The Bad Side of Books: Selected Essays of D.H. Lawrence (New York Review Books Classics)

You could describe D.H. Lawrence as the great multi-instrumentalist among the great writers of the twentieth century. He was a brilliant, endlessly controversial novelist who transformed, for better and for worse, the way we write about sex and emotions; he was a wonderful poet; he was an essayist of burning curiosity, expansive lyricism, odd humor, and radical intelligence, equaled, perhaps, only by Virginia Woolf. Here Geoff Dyer, one of the finest essayists of our day, draws on the whole range of Lawrences published essays to reintroduce him to a new generation of readers for whom the essay has become an important genre. We get Lawrence the book reviewer, writing about Death in Venice and welcoming Ernest Hemingway; Lawrence the travel writer, in Mexico and New Mexico and Italy; Lawrence the memoirist, depicting his strange sometime-friend Maurice Magnus; Lawrence the restless inquirer into the possibilities of the novel, writing about the novel and morality and addressing the question of why the novel matters; and, finally, the Lawrence who meditates on birdsong or the death of a porcupine in the Rocky Mountains. Dyers selection of Lawrences essays is a wonderful introduction to a fundamental, dazzling writer. Christs In The Tirol -- Review Of Death In Venice By Thomas Mann -- From Study Of Thomas Hardy -- Whistling Of Birds -- Poetry Of The Present -- Memoir Of Maurice Magnus (1921-2) -- Indians And An Englishman -- Taos -- The Future Of The Novel (1922-3) -- Paris Letter -- A Letter From Germany -- Pan In America -- The Bad Side Of Books : Introduction To A Bibliography Of The Writings Of Dh Lawrence -- On Coming Home -- Art And Morality -- Morality And The Novel -- The Novel -- Why The Novel Matters -- The Novel And The Feelings -- Reflections On The Death Of A Porcupine -- Man Is A Hunter -- Return To Bestwood -- Review Of In Our Time By Ernest Hemingway -- Flowery Tuscany -- Germans And Latins -- Introduction To Mastro-don Gesualdo By Giovanni Verga -- Why I Don't Like Living In London -- Hymns In A Man's Life -- Give Her A Pattern -- New Mexico -- Myself Revealed -- Introduction To These Paintings (1928-9) -- Pornography And Obscenity -- The Risne Lord -- Nottingham And The Mining Countryside -- Introduction To The Grand Inquisitor By F.m. Dostoievsky -- Elegy By Rebecca West. D.h. Lawrence ; Edited And With An Introduction By Geoff Dyer. Includes Bibliographical References.