Dh lawrence why the novel matters

According to him, a novel is a window to life. But any novel or book is as valuable as thoughts until it is read by a human being. He says that the novel is more important than any other book because it is more impactful and influential. He enlists the Platonic ideals or Mosaic Ten Commandments etc less significant than a novel because they only attract one part of a living being. He calls Bible a great perplexing novel just like Homeric or Shakespearean literature. Lawrence feels that a novel is able to provide a stimulating story and diverse characters that make it fluid and dynamic.

It celebrates change and discourages absolute statements. There is no ultimate formula which is the true reflection of human beings and their growth and unpredictable actions. This unpredictability and uncertainty breed intrigue and romance. If there is constancy like found in non-living things it is very difficult to make the bond of love and care. But better a live lion than a live dog.

C'est la vie! It seems impossible to get a saint, or a philosopher, or a scientist, to stick to this simple truth. They are all, in a sense, renegades.

The saint wishes to offer himself up as spiritual food for the multitude. Even Francis of Assisi turns himself into a sort of angelcake, of which anyone may take a slice. But an angel-cake is rather less than man alive. And poor St Francis might well apologize to his body, when he is dying: 'Oh, pardon me, my body, the wrong I did you through the years! The philosopher, on the other hand, because he can think, decides that nothing but thoughts matter.

It is as if a rabbit, because he can make little pills, should decide that nothing but little pills matter. As for the scientist, he has absolutely no use for me so long as I am man alive. To the scientist, I am dead. He puts under the microscope a bit of dead me, and calls it me. He takes me to pieces, and says first one piece, and then another piece, is me. My heart, my liver, my stomach have all been scientifically me, according to the scientist; and nowadays I am either a brain, or nerves, or glands, or something more up-to-date in the tissue line.

Now I absolutely flatly deny that I am a soul, or a body, or a mind, or an intelligence, or a brain, or a nervous system, or a bunch of glands, or any of the rest of these bits of me. The whole is greater than the part. And therefore, I, who am man alive, am greater than my soul, or spirit, or body, or mind, or consciousness, or anything else that is merely a part of me. I am a man, and alive. I am man alive, and as long as I can, I intend to go on being man alive. For this reason I am a novelist.

And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble. Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science, or any other book-tremulation can do.

The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is a great confused novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really about man alive. Man alive, not mere bits. I do hope you begin to get my idea, why the novel is supremely important, as a tremulation on the ether. Plato makes the perfect ideal being tremble in me. But that's only a bit of me. Perfection is only a bit, in the strange make-up of man alive.

The Sermon on the Mount makes the selfless spirit of me quiver. But that, too, is only a bit of me. But even the old Adam is only a bit of me. I very much like all these bits of me to be set trembling with life and the wisdom of life. He explains that though the grass withers, after rain it comes up all greener; the flower fades but because of it, the bud opens. But the Word of the Lord becomes staler and staler and boring because it is man — uttered. Characters in the novel are living.

They may be good or bad. If they are not living, the novel is dead. The novel helps us not to be a dead man in life. Life is full of change.

It is the change in the human life, which keeps it moving and interesting continuously. If there is no change in the life it will become dull, stale and lifeless. Hence life itself is the reason for living. Right and wrong is an instinct. It is the whole consciusness in man. And it can be found powerfully in the novel. The whole world is compacted with sight as well as sound understanding. It is seen that the characters of the novel delineate all sorts of consciousness of human beings.

The novelist must be fair and square in his characterization. It must act as the lively epitome of life. It should jerk all the threads of human understanding.

It must act as an alive dog and it need not deal with a dead lion. It should also act as a microscope in the range of worldly affairs. There should be clarity of outlook in dealing with worldly affairs. In true sense, the responsibility of a novelist is of par excellence.