they will remain if people just always think of things from the men's side. Luckily in Tahrir Square there were some right-thinking men who formed a long barricade, put space between the men who would rape and beat the women for being there. But there weren't enough for 91 of them. And one of them was raped with a 'long, sharp metal implement' as other men watched this 'punishment' for being out of the house where she didn't belong.

Ask yourself this about Afghanistan. What will happen to the women and girls when all the troops go home?

That was a rant and a half wasn't it? ;-)

I corrected some stuff on this and did not check 'add to my update feed' but it seems it still went. Sorry for that, that's GR for you.

[Katia N]

I’ve read this novel a few moths ago. I was looking for an immersive holidays read. This was immersive enough due Lawrence’s gift with words, but it was very far from holiday escapism. The world he described is now hundred years old and thousands miles away from where i am. But it felt much closer. Also this one was the most openly autobiographical and expressively political novel of his i've read.

There is an ongoing discourse about anglophone auto-fiction; and the current iteration of this is that the authors are writing in such a way to ‘market their brand’. I would dare to suggest that it is a bit of a nonsense as one can market their brand more successfully with a fantasy novel. Also based upon this novel, autofiction in its current form is at least hundred years old in the 'anglosphere' (I think in other cultures the half random categorisation between different ways of writing is less of an issue). The style has changed a bit: first person instead of the 3rd is now prevailing; and meta-component is more prominent. But the substance has not changed that much. Also this novel demonstrates that ‘personal’ novel can still be focused on ‘political’.

In spite of the third person narration, this book is mainly about Lawrence - or his alter-ego Somers - visiting Australia. There, he is wanted by all extreme political forces to be their representative. In the text, Lawrence in dealing with mass politics (in Australian context) and the political climate in England (incl WW1) that caused him to emigrate. As usual his own politics and theology (often mixed with each other) is obscure and/or extremely off-putting on occasion. But his juicy language and the ability to be a sensitive conduit to his surroundings has kept me turning those pages. This is not his best novel but worth reading as a document of those times, especially that in some attitudes his time is sadly resonating with ours it seems. A chapter “Nigtmare’ in the middle is definitely worth attention and can be read stand alone. It describes his struggles and humiliation with the authorities in war-time England. In that chapter, he aptly summarises the crisis of his generation:

Awful years—’ 16, ‘17, ‘18, ‘19—the years when the damage was done. The years when the world lost its real manhood. Not for lack of courage to face death. Plenty of superb courage to face death. But no courage in any man to face his own isolated soul, and abide by its decision. Easier to sacrifice oneself. So much easier!

He was suspected as a spy and went through multiple humiliations, attempts to draft him and forced moves around the country. Also this novel might be appreciated by many who would be interested in Australia, especially of this period politics perceived through Lawrences’s eyes. His descriptions of the nature are superb. For example this:

The sea too was very full. It was nearly high tide, the waves were rolling very tall, with light like a menace on the nape of their necks as they bent, so brilliant. Then, when they fell, the fore-flush in a great soft swing with incredible speed up the shore, on the darkness soft-lighted with moon, like a rush of white serpents, then slipping back with a hiss that fell into silence for a second, leaving the sand of granulated silver.

As he moves from one place to another, there are many more of such descriptions to admire as a distraction from the rest of the book's reality.

The plot (if you call it that) is simple Somers, a famous writer, arrives in Australia with his wife and plans to settle there. Quite quickly he is introduced to Kangaroo, the leader of proto-fashist movement of ex-soldiers and working class men. He wants Somers to be an ideologist of the movement. Somers ponders. He is also introduced to the leaders of the left. They want him to write for their newspaper. Somers ponders. Eventually there is a small inconclusive street fight between the far-right and the left. Kangaroo is wounded, Somers is disenchanted by everything and everyone in Australia. Kangaroo dies. Somers and his wife leave. But in the process Lawrence goes quite deep into the ideologies driving these movements as far as he understands them. He contrast them with his own ‘dark spirit’ that is something like that:

He wanted men once more to refer the sensual passion of love sacredly to the great dark God, the ithyphallic, of the first dark religions. And how could that be done, when each dry little individual ego was just mechanically set against any such dark flow, such ancient submission? Man becomes darkly half vegetable, devoid of preoccupations. Even the never-slumbering urge of sex sinks down into something darker, more monotonous, incapable of caring: like sex in trees.

He was already talking about similar stuff in Women in Love. It sounds beautiful and mysterious on the page, but dreadfully murky and dark like some diocesan cult. I do not envy his wife and friends - no-one wants to be near ‘darkly half vegetable’ i would think.

In general coming back to this novel after a few months, i remember two strong kinds of fluid emanated from Somers: rage and indifference. I remember that initially I was not sure how it was possible to combine the rage with indifference. But then i’ve looked at the news and some discussions, especially happening on line and i’ve realised it was almost logical.

He tried to write, that being his job. But usually, nowadays, when he tapped his unconscious, he found himself in a seethe of steady fury, general rage. He didn’t hate anybody in particular, nor even any class or body of men. He loathed politicians, and the well-bred darling young men of the well-to-do middle classes made his bile stir. But he didn’t fret himself about them specially. The off-hand self-assertive working people of Australia made him feel diabolic on their score sometimes. But as a rule the particulars were not in evidence, all the rocks were submerged, and his bile swirled diabolically for no particular reason at all. He just felt generally diabolical, and tried merely to keep enough good sense not to turn his temper in any particular direction.

At least he is trying ‘not to turn his temper in any particular direction. But maybe in his case it is partly explains sense of ‘torpor’ he is also experiencing. How profoundly, darkly he didn’t care. He also feels this ‘indifference’ is surrounding him, but it is kind of collective and brooding, if ill-defined:

The indifference, the marvellous, bed-rock indifference. Not the static fatalism of the east. But an indifference based on real recklessness, an indifference with a deep flow of loose energy beneath it, ready to break out like a geyser.

I feel that this combination of rage and indifference is in the air in our time as well. Lawrence describe the Australians been torn between the extremes of political agitation promising to grow harmony out of rage with help of violence and hatred of the other. Also those forces stock fear. It all sounds familiar. But it seems many people react with exactly combination of indifference and passive rage. In his today’s column an FT writer Janan Ganesh said: ’Too many have cried wolf about too many things and the public is now perilously nonchalant.’ And even if i do not fully agree with the conclusion of his article -his observation is more about well-off people are having a good time regardless- in this sentence, he has caught something of a sentiment expressed by Lawrence in his time. People just become indifferent faced with magnanimity of real problems and constant divisive agitation from all the sides.

No home, no tea. Insouciant soullessness. Eternal indifference. Perhaps it is only the great pause between carings. But it is only in this pause that one finds the meaninglessness of meanings—like old husks which speak dust. Only in this pause that one finds the meaninglessness of meanings, and the other dimension, the reality of timelessness and nowhere. Home to tea! Do you hear the clock tick? And yet there is timelessness and nowhere. And the clock means nothing with its ticking. And nothing is so meaningless as meanings. Yet Richard meandered home to tea.

Honestly, I am not sure what to add to this 'meaninglessness of meanings'. I am not even sure i can condemn his attitude at all. Still let’s hope that is ‘a great pause between carings’ and it will be tea at home for everyone.

Ps

It is fascinating to compare the mood and tone in these two quotes:

Lawrence character in this novel (1919): “Look at these Australians—they’re awfully nice, but they’ve got no inside to them. They’re hollow. How are you going to build on such hollow stalks? They may well call them corn-stalks. They’re marvellous and manly and independent and all that, outside. But inside, they are not. When they’re QUITE alone, they don’t exist.” “Yet many of them have been alone a long time, in the bush,”

Blaise Pascal (1650) “Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.”

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Believe it or not, with all the thousands of books that I have read in my life so far, I had never read a book by D. H. Lawrence. Until now. And unfortunately, I didn't make a very good choice in which novel of his to read first.

In fact, it's hardly really a novel at all, as there is almost no plot whatsoever. The book mainly consists of philosophical musings, which to be perfectly honest, I found quite boring, for the most part.

What little plot there is, concerns the two main characters, Richard and Harriet Somers, who according to the blurb on the dust jacket, are a thinly disguised D.H Lawrence himself, and his wife Freida. The book is called Kangaroo, not merely because the book is set in Australia and kangaroos are found there, but because Somers meets a man there, who is the leader of a group of would be revolutionaries, and he is known as Kangaroo because he apparently resembles one. A large part of the book consists of this Kangaroo fellow, and his minions, trying to convince Somers to join his band of rebels.

Unfortunately, this is about all the action, if you can call it that, that takes place in the book at all. I will admit that the writing is very good. Lawrence's descriptive writing is beautiful, and his sentences describing the landscape, plants and the sea are sublime. This however was not enough to hold my interest and I must admit I actually skimmed the last 80 pages or so. So although this was a fairly major disappointment, I will try another of Lawrence's novels at some point in the future. I'm just not sure which one to try next.

[Troy Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence's most ideological and political novel, I found this hard going in places, but ultimately rewarding. There are stunning passages describing the Australian landscape and Lawrence explores aspects of the Australian psyche very well - quite an achievement given that he lived in Australia for less than six months.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Senryu Review:

DHL parcels
antipodean anguish
in plump pained prosebox

D.H. Lawrence RANKED

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange book that seems to be bits of different writing sewn together with the seams still exposed.
Beautiful lyrical writing about the Australian bush, just gorgeous and he does seem to get this country. I came back from the NSW south coast, where much of the book is set. His descriptions of this place are perfect down to the stickiness of the seawater.
When Lawrence describes human interactions, he gets them very right. The descriptions of the different types of male silences are very, very good. The ups and down of a domestic relationship are also well done.
The book comes apart when he tries to integrate the personal with the political. The current feeling is that Lawrence did stumble upon a proto-fascist movement in Sydney in the 1920s. There is some element of reality being bent into shape by a supremely talented modernist author with romanticist leanings. The irrational politics of fascism could be a fertile field for such an author. And how Lawrence tries, but he does not have the tools. He has an intuitive understanding of the subconscious, but he can't entirely use this to comprehend the phenomenon of fascism. There was/is an appeal to the darker urges of the human psyche with the politics of fascism which Lawrence gropes toward but please do not read this book as an explanation of the Australian right between the wars. He just does not quite get it.
He gets into long and involved internal discussions of the nature of love and whether that is enough for politics. This is by far the worst part of the book. It is long and meandering and frankly makes little sense on any level.
This groping for understanding that is far from complete is on some levels reflected in the ambivalent character of Richard Lovat Somers. He has the ambivalence of Hamlet. He can almost make a choice, but it is always just out of his grasp because of some newly constructed reason.

[Bhaskar Thakuria · Rating 5 out of 5]

In D.H.Lawrence's own words Kangaroo was "the deepest and most profound of his novels". Never have I found Lawrence's prose more deep, more vigorous, more stimulating, and full of more ideas and insights. True, he wrote this novel in a more political context, and this was in complete variance with the rest of his fictional universe. Even then, as noted biographer Michael Squires writes in his book Living at the Edge: A Biography of D.H. Lawrence & Frieda Von Richthofen, how could an author, a newcomer to Australian politics, and with few contacts in Australia, have concocted a novel of such political intrigue and sentiments? Indeed he had lost his enthusiasm for love and sex in fiction (so prominent in his early masterpieces The Rainbow and Women in Love) by then. Instead, in this work, he sought for a special kind of male bonding through the medium of revolutionary activity. And nowhere is this more evident than in the relationship that develops between Richard Lovatt Somers and Bernard Cooley aka Kangaroo.

The novel's principal theme is whether Somers will join a political group, and whether it will be the Nationalists led by Bernard Cooley aka Kangaroo or the Socialists led by the shrewd and tactful Willy Struthers (who proposes to Somers to launch a political weekly to support their movement). This theme evolves gradually, in strands, over the course of several chapters, and reaches its culmination on that day when mob violence breaks out in Sydney over the course of Willie Struthers' impassioned and fiery public speech and when Jack Callcott, leading the "diggers" nationalists, counts out the opposing speech. This brilliant evolution of the political drama shows Lawrence's mastery of the novel form, and nowhere is it more evident than in Kangaroo.

The novel showcases Somers's attempt to bond with two strong men- Jack Callcott, a follower and Somers's neighbour in Sydney; and Kangaroo, a leader. Jack whets Somers's interest in their poltical brotherhood, and urges him to join the "diggers" (who are servicemen returned from WWI) and swear allegiance to their leader Kangaroo. Somers is emotionally insecure, and wavers between embracing Kangaroo's fascist vision of love and working for the Socialist movement led by the spiderish, brooding Willie Struthers. He resists both as he is unsure whether either will ease his earlier fixation on marriage and the family.

The highlight of the novel is the chapter titled "The Nightmare" that recounts Somers's life in wartime Cornwall. DHL has himself admitted that the chapter contained his own long 'war' experience. Here the protagonist is infatuated with his Cornish friend, and spends more time at his friend's farm than with his wife. Somers withdraws from his wife and expresses solidarity with the farm people more. One classic scene is when Somers is summoned for medical examination for a third time in order to enlist men for active service. In this scene DHL draws parallel with his own misery and humilation during those dark days. The "nightmare" reaches its height when they are asked to leave Cornwall in the space of three days.

And the wonder of it all was that DHL completed the first draft of this novel in a span of 45 days. To write about the new land, Australia, and to form such strong impressions upon it in a heady novel of political intrigue, and all during the tenure of a few weeks of stay in Australia, is just incredible. All of these impressions are wrought in DHL's profoundly lyrical prose. Kangaroo is DHL's paen to the newly found Australia. Indeed one cannot feel otherwise.

[Vishal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kangaroo is D H Lawrence’s love poem to a strangely beautiful land-Australia. The sense of place he creates is so rich and so deep, you could almost be there among the crystal blue skies, smelling golden wattle deep in the bush, or hear his glassy seas roar against the wild, rocky shores. Weird as this may sound, I have a strange feeling of having experienced Australia (along with a few other countries) in a past life, and this book reinforces it.

I picked Kangaroo up on a whim, having heard the title alluded to in a Bukowski short story. It’s a semi-autobiographical account of a man who leaves behind the claustrophobic paranoia of post-war Europe in search of freedom. However the political ghost from his past stalks him in the form of Kangaroo, the leader of a militant/fascist organization.

Although suffering from descriptive repetitiveness at times (the book was poorly edited, among other flaws such as the whiny, irritatingly capricious lead character Somers), the book is worth it alone for the chapter Nightmare, which takes us back to his tempestuous time in Cornwall, to which he lends a ghostly beauty.

Worth a read if you’re looking for something slow, thoughtful, deep, evocative and philosophical.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with The Plumed Serpent ... the challenge with DH Lawrence is that there's a lot about honesty, frankness ... lots about the nature of being a man and the fundamentals of men relating to each other ... but we never, ever talk about homosexuality. It literally doesn't exist. And if it isn't gay, the modern reader needs to know it isn't gay. Otherwise, we spend the whole time going "Oh. Gay."

"And he wanted to know him, to talk to him. He wanted to get to the bottom of him."

"Yet Jack did want to get at him, somehow or other."

"But Somers was mistaken. He didn't understand Jack's way of leaving seven-tenths of himself out of any intercourse."

"'Your instinct brought you here - and brought you straight up against me.'"

"Somers gave him his hand, and Jack clasped it fast, drawing the smaller man to him and putting his arm round his shoulder and holding him near to him. It was a tense moment for Richard Lovat."

"He knew that her greatest grief was when he turned away from their personal human life of intimacy to the impersonal business of male activity for which he was always craving."

"He had all his life had this craving for an absolute friend."

"The perfect love that men may have for one another, passing the love of women."

The chapter on Cornwall ... "The Nightmare" ... was very interesting. And I liked learning a bit about "counting out". The Prince of Wales (Edwards VIII) was "counted out" by Australian troops in Egypt?

Bits:
"Verbal agreement and silent opposition is perhaps the best weapon on such occasions."

"'somebody will have to water Australia with their blood before it's a real man's country. The soil, the very plants seem to be waiting for it.'"

"'and the Japs come down this way. They'd squash us like a soft pear.'"

"But if the thing had really happened, it could hardly have happened to him more than in this dream."

"'Cripes, there's nothing bucks you up sometimes like killing a man - nothing. You feel a perfect angel after it. ... Having a woman's something, isn't it? But it's a flea-bite, nothing, compared to killing your man when your blood comes up.'"

"Love is perhaps an eternal part of life. But it is only a part."

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book purified a part of me and restored my faith in what it is to be human. Lawrence's honesty and artistic integrity made me realize how far the modern world wants us to travel from being human - what makes us valuable and vital.

His words are so beautiful. Many of the chapters are deeply moving and full of personal experience and emotion. The book is also semi-autobiographical. This is Lawrence's greatest work. It is full of who he is and how he loves the human condition and yet struggles with mediocrity and the mass hatred of those who are on the outside.

You can really begin to love the characters he encounters. They often grow to hate him but he always bears a place for them in his heart. Lawrence is indefatigable and brave.

He never enlisted in the army for the 1st world war but you will know by reading this book - what a great warrior and artist this man was. And of course - Harriet. She is the hero of this book and Lawrence knows it. He makes way for her.

Just by writing these words I feel myself being moved. This is a book I will always treasure. An experience I will never forget.

[James Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

File Under Batshit Crazy.
My god, I LOVE that books like this were published. No, not because of the misogyny, the casual anti-semitism and racism (which are abhorent but eye-opening because they must have all been so damn normal at that time, and among the enlightened, cultured, know-all, coolio classes) but because the book just does whatever the hell it wants. It doesn't work in any way, shape or form but it's a kind of key text on Australia and forms part of Lawrence's autobiography.
For me at least, there are two great joys in reading D.H. Lawrence. One, the above the table one, is the sheer vivacity and uniqueness of the descriptive prose. Lawrence writes some of the best sentences ever put to page in English - and frequently. They pepper the text. He's especially strong on landscape but there are descriptive pieces which are arrow-sharp too. Second, it's realising that he's just writing about himself and that he doesn't even bother - often - to hide himself in the text. He's just there, on stage. Like American film heros are always Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner or Harrison Ford, despite being called Jack Harris or Chad Majors or whatever - so Lawrence is always Lawrence, despite being called - as in the case of Kangaroo - Richard. But it's not just that - it's the judicious way he describes HIS actions which make it fascinating. As prim and pompous as he is with his ideas and his themes, he rips the absolute piss out of himself and lights up his pretensions as a character, which, for me at least, is fascinating.
Lawrence is exhausting. He's a contrarian and as much as you want to grasp some kind of method in the madness of description and his exposition of sacred ideas and trueness that lies within and under other truenesses, in the end he's a waffle bag, someone quite capable of arguing with themselves all day long. Whatever you say I am, I'm not is him. And he knows it. And it's there on the page and between the pages in a book like this, which is bad-tempered, suddenly docile, rambling, post-modern, boring, amazing all in a single chapter.
No, this is a great book.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

KANGAROO
I had read Kangaroo 40 years ago and vaguely recall that I had liked it. I had recently been studying Plato’s Republic and was possibly more accepting of the idea of a benevolent dictator; I was also just out of adolescence so I could relate to this most adolescent of novels. Rereading now, about halfway through, the word “odious” came to mind. I was astonished that the much-acclaimed Lawrence could write not only such drivel, but in places write it so badly. Here was a problem to solve.
Such plot as there is starts with Richard Lovat Somers and his German-born wife Harriet, who are clearly Lawrence and Frieda, arriving in Sydney for a three month stay. They first settle near Sydney Harbour, with friendly neighbours Jack and Vicky Callcott to whom Somers is rude. Vicky is a pretty, well-meaning but dim little thing who “knows her place” beside the aristocratic Harriet. Somers catches her eyeing him and thinks “like a sacred vestal virgin she is offering herself to me”: an outrageously egocentric hint of hanky panky to come that doesn’t eventuate. Jack has thick Australian thick legs, and eyes that variously flash or glow or brood. Jack and Vicky have a weekend cottage at Mullumbimby – no, not on the NSW North Coast but on the South Coast, at Thirroul, just north of Wollongong. Somers and Harriet rent the place as they love the beach and bush.
Talk becomes political. Jack claims that politics should be like the military: citizens, like those in the ranks, should obey orders from the high command. He tells Somers there are units in what seem to be RSL clubs ready to stage a military coup when the socialists stage a revolution. Jack introduces Somers to their charismatic leader, a lawyer called Ben Cooley known as Kangaroo because he has a long head, round belly and powerful hindquarters. (Jack is also said to look like a kangaroo). This is where we start to get ridiculous. Depending on what he is saying, Kangaroo can be huge and beautiful with glowing eyes, or ugly. Kangaroo explains that men need a loving father they can obey: “I offer no creed, I offer myself.” Kangaroo is possibly based on Major General Sir Charles Rosenthal who was founding secretary in 1921 and later president of The King and Empire Alliance, and alleged to have been involved with the Old Guard, a secret anti-communist militia with ties to the Bruce government. However, I doubt that Rosenthal ruled by love and had hugged selected diggers tightly, saying “I love you!” Jack is supposedly based on Major John Scott an associate of Rosenthal and an official in the Old Guard.
Through Jaz, an enigmatic Welshman now Australian, Somers’ meets the leader of the Labor Movement, Willie Struthers, ugly with an “Australian” face. He too speaks of love, not top down like Kangaroo, but with workers bonded by love and comradeship to equalise the wrongs of capitalism. After talking with Struthers and rejecting his request to run a newspaper for him, Somers calls on Kangaroo. They fight in a ridiculous shouting scene, during which Kangaroo hugs Somers so tightly he can hardly breathe saying “I love you, I love you.” Somers rejects him and runs from the room. Love is not in his repertoire.
In a Labor Party rally in Canberra House Struthers gives an impassioned speech, describing the inequality and victory of Industrialism over labour: workers do all the work for one pound a day while the bosses do nothing and get ten pounds a day, an accurate depiction of where the Labor movement was in 1922. Struthers is counted down by a group of diggers led by Jack, creating a riot in which three are killed. Jack exults about his feelings when he smashed in a man’s socialist brains with an iron bar: Kangaroo’s love seems to have bypassed Jack. Kangaroo is fatally wounded. He requests Somers to visit him in hospital and begs him as he is dying to say Somers loves him. Somers refuses, to Jack’s disgust.
Harriet and Somers by now are tired of Australia and go to America not because they want to but because that’s the next logical step.
Social and political attitudes
Since Lawrence models Somers so strongly on himself I assume that Somers’ political and social stances are those of Lawrence himself. He is strong on distinguishing and heightening differences between groups of people: Australians/English, Cornish/English, upper class/lower class, men/women, which gets racist pretty quickly with Mr Brown and Mr Chink.
Here is Lawrence/Somers on:
Class and gender. What upper class men have said is real, what workers leave unsaid is real, whereas women chatter to each other whatever their class. Class differences depend on the aristocratic principle: differences between people are innate.
Women. The chapter on Harriet’s and Somers’ marriage sits oddly with Lawrence’s supposed insight into the female mind. Richard in a rant claims that just as a captain needs to be in sole charge of the ship, so he should be the lord and master in the marriage, the captain of the “hymenal bark” as he pretentiously puts it. Harriet is outraged; to her marriage should be based on love. But Richard sees love as the source of evil: he is driven by his icthypriapic (?) god. Vicky (as a generalised woman figure?) is a well-meaning pretty dimwit and is seen as sexually available.
Love. The Chapter “Nightmare” is straight autobiography. Somers is rejected for service in WW1on medical grounds but this only sets him apart. He is outspokenly critical of the war, and because he also has a German wife he is accused of being a spy. Somers/Lawrence is told to leave Cornwall because he may be signalling to German ships at sea. He is called up for military service several times, the last in Derby where he is outraged to the core, utterly humiliated by the medical inspection, involving genital and rectal inspection, which is standard practice. I guess this chapter is meant to explain his cynicism and his rejection of love: “the foul poison breath of love.” Where does this leave Harriet – and presumably Frieda? He dwells endlessly on wanting to be alone with his dark priapic god.
Australians. Somers is patronising about Australian buildings and the people, the accent a form of Cockney spoken through clenched teeth. There are no class distinctions: not better, just better off. But money is not much good where there is no genuine culture: money is a means to rising to a fuller, higher subtler state of consciousness. Australians are hollow like straw, gleaming gold on the outside empty inside. When Australians are alone they don’t exist. However, “when these Colonials do speak seriously they sound like men not like babies. They need to water Australia with their blood before it becomes a man’s country.”
Politics. Richard rejects both Kangaroo’s fascism and Struther’s socialism, but he sees himself still as of the working class and comes down roughly as a social democrat without the mately love. Yet he supports the aristocratic principle of innate differences. Kangaroo quotes “greater love hath no man” a reference that forces me to complete the phrase with the North country version: “than this, that he gives his boom to his choom.”
I had thought that Lawrence might have something prescient to say of subsequent politics, but I don’t think so. Lawrence didn’t forecast the rise of fascism in Australia: it was already there with first the Old Guard and then its split-off, the New Guard. That nationalistic type of right wing died out in the 30s after De Groot’s fiasco at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Struthers’ impassioned socialism gave way to the ALP’s more moderate postwar social democratic type of leftism until Hawke dragged the ALP to the right where it stays bogged in neoliberalism to this day. However, I could relate to Struthers’ depiction of the 20s: strip the right of its jingoism and what you have is Howard’s Work Choices and Abbott’s attack on any sort of welfare infrastructure. This is the rock hard face of later right wing politics, but I don’t think Lawrence is at all prescient, he was simply recording what he saw was already there.
Religion. He rejects Christianity and a loving god, but believes in his dark priapic god arising from within. Humanity is a “monster with an ideal of equality for a head and industrialism and possessive conservatism for a tail that howls with frenzy“: its God drives it mad. Hard to make sense of this.
Contradictions. Apart from these conceptual corkscrews, Somers is full of contradictions, especially about love and about Australians. He wants to be alone and sees love as a poison, but when taken away from the riot in Canberra House he tries to return to bewailing what is happening to his fellow humans. He is attracted to Kangaroo yet hates him. Odd phrases like “permanency is the root of all evil”, “the foul poison breath of love”, make little sense.
Quality of writing
When Lawrence’s writing is good in Kangaroo it is very very good, especially the nature descriptions, but when it is bad it is astoundingly so for one of his stature.
The plot is loosely structured and rolls on as aimlessly as Somers’ own purposeless roaming. The novel is in fact made up of different genres: part memoir, part self-contradictory rants on politics, religion and philosophy, and part lectures on botany, volcanoes, consciousness amongst different races and of species of animals, illustrated in the introspections and actions of essentially unlikeable people. Too much telling and not enough showing is a no-no in fiction.
He uses too many adjectives and adverbs. In one scene with Somers and Kangaroo, nobody actually says anything: they roar, yell, shout, or whisper; whatever verb is qualified by adverbs such as sombrely, sarcastically, threateningly, pleadingly, etc. Many phrases are repetitive: glowing eyes, beautiful faces that turn ugly in a flash, thick male legs are admired (“boys with big magnificent bare legs”) suggesting DHL would love to be crushed between a pair, “aboriginal” is a much used adjective to variously mean, wild, primitive, dangerous (you know, he seems to be saying, like aborigines are), “fern” likewise takes on a basic primitive meaning used widely, then there is the dangerous “love octopus”, and many more.
The nature writing is detailed and evocative, if at times repetitive. Lawrence was a trained botanist and he uses that to advantage, at the same time making the point that Australians themselves don’t value their natural heritage. It was true then, now it depends on which political party you back.
Characterisation and dialogue. Somers behaves like an adolescent, self-contradictory, emotionally volatile, loving and hating in the same paragraph, constantly changing his mind, over reacting to quite simple statements by others – is this how Lawrence wants the world to see him? Remember he was in his mid-30s when he wrote Kangaroo, not a confused adolescent. Harriet is amorphous, we don’t get a clear picture of her at all, which is odd because Frieda was all too sharply defined as a person. Kangaroo is a caricature, contradictory, unconvincing not to say ridiculous. Jack and Vicky come across as real people, as does Struthers. Jaz is enigmatic, hard to get hold of him. Dialogue is strained, especially in the didactic exchanges between characters.
I might have liked the book as an adolescent but as a mature adult I saw it as an adolescent patchwork of emotional volatility, pretension and knowledge-airing on a range of barely relevant subjects. And the book badly needs a good edit.
Some Critiques
Gideon Haigh saw fit to dub Kangaroo "one of the sharpest fictional visions of the country and its people", particularly for its insight into the political system Australia of the 20s, when Labor became ever more militant after the Great War, creating a strong conservative backlash by the Bruce Government and in NSW by the Old Guard, a fascist paramilitary organisation strongly pro-Empire.
Lawrence scholar Christopher Pollnitz dwells on Lawrence’s appreciation of Australian wilderness especially flora rather than on other aspects of the novel. George Simmers writes in his blog: “Was any other writer as tormented by the Great War as D.H. Lawrence was? Considered as a novel, his Kangaroo is a broken-backed unsatisfactory thing, but as a human document it is engrossing, revealing the pain of a man whom the war has excluded from the community to which he feels he rightfully belongs.” Paul Eggert writing a critique in Rananim again dwells on Lawrence’s sense of place and draws attention to much disagreement amongst critics about the accuracy of Lawrence’s commentary on Australian society and politics.
Most critics dwell on what the book was about, that is Australian wilderness and politics, not on the novel as a novel – apart from Simmers’ passing judgment that it is “a broken-backed unsatisfactory thing.” I agree, but I enjoyed finding that out for myself.
But back to the paradox. EM Forster described Lawrence as “the greatest imaginative novelist of his generation”. How then did Lawrence, regarded as one of England’s most important novelists, particularly for his insight into female characters, come to write Kangaroo (1923)? His reputation was built on such as Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920), which are gritty accounts of personal relationships and social class in the coal mining English Midlands. Having written those three novels he spent three months in Australia and during that time wrote most of Kangaroo, seemingly using eyes that had been accurately focused on the industrial Midlands of England. However, his eyes hadn’t yet accommodated to allow him to see individual Australians as anything much more than hollow Derbyshire miners with thick legs, powerful hindquarters, and gleaming exteriors. As for the structural problems and poor writing, I suppose you have to put that down to haste and lack of editing.
John Biggs

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read, as for the most part I didn't really like it. I found hardly any of the characters to be particularly appealing, the politics simplistic, and the frequent racist overtones quite disheartening from an author I admire so much.

The book was saved for me (and largely contributing to its 3 stars) by the brilliant chapter entitled 'The Nightmare', based upon Lawrence's experiences during the First World War when he and his wife Frieda were continually harassed by the police and authorities after he had been declared unfit for active service. This actually struck me as the reason behind the writing of the book. He had turned his back on England, and during his travels had ended up in Australia, if only for a few weeks, but something must have struck him in order to write this novel.

The politics in the book touch on the rights of the working class people (Lawrence's own background), and whether the writer character Richard Lovat Somers should give his support to one of two political leaders, either the benevolent would-be dictator, Kangaroo, or the more socialist Willie Struthers. Set and written at a time that had recently witnessed the Russian Revolution, this would have been a key reference point to any thought about improving the lot of the working man (and less-so women, who are ignominiously set aside in the political geography of this book, as they were in the real world to a greater extent at the time). With Lawrence's recent experiences at home he may have seen Australia as a 'new' land of possibility, but it is the people in his book who prevent the possible from happening (Somers eventually rejects both of the leaders and indeed the country itself).

Overall unsatisfying, but with moments of genius, and great style. Some have said it is essential reading to discover the real Australia, and the descriptive passages of the bush and nature are impressive, but Patrick White for both people and place, and Frank Moorhouse for people do it better for me.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This Lawrence book was written while he was "stuck" in Australia. The entire time he was on the continent he wavered between desparately wanting to leave and deciding it wasn't so bad and he would stay for awhile. He eventually decided he HAD to leave but had a month before a steamer would be leaving from Sydney.

He wrote this book, largely about his experiences there with an attempt at adding a plot concerning a group of mainly ex-soldiers (WWWI) who want to change the government. They are lead by a man whose code name is Kangaroo. The group wants Lawrence (under the name of Somers) to join. He meets several times with Kangaroo and has extremely conflicting views of him and the group.

Kangaroo was written in 6 weeks and never edited and it shows. The "plot" isn't really a plot, the characters seem to change unpredictably, and the main reason for writing the book appears to be Lawrence's angst and wish to be left alone by the world.

If you are a dyed-in-the-wool D.H. Lawrence fan you should read this to get a full picture of his writings. However, if you've only ever read Lady Chatterly's lover and THINK you like Lawrence, don't bother.

(An interesting aside: This edition was published by the Viking Press and on the back of the cover, it lists an entire page of books it has published by D.H. Lawrence. However, one is missing: Lady Chatterly's Lover.....)

[Matthew Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the sharpest insights into Australia ever written, and all from only a few secluded weeks in Oz.

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A LENGTHY PRELUDE:

It was somewhere written that a visitor is more struck
by the peculiarities of a place than those
who live there and are accustomed to it.

Which is why I like asking Australian migrants
who have lived here for a fair while:
"What do you really think of Australia?"
I don't often ask because you are putting people on the spot,
so one must be judicious about to whom one poses this question.

As a result I have only asked it twice

I have asked it once and was met with embarrassment and excuses
and apologetic tones and so didn't press the issue.
I have asked it once and was met with a deliciously wicked smile.
(I had scored!!!)
I have overheard an honest opinion, and an immediate apology
when the realisation occurred that I was in earshot.
( I said there was no need for any apology.)

In each case I realised that my ambiguous question, (because although
I named the place, what I really meant was the inhabitants of the place,
and not the indigenous ones), was perfectly understood by these most recent
'invaders'.

I have heard old migrants interviewed on a TV series
about our migrants and they will always mention the racism,
which our politicians NEVER do.
And I have heard 2 German tourists accuse Australians of being "too friendly".

And then there are the books...about the Land of Oz ie. OZ-tralia!!!
Bill Bryson has to be polite because he wants to sell to support himself and family.

D.H.Lawrence was not one to mince words.
Which is why "Kangaroo" is an exciting read for an Australian,
well, for this Australian anyway.
And he agrees with the two German girls above.
This friendliness, this laid-back, easy-going lifestyle and manner is
a worry.

The two Italian women mentioned above,for that is what they were,
the one, Mirella d'Aristotle Postiglione of the deliciously wicked smile, lately of Rome,
told me with mirth, that "Australia is like a giant nursing home."
Only one other Australian has laughed at this description.
So did I...and both of us had lived overseas.
The Other Italian, Sylvia, whose conversation with two others I was overhearing at lunch at the
Migrant Interpreter base at a big suburban Sydney Hospital where we all worked,had described the fourth woman, the one they were discussing,as being "as cold as an Australian."

Nothing here of the friendly image at all, rather extreme British reserve,
as if the friendliness is part of another self, how deep or shallow, I don't know,
but I suspect it is as integral as the two sides of a coin are to its very existence.

The apologetic, non-commital migrant was a Serbian man, a next-door neighbour,
who I found was reserved about everything personal,as are most Men of Oz.

Finally...an Australian friend and husband arriving at their Parisian Hotel
was challenged by the woman on the desk with:"Why are you Australians always so happy?"
"Because we are on holidays", came the reply.
"No,no" she responded."I have worked here for many years and dealt with many nationalities on holiday
...and here she listed them...and they are never like you Australians."
True...but only one side of the coin.

A little more to come....

[Ed Parke · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It felt like a clock that was running down. It had been wound up in Europe, and was running down, running right down, here in Australia."

Written while Lawrence briefly lived in Craig Street Thirroul, so something (literally) quite close to home. This book was a strange composite of anthropology, veiled Lawrentian autobiography, and a political philosophy of the pains and duties of man. A chapter here like some kind of Huxleyan mystic meditation, a chapter there replete with political polemic, the final chapter among the most moving accounts of Australia-as-place (and of leaving Australia) I've ever come across. As one reviewer put it, Kangaroo is a "a broken-backed unsatisfactory thing, but as a human document it is engrossing." The Australian characters are indeed very strange, like golems at once solid, monstrous and alien. "I don't love people," says Lawrence's alter-ego Richard Lovat Somers, "but this place: it goes into my marrow and makes me feel drunk. I love Australia." The place more so than the people; I can see how such a novel could be a precursor to the Jindyworobak movement.

Much has changed in the Sydney-sphere that Somers/Lawrence would've encountered back in 1922, but reading Kangaroo has definitely given me as a local reader a different lens through which to see and experience this place which remains home. "It had a wonder and a afar-awayness, even here in the heart of Sydney. All the shibboleths of mankind are so trumpery. Australia is outside everything."

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of D.H. Lawrence's Australian novel until a few weeks ago, nor had I read any of his other books.

Hard to pin this one down; it's part memoir, part political thriller, part metaphysical rambling.

I vaguely knew that Australian WWI veterans had formed secret societies and flirted with something like fascism in the 1920s. Seems like Lawrence got to see this first-hand in the brief time he spent here.

The observations about Australia and Australians still feel spot on 100 years later, down to the depictions of Australian men and their thicc, life-saving thighs (guilty).

Some of the philosophising in the later chapters wore a bit thin. Then again, I admire the intellectual confidence of someone who speaks with such authority on the telepathic abilities of whales (sperm whales are the most telepathic, says Lawrence) and the love/power vibrations emanating from Woodrow Wilson and William Ewart Gladstone within the span of a few pages.

Good, despite its flaws.

[Ana Pereira · Rating 4 out of 5]

***INCLUI O ENREDO***
Gostei desta leitura. É um livro autobiográfico.
As personagens centrais, um casal, têm muito das características do escritor e da sua mulher, pois ela sendo alemã e ele não se coibindo de dizer sempre o que pensa, são acusados de espiarem para a Alemanha, o país inimigo.
Irão para a Austrália para começarem uma vida nova, depois de a guerra ter acabado.
Apesar de gostarem da natureza em si, os australianos desagradam-lhes e acabarão por sair de novo.
Mesmo tendo conhecido dois líderes revolucionários, um nacionalista, o Canguru, que diz que o país precisa de amor, e um outro, que advoga a mudança pelo socialismo, a personagem principal, Richard Somers, rejeita envolver-se tanto com um como com o outro, pois crê que nenhum deles tem a perceção da natureza real do homem e do que seria necessário mudar para se alcançar uma sociedade melhor.
A seguir à Austrália irá viver nos EUA, mesmo sabendo que detesta o capitalismo norte-americano.
***
CITAÇÕES
DESCRIÇÃO FÍSICA DO NARRADOR/ESCRITOR
Os dois homens fitaram-se de maneira curiosa. E a senhora Callcott olhou para Somers [o alter-ego do escritor] com os seus olhos brilhantes, castanhos, vivos, como um pássaro subitamente interessado por qualquer coisa. Para ela, era uma ave nova, aquele homem de barbas. Não seria bonito e impressionante como a mulher; não, antes se devia considerá-lo esquisito. Contudo, possuía um não sei quê, algo da magia do velho mundo que a senhora Calcott jamais visitara, a antiguidade da cultura, um fascínio ancestral. Como ele usava barba e tinha um casaco verde de trazer por casa, ela calculou que estava à sua frente um socialista.
p.20
***
SAUDADES DA EUROPA ANTES ODIADA
Lovat não se considerava feliz. Ansiava pela Europa, com um apetite de esfomeado: Florença e a torre pálida do Giotto; ou o Pincio de Roma; ou as florestas do Berkshire...Ó Céus! A Primavera com as suas margaridas em redor das aveleiras ainda sem folhas e as cabanas de colmo entre as flores de ameixoeira. Achava que daria tudo para estar de novo na Inglaterra. Maio...fim de Maio...quase a época das campanhias azuis e dos renovos tenros nas sebes. Ou do trigo sob as oliveiras da Sicília. E a ponte de Lurdes com todo o seu tráfico no rio! Ou na Baviera, com gencianas e rainúnculos amarelos e os Alpes ainda cobertos de neve. Ó Céus! Estar na Europa, na perturbante Europa, que ele odiara profundamente e veementemente insultara, classificando-a de moribunda, de velha e gasta. Como tinha sido idiota! Zangara-se e decidira o fim da Europa - enquanto o próprio, é claro, nada tinha de moribundo, mas era muito vivo, e alegre, e cavaqueador. Quando um homem quer ser imbecil, mais vale não o contrariar.
p.21

He was not happy, there was no pretending he was. He longed for Europe with hungry longing: Florence, with Giotto's pale tower: or the Pincio at Rome: or the woods in Berkshire—heavens, the English spring with primroses under the bare hazel bushes, and thatched cottages among plum blossom. He felt he would have given anything on earth to be in England. It was May—end of May—almost bluebell time, and the green leaves coming out on the hedges. Or the tall corn under the olives in Sicily. Or London Bridge, with all the traffic on the river. Or Bavaria with gentian and yellow globe flowers, and the Alps still icy. Oh God, to be in Europe, lovely, lovely Europe that he had hated so thoroughly and abused so vehemently, saying it was moribund and stale and finished. The fool was himself. He had got out of temper, and so had called Europe moribund: assuming that he himself, of course, was not moribund, but sprightly and chirpy and too vital, as the Americans would say, for Europe. Well, if a man wants to make a fool of himself, it is as well to let him.
***

Victoria apareceu vestida de gaze cor-de-rosa com pontinhos de ouro, espécie de vestido de chá; com o cabelo livremente puxado para trás e em desordem sobre a testa, tinha realmente um aspecto sedutor, a que não era estranha a sua excitação pueril e as faces muito coradas. Harriet pôs um vestido velho de seda amarela e Somers fato completo azul. A refeição constava de carnes frias; salada de batatas, beterraba e alface; doce de maçãs; lagosta, muito boa, branca e rosada; pastelão, tortas, queques; maracujás, laranjas, bananas e ananás, - e, é claro, xícaras de chá, das almoçadeiras.
p.36

Victoria appeared in a pale gauze dress of pale pink with little dabs of gold—a sort of tea-party dress—and with her brown hair loosely knotted behind, and with innocent sophistication pulled a bit untidy over her womanly forehead, she looked winsome. Her colour was very warm, and she was gawkily excited. Harriet put on an old yellow silk frock, and Somers changed into a dark suit. For tea there was cold roast pork with first-class brown crackling on it, and potato salad, beetroot, and lettuce, and apple chutney; then a dressed lobster—or crayfish, very good, pink and white; and then apple pie and custard-tarts and cakes and a dish of apples and passion fruits and oranges, a pine-apple and some bananas: and of course big cups of tea, breakfast-cups.
***

Somers sentia-se transportado a vinte e cinco anos atrás, a uma herdade das Midlands, em tarde de domingo. Viera de tão longe para encontrar coisas mais ou menos iguais. Para Harriet [a esposa] tudo era novo e divertido, mas Richard Lovat experimentava uma vaga opressão.
Acabrunhava-o agora a alegria e o bem-estar da vida que conhecera outrora. Detestava a promiscuidade, essa mistura de gente, a liberdade de atitudes. Preferia a Índia, nesse ponto: o abismo entre os criados indígenas e os brancos. Habituara-se a viver independente, a falar a certa distância. Assim era a sua verdadeira natureza. Agora achava-se outra vez mergulhado na velha familiaridade do «bonito e confortável» da sua infância e juventude, o que deveras o deprimia.
p.37

To Somers it was like being back twenty-five years, back in an English farm-house in the Midlands, at Sunday tea. He had gone a long way from the English Midlands, and got out of the way of them. Only to find them here again, with hardly a change. To Harriet it was all novel and fun. But Richard Lovat felt vaguely depressed.
The pleasant heartiness of the life he had known as a boy now depressed him. He hated the promiscuous mixing in of all the company, the lack of reserve in manner. He had preferred India for that: the gulf between the native servants and the whites kept up a sort of tone. He had learned to be separate, to talk across a slight distance. And that was an immense relief to him, because it was really more his nature. Now he found himself soused again in the old familiar "jolly and cosy" spirit of his childhood and boyhood, and he was depressed.

***
-Desde que a guerra fez rebentar a minha bolha de humanidade, tornei-me pessimista, sombrio pessimista em relação ao mundo humano actual.
(...)
-Julga que vai haver mais guerras? Parece-lhe que a Alemanha seja capaz de desencadear outra, tão cedo?
-Ah, esse papão já não mete medo. Isso foi ontem.
p.42
***
- Quero realizar qualquer coisa, na prática, não sei bem onde nem com quem. Escrever é apenas um acto solitário. E não desejo continuar só, sem ligação com o resto da humanidade.
***
-Aqui não gostamos de ninguém acima de nós. Somos gente do rés-do-chão. Desagradar-nos-ia subir escadas e ficar num piso superior.
***
-Com quem se pode contar neste mundo? Veja-me os australianos: são bastante simpáticos, mas não têm nada lá por dentro. Perfeitamente ocos. Como quer construir sobre terreno tão frágil? Por fora são admiráveis, independentes, viris, e tudo o que quiser. Mas interiormente? Quando ficam sós, deixam de existir.
p129
***
Eis a divisa apropriada para um coração vermelho: não o Amor nem a Esperança ou qualquer dessas paixões audaciosas. «O mundo pertence aos corajosos».
p.147
***
(...) e no medonho terramoto de Lisboa, de 1755, que derrubou duas mil casas, e matou cinco mil pessoas, os cais, os molhes e até os navios ancorados desapareceram num tremendo vórtice, sem deixar o mínimo vestígio.
p.164
***
(...) Richard era uma pessoa decidida - bem o aprendera Harriet, à sua custa - e, uma vez que lhe metesse qualquer coisa na cabeça, nem o céu, nemo inferno, nem a mulher seriam capazes de o dissuadir. Tinha ele agora o projecto de ser amo e senhor, e de ver Harriet aceitá-lo como tal.
(...)
Em suma, ele seria o amo e senhor e ela a escrava humilde. Harriet devia submeter-se ao ser místico e másculo que o marido representava, e com reverência, senão um pouco de receio, tal uma mulher perante o altar do magno Hermes. Embora Harriet se lembrasse de que esse homem era um ente humano e que se tornara ridículo na maior parte das vezes, tinha também de se convencer de que Richard era realmente um amo e senhor. Não pode haver dois capitães no mesmo navio, nem navio sem capitão. O Harriet e Loval fora uma experiência que durara dez anos. Agora o barco ia ser demolido, ou queimado (pelo menos ele assim o dizia) e seria substituído po outro, chamado Hermes.
p.170
À noite, os raios alongados dos holofotes, em enormes barras direitas, vasculhavam o céu de Londres, tacteando as nuvens, palpando o corpo das trevas. Depois os ataques dos Zeppelins: barulho infernal e enervamento da população. Mas Somers nunca tinha medo.
p.209
Lá na costa ocidental, Richard e Harriet viviam só na sua casita à beira do Atlântico selvático. Ele mal escrevia e nunca artigos de propaganda; mas odiava a guerra e dizia-o à pouca gente do país que os frequentava. Ria-se amargamente das mentiras flagrantes dos jornais. E devido ao seu absoluto isolamento, passava por ser espião.
p.211
Fora, pois, considerado incapaz. Inapto. Mas que lhe importava? As pessoas da Cornualha horrorizam-se sempre com a ideia de deficiências físicas. «Então que tem?» perguntavam. Declaravam alto e bom som que mais valia morrer de vez do que ficar rotulado de incapaz. Todavia na sua maior parte os rapazes procuravam descobrir defeitos que os pudessem isentar; mas ao mesmo tempo envergonhar-se-iam se os recusassem por qualquer desses motivos.
p.214
Somers foi chamar o amigo americano, que teve de exibir os seus papéis e prestar informações. Fê-lo com admirável sangue-frio, como cidadão respeitável e bem educado. Nesse momento bem gostaria Somers de ser americano e não inglês. Mas ainda era cedo, troçava-se da América porque ela estava fora do conflito e enchia as algibeiras. Não era ainda a querida aliada.
p.218
A Cornualha é um país que influi na psicologia duma pessoa. Quanto mais tempo ali ficasse, mais intensamente lhe sentiria Somers o efeito. Parecia-lhe que lhe desenvolvia uma segunda vista e um segundo ouvido. Embrenhava-se na escuridão, sentia as trevas, e evocava suavemente os espíritos, aquelas presenças que se lhe afiguravam sair da charneca durante a noite. «Tuatha de Danaan!» chamava ele em voz baixa. «Tuatha de Dannan! Sê comigo, sê comigo.» E era como se as sombras obedecessem.
p.219
Haviam decidido deixar a casa como estava, com os livros nas estantes, e não levar senão os objetos de uso pessoal. Não renunciavam à ideia do regresso. Richard gostava tanto do lugar! Antes de o terem convocado para a tropa, dissera ele consigo, ao subir o atalho que vai da vivenda até à charneca: «Verei ainda as dedaleiras em flor? Se ao menos pudesse ficar até que elas abrissem!» E vira a floração das dedaleiras. Depois foi a vez da urze. «Verei a urze em flor?» Em seguida as primaveras no valezito que desce para o mar: tufos e tufos de primaveras, e, no meio delas, uma raposa parada, a fitá-lo!
p.237
Chovia decididamente, e Sydney, apesar de grande cidade, verdadeira metrópole na Pitt Street e na George Street, apresentava-se como uma colónia no meio do deserto, uma terra sem alma. E era das maiores cidades do mundo, mas desprovida de coração, a menos que fosse Canberra Hall o seu centro vital. Toda a gente patenteava amizade e simpatia; o país mais amável do mundo, em certo aspecto, mas sem coração: vazio.
p.283

[Steve Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is from 1922 and it reflects the trauma of the time after World War I.
Much of this trauma is personal, within. Big human events can cause questions, wondering, how this can be avoided in the future and how is this global world going to get on. The reverberations of the war are also in the people in one way or another, their movements and desires.

There is a bit of a meandering on the road plot to this novel but it is mainly a 365 page journey into the interior of the Richard character. It’s a story about how to deal with other humans. The plot is not the thing here. There is not much action. It feels like a pre-cinema a world view.

Australia is the setting for a story constructed to explore all this internal work. The character, Kangaroo, is a Australian lawyer. He is also a wannabe dictator who has attracted a band of followers mostly made up veterans from the war in Europe who have not had that type of excitement and bonding since.
A globe hopping English writer Richard and his not English wife Harriet land in Australia and Richard is seduced into this right wing oddball male scene through being rather reluctantly neighborly.
There is also a left wing working class socialist movement.
Yet a lot of the drama is the strange need of this Kangaroo man to be loved and followed. Kangaroo is a nickname for the lawyer leader man. The socialist have a leader too and there is a scene with him trying to recruit Richard as well because he is a writer of some note and renown. But he is nowhere near as grasping, needy, and ultimately grotesquely pathetic as Kangaroo. It shows the sick need if this type of narcissistic political, cult, or personal “leader”.
All this is set up really to look into an individual's place among others personally and politically. It works very well that way. We follow Richard as he is being seduced into “loving” Kangaroo, the fascist impulse stand-in. We feel the writer confronting these ideas within himself. He is a man open to ideas and faces the risk in that, he could be swept away. Fear of that makes him perhaps rigidly noncommittal. Open to ideas but rejecting all action options. Avoiding the associations and actions that can make the idea manifest. The novel is cogitation on these big waves of human political energy building up out of industrialization. Socialism and fascism.
Richard finds himself being pulled by both poles. The minimal suspense of the piece is in which will he choose. It might be useful for the reader to see this in context of 1922, before the triumph of German fascism and the horrible results, into and during WWII. And the Soviet Union was brand new. Everything was new and with a sweepingly rapid industrialization. We are at the edge and near the end of the greater British Empire but 20th Century was still to come.

Yet Richard doesn’t want to choose, cannot choose. He does not trust this human, male, energy that tries to use grand ideas and romantic sentimentality to change the world. He distrusts this and feels silly when he notes it rising up in himself.
But he wants connection to something. He craves it. He has a sort of idiosyncratic philosophical/spiritual point of view. If he and all could be more attentive to some natural force a god in everything maybe things could somehow set right, otherwise the left and right are two sides of the same thing. It’s not that stark, he does make a stand and chooses a side in a noncommittal way. It would have been disappointing otherwise and he makes the correct choice even if he isn’t exactly joining up. After all few really do.

There is a long illuminating diversion into Richard and Harriet’s experience in England during the war. This reflects the actual war time experience of D H Lawrence. It is the outsider, the objector, dealing with a bonded unified nation’s jingoistic environment. This sort of thing apparently never changes.


On the personal level the novel depicts a lot of loneliness and desire. There is a craving for male bonding. A real love, caring, and trust between males as is available sometimes between men and women.
But Richard can’t fit himself into any of that as much as he might want it or is interested in it. The whole construction of the settings for this male bonding do not work for him. He is simply not a team player up for any of these surface bonding programs that we make available. He doesn’t want to be touched. Is that because he needs to be touched too much if at all? He sees the limits and social dangers of any variance. It’s as if the an old type of male connection was removed in the construction of the commercial competitive world. The limits set in the bonding environments made available are not removed from the domination of a power hungry dualist world view. The business connections, military connections, sport fan bonding; all have a sort of ritual structure prohibiting spontaneity.


He wants another sort of connection out of his general spiritual outlook. He wants the humans to feel the flow or energy from the earth and reconnect with and through that rather than pretending to be something separate.
And there is really the only small hope for the redemption of humans.
The notion is that this type of bonding could be more open, not so much a dance of the restricted roles of mainstream male bonding. But that hazards opening to territory forbidden wherein, of course, there is some hope and danger.
There is mystery here. His notions are not exactly named. He calls part of it his dark god. But this is unseen and unnameable rather than dark equals evil.
He embraces mystery over knowing, naming, and structure. Yet craves connection to the mysterious structure beyond intellectual and emotional decisions. A surrender that would not have to be made.
Kangaroo offers a transparently artificial option for this. The novel could also be a warning about that type. The power hungry eager to exploit this spirit, hope, love, and our need to belong.

In a way Richard is a sort of fugitive wandering to the next stop in a trip initiated by disgust with his own homeland.

—-

I have been watching some film adaptations of Lawrence’s work recently. This is the first time I have read him since I was a young man, maybe 40 years ago. I had read The Rainbow back then and remember liking it but not much else about it.
I saw an interesting movie version of Kangaroo that made me read the book which is a lot better of course. The movie is good though.
After reading Kangaroo I read the wiki page on D H Lawrence and also about Australia. The book mentions it being a new nation and that is so have become one in 1901 after being a native homeland and used as a penal colony for a couple hundred years earlier by British colonialist invaders.
That is where I got that Lawrence was relaying his actual war time struggles in the chapter about that.

Kangaroo feels like real writing to me. Telling the truth from the heart and the brain. It feels open and courageous. I can easily relate to his difficulties with men, and it's perhaps underlying homophobia, or if not phobia, but doubt as to if there is a compartment in which to put that neatly. And really is there time for more caring? After all we need to make a living etc other than manage relationships. Richard and Harriet are a committed couple disagreements aside. That’s one intense relationship. D H Lawrence left a lot of writing in his short life. He must have had to push people off for that time, maybe it’s not that hard to not choose additional relationship if one is a solitary type to begin with and spend the time thinking and writing about it instead. Writing about wanting it at least is a guarantee of production. A relationship can leave one with nothing to show. Perhaps that is why we we remain disconnected. We need to be productive not just hang out in Eden.

This book was a joy for me to read and I felt a real connection to the main character, the conflicts, and his alienation.

[Gary Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a splurge of D. H. Lawrence novels in the last months on 2018 and Kangaroo (1923) is a great book. The Australian centre from which Lawrence crafts this story of post Word War One society, politics and atmosphere proved to be a riveting and pleasurable read. His short stay in Australia following his tempestuous War years spent in rural England is expressed in a most direct and fantastic manner. The characters and the incidents expressed by the uncertain character of Richard Somerset in the machinations and banal lives of the Australians he befriends exposes the pox of freedom and independence.

For me this is Lawrence at his most insightful and entertaining and a reader cannot be more pleased with this invigorating and powerful novel. A loose comparison between Kangaroo and his other well known novels indicates his fluid and precise insights into character and experience. I read this through quickly and for pure pleasure I read-read it immediately after the last page was turned. Im bias of course because my interest in Lawrence’s short sojourn in Australia and the negative response the novel brought about speaks volumes about the content of the narrative itself.

A novel well worth its weight in interest and summits the madness of enthusiasm of his coup de grace, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Richard Somers falters to the point of extinction in a grand plan that goes awry when he stumbles intoxicated into the bumbling forces of ‘The Diggers’ a group of frisky bored former soldiers bursting with violent energy. These men are encouraged and controlled by a reckless cohort of former army officers. Somers’ presupposing Mr. Bean ingratiates himself right into the Gordian Knot of post world war politics. Lawrence beautifully characteristic the Australian desire not to actually change anything politically but what is made most clear is the importance on not missing out on the fight.

A great story, wonderful novel filled with humour and terror of one sided opportunity. “In Australia the kangaroo is the king of beasts...”

[Lance Ramsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strangely poignant, this confused and rambling semi-autobiographical account of DH Lawrence's own trip to Australia is full of reflections on the nature of man, politics and the differences between England and Oz. Written hastily in a few weeks, it sometimes cries out for editing - some characters never distinguish themselves or stand out strongly from others (Richard Lovat Somers, the main character, included). Yet Kangaroo, once he enters the novel, blazes through the pages, and burns right through to the final chapter. It is rightly named for him, and the Australia he represents - at once everpresent and lost. Don't read this if you are after a light read, but nevertheless for lovers of Australianness, this is a must-read.

A note - much of the book concerns profound love between men. Given it is written in 1922 (and knowing DH Lawrence's own life), it is uncertain whether this is deep mateship or something more like sexual love. Perhaps both, and perhaps deliberately. The relationship between Richard Lovat and Kangaroo remains, to the final pages, one of great tension and denial. Yet, this is not a gay book, nor will it ever be, I think.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not having read much of Lawrence, besides an adolescent's attempt to find "the hot parts" of Lady Chatterly's Lover, this came as quite a surprise. He obviously loved Australia and his descriptions of nature in places rival those of Tolstoy (for me.) and yet it was a little disconcerting to find words such as were used a century ago such as "Chink" "Dago" and "Nigger." (Yet, only once per). All the same, that was how they did talk in those days, esp the upper-class English & Burdened White Men of any nation. No doubt Modern American lefties would call such use "racist" and yet, even those same "liberal" minds who might have defended him early in the last century would no doubt find LCL to be "sexist." And it kicks against the pricks that there's a wonderful chapter describing his treatment at the hands of his fellow Englishers as to his pacifism and opposition to WW1- the same arrogant, insolent ignorance that attends to any well-principled pacifist living in a nation that's gone war-mad. This was a very good book, and ought to bring many many things to mind, especially those who think it's something "cool" to anoint a leader and to follow them.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old D.H. had a pretty miserable time during WWI. He was declared unfit for military service and since he was lollygagging around England and writing books while men his age were fighting a war (which he didn't believe in) he was viewed with suspicion and was surveilled. After the war he left England in disgust (the banning of his books probably contributed as well) and went to Australia in search of freedom. This book surprised me in that it was quite political, which I didn't expect from Lawrence who usually gets all psychological about romance and such. His character flirts with fascism and communism but (no surprise, being D.H.'s alter-ego) he chooses individual freedom and his own following of his own dark god instead. Lots of ranting and soliloquizing, but I like that kind of thing.

[Nicko · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's good reason why this book does not score highly, has mixed reviews, is not widely read, and my dad had to go to lots of effort to track down a copy. Generically mixed novel, part autobiographical, part political treatise, part travelogue. Unlike other DH Lawrence - it's hardly Lady Chatterley's lover. I loved the descriptions of Australian bush and beach landscapes and Sydney life of the times. I found the long interlocutory dialogues, thick with political symbols & metaphors, tedious.

[Mark Chillingworth]

Although written in the 1920s still as relevant today as then. DH Lawrence describes many of the emotions and confusions I experienced living in Australia so well. A brilliant tale of searching for a connection, failure to understand and the wonders of the Australian landscape. Challenging, but well worth reading.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Even though there were some very long boring passages that didn't appeal to me, what I found amazing was how well DH Lawrence understood the Australian character and how little it has changed since the 1920s. For his insights into Australia alone, I give this book five stars.

[Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right up there with Kath and Kim as a true representation of daily life in Sydney.

Oddly at a few moments his best work, and at most his worst.

Kangaroo mixes a wildly bizarre set of ideas, set against an Australia that buzzes with life but which Lawrence never quite brings alive. The polyphonic stew creates passages, and the occasional chapter, that are truly brilliant and insightful, but just as often ones that seem to collapse into disparate and didactic rants. The philosophy of vitality which is so strongly present in Women in Love and so clearly and well expressed in Lady Chatterly’s Lover gives way in Kangaroo to a combination of early 20th century political debates (socialism, anarchism, etc…) and a seemingly unfocused re-evaluation of his early writings on spirit. So much of the novel focuses on the manifestation of these old political ideas in a new place—which never seems to materialise into anything, not even a real debate. But the exploration of the spirit of a man in a new place was far more interesting, if also seemingly scattered and inconclusive.

One final criticism is that Somers, who in many ways seems to be a mirror of Lawrence himself, often views Australia only as an escape from Europe. A ‘new’ place where the weight of Europe’s history can’t crush him. I understand the need for Lawrence to write from the perspective of an Englishman, the need for him to see out of the lens of his own life, but the glasses seem to be too rarely turned to Australia itself. He often seems so spiteful of Europe that he has so little curiosity about the new country where he sets his novel. It’s only in the last chapter that it seems that Somers interacts with the land in a meaningful way, and it is by far the best in the novel.

Gertrude Stein once dismissed Lawrence’s prose as the work of a sick man writing from his deathbed. I think her bon mot was truer than she intended. At times, Lawrence has a wonderful perception of life and its beauty—especially in movement and in its transience. But more often, and undoubtedly what Stein was referring to, Lawrence writes with all the hatred and bitterness of a sick man doomed to his bed—still living, still able to see and feel the pulse of life in the world and in others, but no longer able to participate in it. Lawrence’s gospel of Geist is half a call to action and half a cry of anguish for and against that life that he could never have.

[Dustin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I told my wife," the only joy I take out of this book is writing down how bad it is. "
So here we go.

First, let me caveat this review by saying perhaps I started with this book under wrong pretenses, perhaps the problem is me.

I decided to read Lawrence after 'How to Read Literature like a Professor' by Thomas Foster described him as a master.
In fact the entire book seemed to revolve around Lawrence, making him essentially required reading on understanding literature.
I was flying to Australia at the time and thought it would be illustrative to read this great mind's take on the country while I made my own.
So, I picked up Kangaroo. I had expected a sort of light fiction novel mixed with travel.

However, I believe the novel could be described as :

"Famous author suffering from emotional repression and post-traumatic stress flees to Australia with wife. During their stay he enjoys the beauty of the countryside and Pacific Ocean in various huts & cabins with brief spells of calm of relaxation. But, mostly he questions everything he knows about politics, humanity, religion, and his own soul while resisting the entrails of both the Left and the Right to join common cause.
He writes a book with a pretense of a plot before devolving into an unedited rant on the above and a downward spiral into what I can only assume is abject depression in a time before mental health was a thing much less a priority. He then leaves the reader with some mediocre thoughts on democracy and socialism before he packs up and leaves Australia for good just when he was beginning to like it."

Or, to quote from the book itself : "Chapter follows chapter, and nothing doing."

I can only hope that one day this book gets made into a movie again (!), but this time by Charlie Kaufman. Perhaps at the end they can break the 4th wall, end the plot prematurely and have the film crew get arrested Monty Python style.

Regardless, the net result is this is the only book I've read while actively looking at the Table of Contents and praying for it to end.
Chapter 13 had me literally laughing out loud as it became worse and worse. I tried to ignore my quickly devolving mental state and focus on the meaning underlying Lawrence's words.
I understood his views on dark gods and the primordial motives of man. I recognized in him depression, loneliness, and ennui. Many things I see in myself along with the simultaneous addiction to and pain from human connection.

And yet, I still couldn't take his writing seriously as a novel for consumption by others as it is poorly written in the most literal sense.

I was dying through Chapter 14 and when in Chapter 15 he most literally reintroduces the reader to the plot I felt confident in my appraisal that this is a steaming pile of garbage. While I realize novels previously were serialized over several issues, had longer cadences and expectations of timing, I can't imagine a contemporary like Hemingway liking this.
He should have just had a good rant to a friend, a drink, and a good night's sleep. Or, learned to meditate (but I suppose Eastern philosophy was unknown in the West in those days.)

Perhaps even Lawrence himself lost enthusiasm while writing it. At one point he seems to acknowledge he is writing drivel by defending it in advance : "If you don't like the novel, don't read it. If the pudding doesn't please you, leave it, leave it. "
Or is he ingeniously breaking the 4th wall through his roman a clef meta-narrative?
No, this is just a bad book.

If push comes to shove, I can see this book's value only from a historical perspective, say for scholars of Lawrence or the effects of WW1 on men's psyches. Perhaps the sliver of interesting perspective of an artist essentially held prisoner in a democracy and then going in to self-exile.

But to be honest reading this books makes me pity Lawrence.
He seems so alone, so starved for deep connections and listless in his life during this book.
He was probably ahead of his time, referencing sexuality and gender issues before those were a part of modern debate. He simultaneously craves connection and wants to be by himself. Perhaps he just didn't make a connection he needed at the time? He obviously looks to his wife to fill the void but she can't, or won't. I suspect he sees her as a sex object perhaps mingled with his own doubts about his sexual identity (?)

So, anyway, I will endure in my quest to learn to appreciate literature.
Perhaps I will return to Lawrence to read his more famous works, a friend has recommended Sons and Lovers.
Through the veneer of this novel I can see Lawrence's emotional acuity is truly genius and that he has a gift for words beyond my grasp. Some of his descriptions of the Australian countryside were stellar.
But in the end this book simply made me pity his ill treatment during WW1 and wonder if his editor/publisher was drunk.
See also LARB's March 2020 article Beneath the Mucous Paper on the "full Lawrence experience."
I think I just got it.

P.S. Some passages I found especially painful.
Again, I'm flummoxed that not only the author himself, but presumably an editor thought these were worthy of publication :

"And the spontaneous soul must extricate itself from the meshes of the ALMOST automatic white octopus of the human ideal, the octopus of humanity."

"... Why couldn't he be alone? At least for ONCE. For once withdraw entirely. And a queen bee buzzing with beatitudes. Beatitudes, beatitudes. Bee attitudes or any other attitudes, it made Richard feel tired."

"I hope, dear reader, you like plenty of CONVERSATION in a novel: it makes it so much lighter and brisker. 'It has nothing to do with me,' said Richard to himself."

"They will never get through the straits. They do not know that there IS any getting through. Scylla must beat Charybdis, and Charybdis must beat Scylla. So the monster of humanity with a Scylla of an ideal of equality for the head, and a Charybdis of industrialism and possessive conservatism for the tail, howls with frenzy, and lashes the straits till every boat goes down, that tries to make a passage."

"In the sperm whale, intense is the passion of amorous love, intense is the cold exultance in power, isolate kingship."

"a quick thought-wave from the leader-bull, and as quick as answering thoughts the cows and young bulls are ranged, the herd is taking its direction with a precision little short of miraculous. Perhaps water acts as a most perfect transmitter of vertebral telepathy. This is the famous wisdom of the serpent, this vertebral consciousness and telepathy. This is what makes a leader like Napoleon."