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ISSUES OF RANANIM
(It is advisable to refresh you computer before starting to look at Rananim if you haven't visited the site for a while)
CELEBRATING THE CENTENARY OF LAWRENCE'S VISIT TO AUSTRALIA
This year marks the centenary of DH Lawrence's visit to Australia in 1922 (he arrived in Perth on May 4, 1922).
He stayed over a week in Western Australia before travelling on to Sydney where he spent the remainder of his 99 days in Australia, before going on to New Zealand and then to America and Taos in New Mexico.
He began writing his Australian novel Kangaroo - his sixth major novel - on May 30 before finishing his first draft six weeks later, which he then sent on to his agent in New York for typing. The novel was published in America and the UK just over a year later in 1923.
The unexpected political plot of the novel - it is about a proto-fascist secret army a visiting English author stumbles on in Sydney - is a matter of ongoing controversy in Lawrence circles.
The contention by Robert Darroch, author of DH Lawrence in Australia (1980), that it is based on Lawrence''s encounter with an actual secret army in Sydney in May-August 1922 is not accepted by most Lawrence critics. (They maintain that Lawrence dreamt the whole thing up, despite the parallels with actual secret armies in Australia in the 1920s.)
However, further research by scholars into the politics of the early post-World War 1 period in Australia is adding much credence to The Darroch Thesis.
Later this year Robert Darroch will be publishing his final book on the subject, The Horrible Paws,
The DH Lawrence Society of Australia is planning to mark the writing of Kangaroo later in the year.
Tom Thompson ETT Imprint who produces e-book and Print-on-Demand (POD) versions of Svengali booksand publishes his own list
THE UK LAUNCH OF ROBERT DARROCH'S DH LAWRENCE'S 99 DAYS IN AUSTRALIA
"The Curious Incident of the Red Wooden Heart" was the title of Robert Darroch's paper at the International D.H. Lawrence Conference at St Ives, Cornwall, UK, on Monday September 12, 2016.
The UK "soft launch" of Rob's two-volume DH Lawrence's 99 Days in Australia also occurred on September 12.
The incident of the "red wooden heart" which Lawrence had given Frieda when he was first courting her, and then gave it to Benjamin Cooley, "Kangaroo", was, Rob explained to the Conference delegates, a crucial event in the novel.
After the first day's sessions, Conference delegates traveled to Zennor where Lawrence and Frieda had lived in a stone cottage in 1915-16, where Lawrence wrote Women in Love.
Our two photos show Rob Darroch delivering his paper at the Conference, and Rob Darroch outside the Tinners' Ams, the county pub at Zennor in Cornwall where Lawrence and Frieda stayed before they moved into their cottage.
Robert Darroch at the International D.H. Lawrence Conference
Tinners' Arms
Robert's book: DH Lawrence's 99 Days in Australia, Vol1, The Quest for Cooley and Vol2: The Silvery Freedom…and the Horrible Paws" is available from Amazon (for Kindle) and Print-on-Demand (POD). Just go to Amazon Books web site and key in ROBERT DARROCH. His book is also available on iTUNES and Barnes & Noble.
BOB CARR LAUNCHES ROBERT DARROCH'S DH LAWRENCE
SECRET ARMY BOOK
Bob Carr (left) and author Robert Darroch (right) at the launch of DH Lawrence's 99 Days in Australia at the NSW State Library
SEE VIDEO OF BOB CARR LAUNCHING DARROCH'S BOOK
FORMER NSW Premier and ex-Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, when launching Robert Darroch's new book DH Lawrence's 99 Days in Australia, said: "This carefully-researched work shows how Lawrence became involved with a fascist secret army in Australia in 1922, and demonstrates that his Australian novel Kangaroo is the story of that involvement."
Bob Carr, who officially launched the two volumes of Robert Darroch's book on Thursday August 25, has had a long interest in Lawrence in Australia. In 1993, when Planning Minister in the NSW State Government, he had an Interim Preservation Order placed on Wyewurk, the cottage at Thirroul where Lawrence wrote his 8th major novel, Kangaroo, in a scant 33 days.
"Lawrence had to have got the novel's secret army content at first hand from local sources. He didn't have time to do any research. Darroch's day-by-day reconstruction of his time in Sydney and Thirroul shows that it had to have come from actual secret army leaders in Sydney," Carr said.
Darroch's books, the result of more than 40 year's research into Lawrence's time in Australia, reveals what he calls "the fascist underbelly of Australian society and politics" between the wars. He also describes a homosexual encounter Lawrence had with one of the secret army leaders which led him to repudiate the fascist nature of the organisation he had stumbled into in Sydney – what Lawrence called "the scaly back of the reptile, and the horrible paws".
The Lost Girl with an Introduction
"How D.H. Lawrence Found his Lost Girl in Cornwall"
by Sandra Jobson
Sandra Jobson (Darroch) delivering her paper at the D.H. Lawrence International Conference at St Ives, Cornwall, UK., on September 14, She spoke about her literary discovery that Lawrence had based part of his character Alvina in his novel The Lost Girl on the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield, who had lived next door to him in Cornwall in 1916.
The conference date coincided with the UK launch of the Svengali Press/ETTImprint edition of a reformatted reprint of the original US (1921) edition of The Lost Girl with an Introduction "How D.H. Lawrence Found his Lost Girl in Cornwall" by Sandra Jobson. The book will also be launched in Australia on Sandra's return from the UK, and will be available from Amazon for Print-on-Demand and the Kindle, as well as for tablet-viewing on iTunes.
(See also: D.H. Lawrence & the Sydney Bulletin click HERE)
"A TYPICAL CORNISHMAN"
Matthew Trewhella, the chorister of Zennor - pictured above humming a tune - being lured to a watery fate by a seductive mermaid…a famous Cornwall myth commemorated in a church in Zennor which Lawrence knew from his time in Cornwall in 1916-17, and which came to mind when he needed a name for the real-life character Gerald Hum in Sydney in 1922. Hum didn't sing, but choristers do, so in Kangaroo Hum became William James "Jaz" Trewhella. (See Research Notes 6/1/16 for why Hum was "a typical Cornishman".)
OUR VIDEO VENTURE
DH Lawrence Society of Australia President,
Rob Darroch, holding up a copy of
artist Garry Shead's DVD
of his film "In the Steps of Lawrence".
Garry's film was a feature at the launch of Rananim Media Enterprises, which the DH Lawrence Society of Australia will manage and distribute DVDs, books, and other Media about Lawrenceand Kangaroo.
Launch
of Robert Darroch's e-book THE SCALY BACK OF A REPTILE...
Click HERE to read this book and Cick HERE to view the October 2013 edition of Rananim
for
a report on the launch and the "True Believers"
"The
House at the End of the Road" - Article
by ROBERT WHITELAW about Lawrence's strange excursion to
Sydney's Northern beaches the day after he arrived in Sydney
Vol 1 
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Vol 2
