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Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H. Lawrence

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Geoff Dyer was the award-winning UK author of five other books, some novels and nonfiction, before he set out to write a critical study of D.H. Lawrence. It is, according to his personal codex, a rite of passage every serious author eventually must pass, writing a critical study of an important muse. He readied himself. He stocked up on books by and about Lawrence. Not good enough. He built shelves for the books. Not good enough. He went to places Lawrence went to. Not good enough. He read Lawrence's letters, many volumes of them, but not in such a way to organize his study. Instead, he behaved badly, very badly at times. His Lawrence study, OUT OF SHEER RAGE, thus became a chronicle of how not to write a book, or at least, how not to write the book you intend to write.

Ordinarily, I am not a fan of people behaving badly or whining about the nest they built and then sullied, but this book is absolutely delightful for many reasons: 1) The narrative is a study in rhythm and precise language that conveys the mania of the title. 2) Dyer actually does get off a study of Lawrence, however oblique, that is insightful and invites wonder; it's just not the particularly detailed or deadly stuff of conventional biographies, hagiographies or academic studies. It is a telescope into the soul of a man far more tortured by his own sensibilities than Dyer, who nonetheless produced an appreciable oeuvre in a short life, who was, when said and done, comic in his anxieties. 3) It is a fine meditation on the attempt to get as close to a writer as possible, through the works and through the material detritus of a person's life. 4) It is a ripping, emperor's-not-wearing-clothes indictment of academic studies, which delights me and probably continues to offend academe big time. 5) Regarding the latter, it is a fine meditation on things disparate as shrines, house museums and historical conservation. 6) It is a travelogue, after a fashion. 7) It provides a window to the experience of a breakdown. 8) Egocentric, of course, but at no time does Dyer really ask the reader's pity, he only asks that the reader be entertained and informed. 9) It is informative (see reasons 1 - 7). 10) It is highly entertaining, laugh out loud funny at times.

Dyer has written an entertaining, informative, imaginative, and philosophically-revealing view of his struggle to motivate himself to write a book about one of his idols, D. H. Lawrence.

I felt an immediate closeness with Dyer when he said on p. 16 that "The Complete Poems" was probably the single most important book of Lawrence's. I have always been drawn more to DHL's poems and essays than to his novels. And yet in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, DHL is referred to as a "British novelist," and not as a "British author."

As the work goes on, it becomes clear that Dyer's preferred source of material are DHL's Letter. The most positive aspect of the book is the nine-page index given at the end of the book, mostly to quotes from Lawrence's letters. Dyer's description of trying to pace himself through the seven volumes of letters is a minor masterpiece of hilarity. Also humerous are his descriptions of sitting across from a lady with a cold on the train, and his childhood health problems. I have never read a book when I burst out laughing as often as in reading this one.

Dyer likes to draw parallels between himself and DHL, physically as well as emotionally and spiritually, because DHL is one of his heroes. Or is he? How could he have made the statement on p.207 that "...once I have finished this book...Lawrence will become a closed book to me. That's what I look forward to: no longer having anything to do with Lawrence." Or is he, in the heat of his authorship, lost in one of his mazes of contradiction.

Dyer says his favorite photograph of DHL is one of him sitting under a tree "doing nothing." That is not the DHL of history; Lawrence was one of the most "do-something" authors in the history of the planet. His myriad works in his short lifetime attest to that.

This book is definitely a funny first read, especially to authors who have writer's block. Dyer's circuitous, contradictory analyses of the predicaments of life are amusingly original. But while I am grateful to Dyer for bringing the content of DHL's Letters to my attention, I grew weary of his constant wish to "do nothing." And I think Dyer is weary of it himself.

I suppose one could only write a really decent, insightfulreview of Geoff Dyers' genre-defying Out of Sheer Rage by followingthe same wonderfully tortuous path taken by the author himself:procrastinate, delay, evade and travel to the far-flung places as Mr. Dyer once did, while constantly examining and re-examining one's own unique array of neuroses. Perhaps, like Geoff Dyer, by failing to write a solid review, one succeeds by taking a circular route, never diving straight to the heart of the matter and recognizing the triumph inherent in such a futile enterprise. Having said all that, one must keep ones' day job after all and what follows will have to pass for a circular route. Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence is a book within a book about trying, failing and succeeding at writing a biography of D.H. Lawrence (in a roundabout way) while simultaneously (quite by accident) employing one's personal and literary failures to gain access to one's own true self. Dyer leads the reader on a dizzying ride, we travel along with him and his long-suffering, multilingual girlfriend Laura in an effort to gain inspiration by way of the ritual of movement and a sense of place. We visit Italy,(Taormina, Rome)New Mexico, (Taos) Mexico (Oaxaca) and Oxford, all places where Lawrence once worked and lived. Nothing tangible realized there except some brilliant discoveries about the author's interior life. Observations usually unearthed by quoting Lawrence himself; "Freedom is a gift inside one's soul, Lawrence declared, you can't have it if it isn't in you." Dyer observes in a moment of self-awareness; "A gift it may be but it is not there for the taking. To realize this capacity in yourself is a struggle." And a further quote from Lawrence about getting to the core of one's own capabilities (or lack thereof) "Let a man fall to the bottom of himself, let him get to the bottom so that we can see who he really is." Dyer pulls us back into the past, then headlong into the present with beautifully written observations about the self, coping with depression, Nietzsche and the vagaries of his relationship with his girlfriend, Laura; " For Laura it is always 'together forever', for me it is always more like 'together whenever." (For arts' sake ? the reader can only guess). On falling in and getting out of depression; "All I felt was: I am depressed. I am depressed. And then, this depression generated its own flicker of recovery. I became interested in depression." And some Nietzschean philosopy to ameliorate despair; "Nietzshe wrote that the thought of suicide had got him through many a bad night, and thinking of giving up was probably the one thing that's kept me going." And inevitably, insights on the uselessness of giving up, of recognizing that what makes life so unbearable is that those things which seem so unbearable are in fact bearable; " The only way to give up totally is to kill yourself but that one act requires an assertion of will equal to the total amount that would be expanded in the rest of a normal lifetime. Killing yourself is not giving up, it's more like a catastrophic fast-forwarding." Out of Sheer Rage is an ultra-vivid mosaic whose parts can only be glimpsed whole from a distance; one could read, re-read and write endless reviews and still not quite grasp its' true essence on either an individual or general level (which may in fact be its' true essence). But a few stray thoughts may yet be relevant when considering Out of Sheer Rage; to paraphrase Dyer: "One is really one's true self when believing that one is not one's true self." And this final, uplifting endnote; "One way or another we all have to write our studies of D.H. Lawrence. Even if they will never be published, even if we will never complete them, even if all we are left with after years and years of effort is an unfinished, unfinishable record of how we failed to live up to our ambitions. The world over, from Taos to Taormina, from the places we have visited to countries we will never set foot in, the best we can do is to try to make some progress with our studies of D.H. Lawrence." Out of Sheer Rage is both a gift to the reader and a virus that needs to be spread; once read, it begs to be re-read and passed along to anyone with the ability for even momentary self-reflection. So please read this book, then give it to someone as a gift so that they too can spread what cannot or should not be cured. END

Out of Sheer Rage was a very entertaining. I heard the NPR interview with the author and went to find the book... It's not about Lawrence in the way that Watergate's not about Nixon. Mr. Dyer can document malaise like no other -- he has a strange obsessive way that puts him in sympathetic tandem with his subject. I still laugh when I think about Dyer's take on deconstruction early in the book, and his views of academia are dead on. Not to be forgotten, the travel aspect of this is great as well. The things that make Dyer funny and charming (or not, depending on your sense of humor) are also the reasons Dyer finds Lawrence funny and charming -- in his own cranky way. I too have no new desire to read Lawrence, but I can't wait to read more of Geoff Dyer.

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's intelligent, original, surprising, witty, honest, and fresh. Thank God Dyer didn't write a "criticism" of DH Lawrence in the conventional sense. Unable to write the critical study he had planned, Dyer finally just begins writing about his inability to begin. The result is a compelling journey through Dyer's psyche, an exploration of his indecisiveness, his frustration, his depression, his unhappiness, his general rage. If that sounds unpleasant or boring it really isn't. It is, at times, very funny. It's an excellently human expression of the self. What makes the book work so well is Dyer's honesty about his own failings. Dyer's only flaw as a writer is that he tends to drag his riffs and jokes out a bit too long. In the beginning you laugh, and after a few pages of the same stuff you start thinking, "OK, that's enough of that now." But this is a minor complaint. Dyer is as insightful about Lawrence--when he finally gets to Lawrence--as he is about himself. I enjoyed this book completely and highly recommend it to anybody with a brain. I do think it's Dyer's best book.

Read this book after Joyce Carol Oates mentioned it on CSPAN as a hilarious memoir. Hadn't read anything funnier in years and have been recommending the book since! Coincidentally, the June 4, 2007 issue of New York Magazine has an article titled, "The Best Novels You've Never Read - Sixty-one Critics Reveal Their Favorite Underrated Book of the Past Ten Years" and Out of Sheer Rage is mentioned. I couldn't agree more!

This was simply the most entertaining book I have read in many a year! You should read it in private. Reading it in public, your uncontrollable laughter may cause you significant embarassment.

Geoff Dyer has written a book that seems to create its own categories. Literary criticism, travellog, and a ranting confessional weave in and out, and the reader is swept into the writer's world. The minutae and day to day aggravations of the writer's life are given the spotlight, and one gets an intimate picture of how this incredibly creative mind can be frozen by the dizzying choices of the late 20th century world, grapple and struggle furiously and often compulsively with them, and ultimately produce something highly and hilariously original. I heard the author on a radio interview and went immediately to the nearest bookstore to pick up a copy. Before reading this book, ostensibly about D. H. Lawrence, it occurred to me that the fact that I had never read a word of D. H. Lawrence might detract from my enjoyment of the book. It didn't. Incidentally, I still have no inclination to read books by D.H.Lawrence, although I do want to read more books by Geoff Dyer.

Art imitates life and Dyer tries to wrestle with both the need to write versus the need to experience; and by reflecting on both we simultaneously experience both. A wonderfully written, on the mark experience.

Dyer's quasi-treatise on D.H. Lawrence amused me to no end when I started reading it. Although the book's subtitle -- WRESTLING WITH D.H. LAWRENCE -- leads one to believe the book is about the famed author, it is actually more about wrestling as a life choice. Wrestling with one's desires, one's life, one's hopes and dreams. Dyer's opening pages flicker back and forth between the occasional comment on Lawrence, mingled with rambling monologues on how he manages to sabatoge his own pursuits due to his overwhelming tendency for procrastination and self-doubt. "One of the reasons, in fact, that it was impossible to get started on either the Lawrence book or the novel was because I was so preoccupied with where to live. I could live anywhere, all I had to do was choose -- but it was impossible to choose because I could live anywhere. There were no constraints on me and because of this it was impossible to choose ... when all you have to go on is your own desires, then life becomes considerably more difficult, not to say intolerable."

This kind of ironic introspection is a clever counterpoint to Dyer's actual academic purpose, but it stales with use. Dyer uses the exact same formula to explain why people don't wear seatbelts, why he's bad at DIY home projects, why his knee hurts, and why he always brings the wrong books on his various vacations. On the one hand, it's kind of funny. On the other hand, the same joke over and over gets old.

Dyer's conceit here is that he mingles these long-winded mutterings with the occasional delve into Lawrence's own life and letters. He does this with seamless skill at the beginning (noting, for example, that Lawrence himself struggled with the decision of where to live), but the further along his book progresses, the more the technical analysis juts out, at odds with the rest of the awkwardly intimate details that Dyer gives of his own life and losses.

What ends up happening is that you get a vague idea of what Dyer and Lawrence are/were both like as people, but without ever getting the full force of that rage that the title claims is there. The book's title is derived from a quote by Lawrence, but it would've been more accurate to have replaced "rage" with "despair," since the book is less about Dyer and Lawrence than it is about how to wrestle with the overwhelming amount of ennui and confusion that all people (but writers especially) must deal with on a near-daily basis.

The goal is lofty, but the book's answers are a bit pat, especially when Dyer wraps things up and feels compelled to put a neat, little bow on the top of the sloppy, endearing mess he's just created. What starts as a humorous co-mingling of philosophy and self-sabotage turns quickly into a poor blend of a literary exegesis with a caustic self-help concept. "That is the hallmark of academic criticism: it kills everything it touches," Dyer writes. He hopes to expound on Lawrence by using his own life -- "...how can you know anything about literature if all you've done is read books?" -- but since his life is such a shoddy and repetitive affair, his novel becomes equally shoddy and repetitive. Hilarious in spots, illuminating in others, and eloquently revealing, OUT OF SHEER RAGE is still missing the furious focus and strength that would make it a truly good book.