I bought D.H. Lawrence's The Lost Girl many years ago purely based on the vivid cover. I didn't know anything about Lawrence or about the plot of the novel, but it looked quite different to other classics that I had run across in Barnes and Noble, making it instantly attractive to me. This was back in the early 2000s, and the cover art on older books at that time generally featured drab paintings or black and white photographs. There are lot of beautiful and striking editions of classics available now, but back then, this one was quite unique. The playful fonts and bright colors were enough to convince me that this book must be special, and that I needed to add it to my collection.
I never got around to reading The Lost Girl back when I bought it (a never-ending theme in my life), and it remained on my shelves for years with the rest of my classics library. When I was putting together my Classics Club list at the end of 2016, the novel's quirky cover caught my eye once again and I made it a part of my challenge. I still knew nothing about its plot, so I stuck it in the "Wild Card" category. As I started reading this month, I realized what a good place for this story that was, as this ended up being a very weird experience.
The plot of the novel follows Alvina Houghton, a young woman living with her father and two elderly housekeepers in a small English coal mining town called Woodhouse. Alvina's father is a struggling shopkeeper with terrible instincts, and his current business, a fabric and notions shop, is constantly on the brink of failing. As a last ditch effort to reach financial success, he purchases a theater and begins to run a show mixing short films with live performances. In order to cut costs, he works selling tickets and makes Alvina play the piano to accompany the acts.
Alvina is initially horrified at this arrangement. Socially, the position is most definitely beneath her. She occupies an odd place in Woodhouse society. Her father has scraped together enough money to elevate her above the lower class of colliers that make up most of the town's population, and she has the manners and appearance of a lady. However, her father's eccentric approach to business and her own contrary and intense personality keep her at the fringes. She has no real friends outside of her housekeepers and few connections to the community she lives in. She has had a couple of romantic prospects in her past, but has ended up spurning them all as things got closer to marriage. Something within her won't let her settle for a boring and passionless life, no matter how sensible and safe that life may be. As a result, she finds herself drifting and rather purposeless. She is approaching spinsterhood, and being forced to work at her father's latest pipe dream is depressing, to say the least. That is, until the Natcha-Kee-Tawara come to town.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawara are a small acting troupe that Alvina's father hires to perform at his theater. They consist of an older woman and three young men, and they run an act about a fictional tribe of Native Americans. Alvina feels an instant attraction to one of the young men in the group, an Italian named Ciccio. After working together at the theater for a while, he begins to feel the same way and the pair begin a sexual relationship. They are wrong for each other in many ways, but Alvina can't deny the passion she feels for Ciccio. Pursuing that passion will lead her away from everything and everyone she knows, and her main struggle in the novel is deciding what she will sacrifice and how far she will go to keep this man in her life.
I'm not sure exactly what to make of this book. It was not bad at all, but it was so strange in many ways. I've been done with it for a few days now, and I'm still not clear on who Alvina was as a character and what I was supposed to take away from her story. The Lost Girl seemed to bounce all over the map. Some parts felt feminist and liberating, while other parts felt hopelessly sexist. Some parts seemed to promote following your heart, other parts showed Alvina as a helpless victim of fate. Some parts encouraged the breaking of restrictive social norms, other parts implied that breaking those norms leads to disaster. I had trouble wading through it all and trying to figure out exactly what Lawrence was trying to say.
A big part of my confusion came from Alvina's character. She had such an odd, contrary streak running through her that it was difficult to predict her choices and reactions throughout the story. She veers wildly between loving and hating all of the people and places in her life, and it was difficult to see why those changes occurred. In one memorable instance, she claimed to love her governess, Mrs. Frost, in one sentence, and then declare that she thought it was about time for her to die in the next. This pattern of shifting feelings continued throughout the novel, with even Ciccio receiving her undying affection and complete disdain in turns. I never knew what Alvina would decide to do next, because her principles were applied in such an inconsistent way. It was hard to see growth in her because all of her decisions felt almost random.
The theme felt similarly scattered. Despite Alvina's ever-shifting emotions, she does consistently follow her heart. She is sexually curious, determined to live with a man that excites her, and unable to settle down with a boring or unattractive partner just because it would be "smart" to do so. These elements would normally make for a strong, liberated female character. However, the outcomes of Alvina's decisions are a bewildering blend of happiness and sadness that make it unclear whether following her instincts was the correct decision. Deciding to be with Ciccio changes Alvina's life in ways that are terribly depressing, but she is with someone she feels a passionate connection to. The reader is left to ponder whether it was all worth it, and honestly, it doesn't feel like it was. What then, was the point of it all? I still don't know. The events of the story are too ambiguous to show a clear lesson either way.
I know I sound harsh here, but I really didn't dislike this novel. It was enjoyable enough and endlessly thought-provoking. Lawrence's writing was sensual and beautiful. This was my first novel by him, and I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the prose was to read. I was definitely confused as to the overall meaning of the story as I made my way through it, but it wasn't a frustrating confusion - it was more like a I-can't-imagine-where-this-is-going-so-I'd-better-keep-reading situation. It definitely had some pacing issues here and there, but it wasn't bad enough to seriously impact my experience.
What did impact my experience, however, was how poorly some elements of this have aged over the years. I was doing a lot of cringing as I read. The Natcha-Kee-Tawara act, for example, was pure redface. We get long descriptions of the war dances, fighting, and squaws that are based exclusively on Native American stereotypes. Elements of this were in the story a lot. Also, Ciccio's Italian heritage was constantly insulted, with racist remarks about his dirtiness, intelligence, unreliability, and dark skin color filling the pages. He was constantly described in animalistic terms, and the attraction Alvina felt for him was uncomfortably rooted in the primitive sexuality he exuded. The sexual activity between Alvina and Ciccio had issues as well. Alvina's consent to their encounters was extremely dubious. There was an uncomfortable amount of struggling and saying "no" beforehand. I was actually unsure as to whether Alvina was truly okay with what happened the first few times they were together, but it turned out to be a "no means yes" deal. I know that it's not fair to apply modern standards to a work that is a century old at this point, but there was a lot in here that you have to look past in order to enjoy the story.
So ultimately, I'm not quite sure what to make of The Lost Girl. It had strengths, it had weaknesses, and it definitely left me scratching my head. I'm not upset I read it, but I have a feeling that it won't be my favorite D.H. Lawrence novel. There are several more of his works I plan to check out in the future and I think that the best is yet to come for me.
Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#97 on my list): 74/100
Total Books Read in 2020: 40
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete