7 - Aaron's Rod

Summary

The Lost Girl had taken Lawrence a long time to write, partly for the sound practical reason that he had left the manuscript of the first part in Germany, where it had to remain until the war was over. It was followed by Aaron's Rod, which, of all his novels, most evidently shows the creative tiredness and emotional debility into which he was sinking by 1917, the year he began the book. He wrote the first part, pushed it to one side, then took it up again three years later to add the ‘travel’ chapters of the second half. It resembles The Lost Girl in a few respects. The main character of Aaron's Rod, Aaron Sisson, shares with Alvina Houghton an instinct to know another life apart from the imprisoning conventionality of a small town. Like The Lost Girl, the story starts in a midlands industrial setting, some of the place-names being familiar from earlier Lawrence novels; it then opens out to the broader perspectives of Italy. The Italy of Aaron's Rod is more ‘sophisticated’, more ‘arty’, even more ‘touristy’ than Cicio's Pescocalascio. It is the Italy of the expatriate rather than the native. Lawrence responded to it with the keen eye he brought to all his travel descriptions, but as the expatriate often cultivates detachment from his adopted country so Lawrence meanders from episode to episode with a certain lack of spirit. However, the novel has its moments of real gaiety as well.