Allen Jaworski <jaworski@ricochet.net> writes of his feelings on Lawrence and Eastwood and has kindly given permission for his words to appear here. Thank you, Allen for a beautifully expressed comment. Helen

LAWRENCE AND EASTWOOD

I have admired DHL's writing and ideas, even their crankiness and sometimes incoherence, since I read Odor of Chrysanthemums; have read every word he's written except the Cambridge Letters, and am halfway thru those.

I have visited Eastwood in the autumn, taken walks through his countryside, out to Hagg's Farm, the colliery, the country lanes, the mine company's offices, the pub where his father at times worked; left in a state of shock: almost nothing was invented--what was in his writings was extracted out of his life and surroundings as truthfully as can be done by the human mind. Much of his world was, incredibly, still there and intact as late as 1973. I still ache with the memory of the wrenching realization I had of the true nature of his art: he wasn't some commentator on middleclass Victorian-Edwardian sensibilities, even those seen from a workingclass perspective. He worked with his artist's awareness and all his senses, including those beyond the usual five, to render into art the physical, sensory and psychological realities that cause the human animal to quiver with dread and excitement every time midnight quickens to dawn.

I never knew the human condition had the capacity to explain itself to itself so effectively until I read Lawrence and visited Eastwood.