So what’s it like in Ceylon? I’d much rather go to Mars or the Moon.
Near the end of Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer mentions a D.H. Lawrence letter that he describes as Lawrence’s “grouchiest letter ever - the grouchiest letter ever?” and a “masterpiece” of irritability. Dyer quotes choice bits from the letter; but if you were ever curious about how the whole thing read, here it is. I hunted it up at the library a while back. It was written to Lawrence’s friend Earl Brewster in 1921, the same year this photo of him and Frieda was taken. (Photo via.)
To E.H. Brewster, from Fontana Vecchia, Taormina, 2 November 1921
Dear Brewster: Yours and Achsah’s from beyond Crete received today: and by coincidence, one from Alpha. So the family voice was uplifted in one strain on this feast-day of All-Souls. Anyhow you’ve got as far as Port Said.
No, I don’t understand a bit what you mean about rightness and about relationships and about the world. Damn the world, anyhow. And I have ‘understanding’ people, and I hate more still to be understood. Damn understanding more than anything. I refuse to understand you. Therefore you can say what you like, without a qualm, and never bother to alter it. I shan’t understand.
I’m always amazed by how Lawrence’s sentences land perfectly, and yet are totally natural, uncrafted-seeming and unaffected. Such an elemental writer. And I love this:
Is everybody there as beshitten as here? I’ll bet they are.
