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  • Burning Man

  • The Ascent of D H Lawrence
  • By: Frances Wilson
  • Narrated by: Huw Parmenter
  • Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (18 ratings)
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Burning Man

By: Frances Wilson
Narrated by: Huw Parmenter
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Summary

Bloomsbury presents Burning Man by Frances Wilson, read by Huw Parmenter.

D. H. Lawrence is no longer censored, but he is still on trial - and we are still unsure what the verdict should be, or even how to describe him.

History has remembered him, and not always flatteringly, as a nostalgic modernist, a sexually liberator, a misogynist, a critic of genius and a sceptic who told us not to look in his novels for 'the old stable ego’, yet pioneered the genre we now celebrate as auto-fiction. But where is the real Lawrence in all of this, and how - 100 years after the publication of Women in Love - can we hear his voice above the noise?

Delving into the memoirs of those who both loved and hated him most, Burning Man follows Lawrence from the peninsular underworld of Cornwall in 1915 to post-war Italy to the mountains of New Mexico, and traces the author’s footsteps through the pages of his lesser known work. Wilson’s triptych of biographical tales present a complex, courageous and often comic fugitive, careering around a world in the grip of apocalypse, in search of utopia; and, in bringing the true Lawrence into sharp focus, shows how he speaks to us now more than ever.

©2021 Frances Wilson (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"Frances Wilson writes books that blow your hair back. She makes Lawrence live and breathe, annoy and captivate you...she conjures the past with such clarity and wit and flair that it feels utterly present." (Katherine Rundell)

"A brilliantly unconventional biography, passionately researched and written with a wild, playful energy." (Richard Holmes)

"Dare we hope that Lawrence might soon assume his rightful place - neither messiah nor pariah - as a writer of boundless freshness, originality and breadth? If so Frances Wilson’s stimulating and utterly enthralling book will be seen to play a vital role in the long-awaited rehabilitation of the man who, in the words of poet Tony Hoagland, 'burned like an acetylene torch/ from one end to the other of his life'." (Geoff Dyer) 

What listeners say about Burning Man

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book spoilt by lazy production

A book like this deserves to be read and reread. Why then the complete failure to name chapters, and why not split it up logically: 3 hour, unnamed, chapters are unacceptable.

I prefer the narrator to have the same gender as the writer. A male voice reading a text written by a woman is jarring, especially for Lawrence.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Poorly narrated, but fascinating perspective

It must be a difficult task to look at D.H. Lawrence with a fresh eye after everything that has been already written about him. But Frances Wilson genuinely brings something new to the portrayal of this contradictory figure. Her consideration and depiction of Lawrence focuses on his itinerant life, the importance of place in his work, and his incessant need for conflict in order to fuel his creativity. It’s a refreshing move away from the well-worn grooves of previous scholarly attention. I enjoyed the new emphasis here.
However, I did not like the narration at all - it is disjointed and lacks coherence, with several misleading pronunciations and areas of emphasis, making this very difficult to listen to at times.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Will not download

Got to chapter 1 and would not download ,
Poor, I was disappointed
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Too many Dante references

This book is not without some merit and I learnt a little of Lawrence’s rather complex character, but there was far too much emphasis on peripheral characters, while the endless Dante references drove me to distraction.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Lawrence - by his deeds

A thorough and thoroughly fascinating work, it views DH through the through the cultural, historical and faded of his day, creating context, and then views them with histories more judgement eye. D.H Lawrence was a great writer but he wasn't always that good, and he was a difficult human being and he wasn't often THAT good, in fact it seems histories judgement on DH is pretty valid, however the author avoids leading us by the nose and instead lays out the complex contributing factors and despite, clearly illustrating he was right royal ass, shows us that a singular man had walked amongst us.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A different perspective

An interesting book that focusses on Lawrence's later years and his nomadic life once he left England with Frieda. His relationship with her is less in the frame than is usual however and Frances Wilson instead narrates the encounters Lawrence had with others, such as Middleton Murry, Hilda Doolittle, Maurice Magnus and Mabel Dodge Luhan, and how these relationships and experiences were the stimulus for some of Lawrence's later and less known works, including Aaron's Rod, The Plumed Serpent and Studies in Classic American Literature. In doing this Wilson also explores Lawrence's unresolved sexuality and the denial of his tuberculosis which was the norm in that pre-antibiotic era where the illness was both rampant and feared. The book at times gave too much detail about people who did not seem to merit this, such as Maurice Magnus, and was undermined by the rather wooden reading by Huw Parmenter with his strange emphasis on individual words and disruption of the natural flow of the sentence, but for those who know Lawrence already it provides a new and original perspective.

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