Coincidentally, I was browsing through a selection of D. H. Lawrence’s letters yesterday morning [like you do], before heading off to what proved to be a more than pleasant meeting at my publisher’s, William Heinemann, now part of Random House. In 1912, Heinemann, having made encouraging noises, rejected Lawrence’s novel, Sons and Lovers, citing its “want of reticence.”
Lawrence’s reaction to this was not in the least bit reticent, either …
“Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed. They can nothing but frog-spawn – the gibberers! God, how I hate them! God curse them, funkers. God blast them, wish-wash. Exterminate them, slime. I could curse for hours and hours – “
1 response so far ↓
Frank (Bluesmole) Johnson // May 16, 2009 at 4:46 pm
A bit overstated perhaps, but I have a teaching group that makes me feel just the same!!