Customer Reviews

Apocalypse (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

Attacks everything blindly and madly promoted by the dominant ideas of the dominant socio-economic classes and strongest institutionalized influences in the current civilization of inauthenticity and death.

The power of money must go, according to Lawrence, as the power of the sun must return--as it indeed has always been the power of life whether we recognize it or not. Also, the power of blood must be reasserted. As human beings we are connected to all things. However, this perspective is suppressed as it constitutes a threat to the status quo.

Lawrence here sees no salvation in either democracy or western monotheism; but solely in human beings connecting up once again to the universal forces of nature from which come life's vitality.

My first exposure to D.H. Lawrence is the short story, "The Rocking-Horse Winner", I have read in middle school. As a kid, I enjoyed reading this short story. I had not the attention span nor the desire to read something longer, the novel. I had to learn something about the author of a story I enjoyed, so I read a short biography on Wikipedia. I loved the few lines of a short poem referenced there, "O the stale old dogs who pretend to guard, the morals of the masses, how smelly they make the great back-yard, wetting after everyone that passes." (Excerpt, "The Young and Their Moral Guardians"). He has great insight into the deceictfulness and self-righteous of the proudful, pompious, self-serving aristocracy. But what he says in this book is nothing new to a theologian. God elevated man by taking on the cloak of the flesh. And, so many heavenly glories can be won here, in a very short time, to experience for all eternity. In no other way, can a person give glory to God than by suffering for Him. And we can only suffer in the flesh - for a short time, before we die. I haven't read Lawrence's last book, but he was definitely on to something. For those who wish to know the rest of his story, read the Bible. But as Lawrence realizes, the answers are not found in reading - but living - alive in Living Faith. Only Jesus has the power to save.

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.

This book is an interpretation of John of Patmos's `Apocalypse' along the lines of Nietzsche's philosophy: the will-to-power, aristocracy v. democracy, Christianity as a destroyer of paganism and the fruits of the earth, anti-reason and anti-science stances.

Man, the will-to-power
`Man wants his physical fulfillment first, the marvel of being alive in the flesh, to be part of the cosmic life of vitality, potency, prowess and power. Cosmic power is phallic power (fertility).'
`The primal, old-Adamic need in a man's soul is to be master, lord.'

Aristocracy v. Democracy
An aristocrat acts from a position of strength, a democrat from a position of weakness.
`Socialists hate all free, upstanding, daunting men. A democracy is bound to be obscene, composed of false individualities.'

Anti-reason, anti-science
For D.H. Lawrence, the Logos is the evil snake. Man's fall is the fall into knowledge'
`The final condition of science, of modern physics and physicists is a naked and disembodied universe. The atom has turned into nothingness.'

Christianity, paganism
Christianity is a `thou-shalt-not' doctrine. It denies the body and creates misery out of vital want. It is the religion of `death', of the dead body and the postponed reward.
The old religions were cults of vitality, potency and power. They were religions of `life'.
Christianity destroyed paganism in the Western world.

The Apocalypse (Revelation)
The first part of the book calls for a renewed world under the Messiah.
The second half is full of hate of worldly power. It expresses a lust for the end of the world. It is the equivalent of suicide with subsequent self-glorification. Therefore, indirectly, it is the revelation of the undying will-to-power, its final triumph: `if the entire universe has to be destroyed, still, O Christian, you shall reign as a king and set your foot on the necks of the old bosses.'

This book is an original (but one of the many) analysis of the message(s) hidden in John of Patmos's book.
But D.H. Lawrence's Nietzschean condemnations of science, reason and democracy are totally unacceptable.
Only for H.H. Lawrence fans and `Apocalypse' scholars.

The greatness of Lawrence as a writer is not in question. But in this final work of his , we see a 'visionary ' side which involves a neo- Neitzschean and almost Fascist reading of ' the Book of Revelations'. Lawrence may as other reviewers claim be here most interested in defying a pagan life- affirming tradition against a spiritually dehumanizing Christianity. But the main thrust is in his condemnation, a very strange one indeed, of the poor of the world for their envy of those higher people, the true aristocrats of life. Borrowing a page from Nietzsche's conception of re-sentiment morality he condemns the poor and sees their anger as barren and empty. So too his reading of John of Patmos condemns him for dessicating the life in a false and distorted spiritual vision.
Lawrence's work comes most alive far from theory, in his novels especially but also in his poems.
In terms of pure ideas his contribution , at least in this work, is more negative than anything else.