If D.H.Lawrence were to submit some of the stories from this collection to a modern-day mentor or writing group, they might not go down too well. “All that repetition! Clumsy. Have you heard of editing? You could cut some of these down by twenty percent, then you might get to a decent short story…”
Lawrence’s use of repetition is most evident in the same adjectives again and again in close proximity – like “voluptuous” or “hot”. But rather than a device for emphasis, painting a picture using ‘impasto words’, sometimes it does seem rather clumsy and amateurish: “he saw the turnips heaped in a fabulous heap”…
I confess it’s a long time since I read any Lawrence; perhaps over forty years on from “Women in Love” and “Sons and Lovers”. I simply don’t recall his writing to be like that. Or perhaps I do not wish to.
Ian Gouge - Writer 