I Love Books/6

This is my last blog entry today. I could go on and on, and I probably will.
When I was a troubled teenager I went through a period of extreme unhappiness and didn’t want to be who I was. Every day I went to school and it was almost unbearable. What gave me the courage to go on was this little paperback book that held two novellas by DHL. One was called “St. Mawr” and the other was “The Man Who Died.” I carried this book to school every day and it was like a shield.
Mentioned earlier is something about an upper class woman having a better relationship with a stallion than her husband. St. Mawr is the horse’s name and this beast was pure Lawrence…its color was gold and red, it was wild and few people could handle it. The horse was responsible for killing one groom and maiming several other people. So a lot of people get together and demand that the horse be shot. St. Mawr was considered a menace to society. Lou, the major character, doesn’t actually love this horse; she’s overcome with a desire to preserve it and give it the respect she feels is coming to it. So she takes St. Mawr away from upper class society and goes to live in New Mexico, alone except for her mother and two hired men. She has washed her hands of polite society forever and just wants to be alone and serve the forces of nature. These themes occur, over and over in DHL’s works…in this case the powers of nature are centered in the horse. Lawrence loved sunshine–many British people do–and sometimes the sun is almost a character in his stories.
In “The Man Who Died” DHL gives his own story of the resurrection of Jesus. He rises from the dead, cold and sick and makes his way to a peasant’s house. The peasant and his wife are shocked to the core to see Jesus. Jesus asks if he could just lay down on the grass and sleep in the sun for a while, and to not tell anybody he’s alive. So these good people agree and Jesus starts to recuperate while enjoying the hot sun. While he’s there he watches a brilliant cock, shining gold with a red comb on his head, really beautiful. This cock is tied by one leg to a post and the poor bird tries and tries to get free but can’t. When Jesus thinks it’s time to move on, he asks the peasant if he could have the cock and take it with him. They are still stunned by all of this and agree. After walking along deserted roads he sees a small farm with a bunch of hens. He lets the cock go free and feels very happy. Lots of Lawrence’s themes present themselves. Both are life-giving stories which soothed my broken heart.