THURSDAY 29/6/22

Today, in session #23 (c4400 words - MS pp c410-c430?), Lawrence completes "The Nightmare" chapter and adds the short "'Revenge' Timotheus Cries" chapter, bringing him back from Cornwall to Sydney (ie, from the birth-certificate incident [..."We want your birth certificate," said the sergeant…] to the start of chapter xiv, "Bits"). The previous two chapters are of a piece, and end (fictionally) with him finally lapsing into sleep - so it wasn't an actual nightmare, it seems, but a period of recall in his room at the Carlton Hotel the previous Saturday night. [...After all his terrific upheaval, Richard Lovat at last gave it up, and went to sleep. A man must even know how to give up his own earnestness, when its hour is over, and not to bother about anything any more, when he's bothered enough…] However, he has now exhausted - at least first time around - the material from the previous Saturday, and he must have realised that he wasn't getting any more information from such sources. (Garden was off to Melbourne to attend a week-long trade union conference.) Lawrence is now back where was the previous week, with nothing substantive to advance the political plot of his diary-novel. He will be obliged to resort to his imagination (or his daemon?) increasingly from now on.

FRIDAY 30/6/22

(Not a writing day.) After the burst of activity of the previous three days, Lawrence needs a break. So he and Frieda go off on a day-trip to Wollongong. It is a typical, sunny Australian winter's day [...A very strong wind had got up from the west. It blew down from the dark hills in a fury, and was cold as flat ice. It blew the sea back until the great water looked like dark, ruffled mole-fur. It blew it back till the waves got littler and littler, and could hardly uncurl the least swish of a rat-tail of foam. On such a day his restlessness had driven them on a trip along the coast to Wolloona. They got to the lost little town just before mid-day...] This is Lawrence at what he does best - describing, vividly, what happened. They catch the train down the coast to Wollongong, a much-larger town than Thirroul, and walk along the Main Street towards the sea, noting the shop windows, local hotels and the steelworks belching smoke further south. They buy some sandwiches and find a sheltered place to eat them in the dunes. They walk along the water's edge, when suddenly a rogue wave catches them unawares, and Lawrence's hat falls off into the sea, and he after it. Frieda is convulsed with laughter. [..."His hat! His hat! He wouldn't let it go"- shrieks, and her head like a sand-bag flops to the sand--"no--not if he had to swim"--shrieks--"swim to Samoa."...] They miss the train back and have to return to Thirroul via a local bus. Once again, Lawrence observes the ordinary Australians, and likes what he sees. [...Real careless Australians, careless of their appearance, careless of their speech, of their money, of everything--except of their happy-go-lucky, democratic friendliness. Really nice, with bright, quick, willing eyes...] The chill westerly wind was blowing almost a gale as they walk from the bus-stop in Station Street the half-dozen blocks or so back to "Wyewurk". [...The wind blew them home. He made a big fire, and changed, and they drank coffee made with milk, and ate buns...] Frieda reclines in front of the fire and reads a Nat Gould novel, while Lawrence no doubt thinks about where his novel is taking him - and, more importantly, where he is now going to get enough material to finish it. He will have to start the next chapter in the morning, Saturday. His mind is beginning to turn towards his Dark Gods.

SATURDAY 1/7/22

(Session #24: c3360 words, MS pp 431-447 - from the start of chapter xiv, to the end of his account of the trip to Wollongong.) He calls the chapter "Bits", and it begins with material he extracts from the June 23 issue of The Bulletin magazine, which he probably purchased up in Sydney the previous Saturday. [...The following day Somers felt savage with himself again...he looked at the big pink spread of his Sydney Bulletin...he liked the Bulletin better than any paper he knew...So he rushed to read the "bits"...] The "bits" are taken from the famous "Aboriginalities" page of The Bulletin, and consist of items sent in by pseudonymous readers (and heavily edited), reflecting "the Australian way of life". Lawrence adds his own comments. [..."1805: The casual Digger of war-days has carried it into civvies. Sighted one of the original Tenth at the Outer Harbour (Adelaide) wharf last week fishing. His sinker was his 1914 Star." Yes, couldn't Somers just see that forlorn Outer Harbour at Adelaide, and the digger, like some rag of sea-weed dripping over the edge of the wharf fishing, and using his medal for a weight?...] In this chapter Lawrence quotes no fewer than 12 extracted items, almost word-for-word (adding the captions of several Bulletin cartoons). [...Somers liked the concise, laconic style. It seemed to him manly and without trimmings. Put ship-shape in the office, no doubt. Sometimes the drawings were good, and sometimes they weren't...Bits, bits, bits. Yet Richard Lovat read on. It was not mere anecdotage. It was the sheer momentaneous life of the continent. There was no consecutive thread. Only the laconic courage of experience...] Additionally, he begins introducing a new element into the text, consisting of imaginary conversations between himself and the supposed reader. At first they are substantive [...He could have kicked himself for wanting to help mankind, join in revolutions or reforms or any of that stuff. He was a preacher and a blatherer, and he hated himself for it. Damn the "soul", damn the "dark god", damn the "listener" and the "answerer", and above all, damn his own interfering, nosy self. What right had he to go nosing round Kangaroo, and making up to Jaz or to Jack?...] but they soon become more discursive, even frivolous, as his "factual" material draws thin again. However, he is about to get an injection of new "factual" material, which will give him the elements of his next chapter, "Jack Slaps Back". For on Sunday he receives an unexpected visitor to "Wyewurk" in the person of Jack Scott. However, it is a very different Jack Scott (aka Jack Callcott) to the one who featured earlier in the novel.