Apocalypse: Cambridge Lawrence Edition

If you question authority (and organized religion), this book is a must for your collection... a real classic!

This is easily one of the most insightful and profound books I have read in my life. Both the conservative Christian and the man of pure science will despise this book. But if you have an open mind, prepare to have it blown against the wall. Lawrence understands human spiritually like a prophet and conveys his insights in blasts of crystal clarity. This is my first experience with him and I can guarantee he will be a lifelong favorite.

You can get this kind of thought if you really spend time with Nietzsche or Deleuze, but very rarely is it possible to find deep thought written by a master of the English language. There is nuance here - and Lawrence would be the first to advise care - but if you can't learn from this book then you are missing out.

Written in response to widespread condemnation of the sexuality and libertine lifestyles presented in his books, Apocalypse was the final attempt by D. H. Lawrence to make himself understood. The modern reader will probably detect a full throttle blitz against the puritanical deacons of the Church of England and his establishment tormentors. Launched from the most contentious and abstruse of the Bible's books, Revelation, Lawrence levels his antipathy at a rigid, superficially moral, life denying exposition of Christian thought. He argues that the confining nature of living the 'good' life in expectation of reward in Heaven cuts to the root of an immensely rich potential for experience and passion presented in the world. He continuously falls back on opaque codices-- of arcane civilizations that he states more fully explored the metaphysical realm. Lawrence divines a heroic age where apparent creation and destiny were seen as integral and complete. Robert Graves's 'The White Goddess' comprehensively analyzes the same mythological, magical architecture, but Lawrence uses it in a much more targeted and critical way. Lawrence saw the aesthetic brilliance of Revelation as a bridge to a more mysterious, immediate, compelling theology. At the same time he condemns the apocalyptic churches who interpret the book as the evocation of Hell and Judgement, rather than in its potent poetic symbolism. He goes so far as to accuse John of Patmos of not presenting a revelation at all, but of appropriating a truer, more ancient historiography for eccliastical and political reasons. Not above placing his own eccentric opinions of government in this tract, he could be accused of mounting his own pulpit, if with literary distinction. His claim of an affirming devotion to the visible universe as the only 'true' route to the holy can be countered by reading some of the lively writings of Christian ascetics. This treatise, however, is not about them. It is aimed squarely at the convention seeking, socially regulating, sanctimonious attitudes that had censored and prosecuted him. Not surprisingly it did not raise his stock much among his critics, but it is an essential text in understanding the underlying motives behind his works.

Although Lawrence's writings are noted for more earthly activities, he shows a surprising knowledge of Biblical matters. In this book he analyzes the last book of the Bible-- Revelations-- and not too favorably at that. I cannot argue with his facts because I am not as familiar with them as as he is. What I find fascinating about this essay-book are his observations on democracy, and especially about life.The last page or two contain one of his most remarkable and inspiring observations about the individual and his soul. Lawrence often argues that you cannot "save" you soul; you must "live" it. Near the end of this book he writes:"What man most passionately want is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul." Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos....I am part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched."The most poignant phrase in this passage is "...and ours for a short time only." Lawrence lived a shorter time that most of us will, but in his lifetime his output was as perceptive and prodigious as any author who has ever written. Scattered throughout this book are irritating but illuminating thoughts like: "But a democracy is bound in the end to be obscene, for it is composed of myriad disunited fragments, each fragment assuming to itself a false wholeness, a false individuality. Modern democracy is made up of millions of frictional parts all asserting their own wholeness."Some people have taken that statement as proof that Lawrence is against democracy. But I consider it a valid danger for democracy, one that is being played out in the press every day. To preserve democracy, the best of all possible forms of government, we have to analyze and try to correct its failings and weaknesses. Puzzle your way through this book. I hope you will find it as rewarding as I did.