The Pseudo-Novels: The Lost Girl, Aaron’s Rod, and Kangaroo

Abstract

THE novels which follow Women in Love are of unquestionably inferior quality. Even whether they are true novels at all is debatable. The Lost Girl and Aaron’s Rod begin convincingly, but break into two unequal and atmospherically quite different halves, only too obviously reflecting the circumstances of their composition. The Lost Girl was begun in 1912, broken off owing to the war, and taken up again in 1920. Aaron’s Rod was written partly in 1918 and partly in 1921. Kangaroo, written in less than three months of 1922, bears all the marks of hasty writing with little revision. The chapter entitled “Bits” is half made up of brittle anecdotes culled from the pages of the Sydney (Australia) Bulletin. The Boy in the Bush (1924) is Lawrence’s reworking of a novel by the Australian writer Molly Skinner; and the comic novel, Mr. Noon which has a certain amount in common with the first part of The Lost Girl, is unfinished.