Showing results by narrator "Paul Metcalfe" in All Categories

Imagine a breathing technique that can increase oxygen uptake and delivery to the cells, improve blood circulation, and unblock the nose. Perhaps it can help open the airways of the lungs, enhance blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, improve sleep, and bring calmness to the mind. It might even restore bodily functions disturbed by stress, build greater resilience, and help you to live longer. You might think this description sounds farfetched. But it isn’t.

"The Shades of Spring". In this story, the hero has moved on in the world and is married, yet cannot forget his old love. He retraces the steps to her farm, hoping for - what? He finds his old love attached to a physical young man who can give the girl what he could not - pure, physical love - and this she prefers to his more intellectual love.

Lawrence is at his best in this story, taken from the scenes of his childhood and based on characters he knew intimately. The main themes of the story are the class system that dominated society at the time and the pressures put on the young lovers who have to overcome it, and the position of women in society who have nothing to offer but their bodies. For the sake of security and position, one daughter makes a loveless marriage whilst the other daughter gives all that up for love.

In "The Prussian Officer", there is an anti-militarism theme, unpopular as the nation drew near to war, and an examination of latent homosexuality as the officer in the story struggles with his feelings for his orderly. The young soldier is driven beyond his breaking point, but finds a kind of redemption in his final return to natural surroundings and, symbolically, he finds equality in death with his tormentor as they are put side by side in the mortuary.

"The Thorn in the Flesh" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1914. The story can be listened to in tandem with "The Prussian Officer", which was written in the same year and has a similar setting and theme. In this story, the young soldier fights against his own shortcomings as a soldier and as a man. He flees the scene of his crime into the arms of his lover, where he finds solace and comfort, but he cannot escape the inevitable military machine that Lawrence hated.

"In Love" handles a serious subject in a light, almost comic way. A couple are engaged but have no sexual feelings for each other. The tensions, as they try to do what is expected of them, explode until a compromise is reached. But will the marriage last?

 "None of That" concerns itself with the nature of desire. The man in the story is no more than an animal with base instincts but is attractive to women. The woman looks for something deeper with imagination, but in the end is brought down by the more instinctive man. Lawrence again seems to be saying that a woman cannot exist beyond the control of a man, however crude, and can only bring unhappiness on herself if she tries to live on her own terms. 

 Lawrence uses the story of a storm and the deaths it causes to revive the feelings for (if not an actual belief in) the old gods, in this case Mercury whose shrine is ignored by the tourists but who takes his revenge. 

 "The Man Who Was Through With the World" picks up the same themes as in Lawrence's short story "The Man Who Loved Islands". He asks if we can ever withdraw from the world, no matter how much it disgusts us. The ironic part of this fragment is that the hermit vainly seeks to think holy thoughts while all around him is the natural world which could provide his life with meaning. The fragment is unfinished, leaving the listener to wonder if the hero would return to the world, if the world would come to him, or if nature would take its course and let him die in his hut. 

 Two Blue Birds tells the tale of the classic triangle of the man, the wife and the secretary, who struggle to work out what their relationships are with each other. Neither of the women seem to want the man sexually but the secretary offers devotion while the parasitic wife has more insight into the man and his work. All the relationships seem unhealthy, all three seem to want something different but are incapable of expressing what they desire. 

This piece of writing falls between the short story and travel writing, but is presented here as a short story largely because it depicts the warm love between Lawrence and his wife Frieda (Anita in the story) as they begin their life of travel together.

Lawrence is often accused of misogyny, and this story used as evidence against him. There is the simple but honest mine worker who has taken on a wife who is "above" him, but who is struggling to understand her and her feelings for him. Slowly, the story unravels the woman's past. The listener cannot be entirely unsympathetic to her plight - Lawrence is too good a writer to let that happen - but her dishonesty has probably ruined two lives, and our feelings are for the husband. 

In this beautifully observed study of a new marriage and the sexual tensions that run through it, Lawrence returns to his theme that happiness in marriage can only come with the submission of the woman to the man. The young wife strains against the bonds of being married and dallies with another man but returns to the arms of her husband once he shows his true feelings for her.

 "A Sick Collier". Lawrence returns in this story to the scenes of his childhood and the colliers he was brought up with. The wife in the story is probably based on his mother, although the husband is unlike the drinking, brutal father portrayed in Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's autobiographical novel. The story is a vivid portrayal of the life of a young couple when an accident strikes the husband down, but does not succeed as a short story, lacking any clear focus or message. 

"The Miner at Home" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. Lawrence is at his best in this story, taken from the scenes of his childhood and based on characters he knew intimately. The scene can hardly be called a story in the traditional sense, being the altercation between a miner and his wife over an impending strike, but as a picture of a working miner’s family, rich in detail and the Nottinghamshire dialect, it has a fascination and vividness.

"Christs in the Tirol" is more of an essay on this peculiar art form than a short story. It is included in this series as forming part of Lawrence's record of his wanderings in Europe, and partly as a record of Lawrence's attitude to religion and death and foreshadowing his own eventual suffering and death.

"Delilah and Mr Bircumshaw" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. Lawrence is beginning to move away from his working-class roots in this story and exploring the relationship of a middle-class couple who have a slight argument, egged on by the wife's friend. Bircumshaw loses his dignity and self-respect for the comforts of married life. For all his insights into women, the misogynist in Lawrence can be detected.

In "Strike Pay", Lawrence returns to the scenes of his boyhood in Eastwood in Nottinghamshire. A group of miners, liberated from work by a strike, enjoy a day out, but the hard realities of home life and mothers-in-law await their return. Tinged with good humor and the sense of comradeship among the miners and finally between the miner and his wife, this story epitomizes working life before the Great War.

"Once" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. The story is largely autobiographical, written when Lawrence and Frieda (Anita in the story) had fled England together to live in Austria and Italy. Frieda had had an affair while they were in Austria and she told Lawrence about it. "Once" explores Lawrence's reactions to being betrayed while still being in love and desiring the betrayer.

"New Eve and Old Adam" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. The story is largely autobiographical, telling the simple tale of an argument between a husband and wife, reflecting the difficult time Lawrence and his new wife Frieda were having. What was the place of a woman to be in a modern marriage? Lawrence argued that it was the woman's place to submit or unhappiness would ensue, at it did in this story. The wife is unable to submit to her husband and the marriage disintegrates.