NCERT Book Class 12 English (kaleidoscope) Non Fiction 4 Why the Novel Matters

165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS

4
Why the Novel Matters
Novel

D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
D.H. Lawrence puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
1885-1930 an industrial society.

We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should