SUNDAY 9/7/22

Having finished chapter xvi "A Row in Town" (the first section on Friday and the second on Saturday July 8), Lawrence now has two chapters to write before the novel is finished and ready to be posted off to Mountsier in New York. He writes to Mabel Dodge on Friday - probably in the evening, after finishing his morning session - telling her he has two chapters left to write (which confirms the dating of "A Row in Town"). So on Sunday morning he almost certainly begins session #29 and the start of chapter xvii, "Kangaroo is Killed". The last two chapters consist of 39 MS pages - about 8600 words. It is not easy to distinguish the individual sessions that made up this final part of the novel. Had he been writing at his "normal" speed - 3500-4000 words a day/session - this output could have been completed in two days (or three at most). That being the case, he could - indeed should - have completed the novel on Monday July 10 or by Tuesday July 11 at the latest (see below). However, there is a problem with such a scenario, for on Wednesday July 18 (over a week later) he wrote to his U.S. publisher Seltzer telling him he finished Kangaroo the previous Saturday - ie, on July 15. So what did he do between Sunday July 9 and Saturday July 15? This question is made even more difficult to answer by the fact that he probably wrote all of chapter xvii on Sunday, July 9. (Session #29: MS pp 540-556? - c3500 words.) That, apparently, would have left him six days to finish around 3300 words, or 19 MS pages - something he could have written in one morning. Moreover, there is no obvious "break" in the writing of the final chapter, nor any "thematic" change, that would indicate a break, and so point to two sessions - one on Monday and a final one on Tuesday July 11. There is no obvious explanation for this five-day "writing gap" lacuna. Chapter xvii, "Kangaroo is Killed", begun on Sunday July 10, consists of three main elements - two separate visits to Sydney for Somers to see Cooley in hospital (the second time with Jack Callcott present) and a substantial sub-section in-between describing a walk in the evening along the beach below "Coo-ee/Wyewurk". The first two are utter (and, compared with "A Row in Town", rather weak) invention, but the "middle" section is totally convincing, and obviously taken from "reality". […So it was when he got back from Sydney and, in the night of moonlight, went down the low cliff to the sand. Immediately the great rhythm and ringing of the breakers obliterated every other feeling in his breast…] In fact, that passage is almost certainly a reprise of his return from Sydney the previous Wednesday (see above). However, he now adds a morning walk, taken later in the week, perhaps on Thursday or Friday morning. [...And in the morning the yellow sea faintly crinkled by the inrushing wind from the land, and long, straight lines on the lacquered meadow, long, straight lines that reared at last in green glass, then broke in snow, and slushed softly up the sand.…] This is Lawrence at his very best. Now "released" from having to find political material, he can give his unrivalled observational and writing skills greater freedom, or sway. […Incredibly swift and far the flat rush flew at him, with foam like the hissing, open mouths of snakes. In the nearness a wave broke white and high. Then, ugh! across the intervening gulf the great lurch and swish, as the snakes rushed forward, in a hollow frost hissing at his boots. Then failed to bite, fell back hissing softly, leaving the belly of the sands granulated silver…] (There are two almost-identical versions of this wonderful passage, in consecutive paragraphs - and which Lawrence must have seen when revising the manuscript, at least twice, yet left them in. One wonders if his daemon had any hand in this.)

MONDAY 10/7/22

Whether writing the last chapter takes him two days or one (or three), Lawrence almost certainly begins the final chapter, "Adieu Australia" (chapter xviii) on Monday, July 10, no doubt, as is his custom, soon after breakfast. (Session #30: MS pp 540-556? - maybe 3500 words.) But "Adieu Australia" is not the original name of this final chapter. An earlier chapter-heading was "Kangaroo Dies and is Buried". On p540 on the original MS Lawrence crosses these words out and superimposes the published chapter-name. There is something rather odd here. The death and burial of Cooley - he is still alive in the previous chapter - is mentioned only in the first sentence of the chapter (though Harriett avers to his death in another sentence further on). So what did Lawrence intend with his initial chapter-title? The assumption is that he is going to talk more about Cooley and his demise. Yet he does not do that. There are several versions of the (somewhat infamous) "last chapter" of Kangaroo. The first version, written in Thirroul, starting on Monday July 10, consists of two elements - Somers contemplating the township from a viewpoint somewhere above the town, and a second section consisting of a conversation with "Jaz". […The only person that called at Coo-ee was Jaz…] This initial version of chapter xviii ends with Somers's exchange with "Jaz" and a final sentence" […Now Jaz, goodbye. Goodbye to you, goodbye to everybody. I'm finished on this side."…] (ie, that is the original "Thirroul" ending of the novel). It is fairly clear where these two ingredients come from. The first element […Sitting at the edge of the bush he looked at the settlement and the sea beyond…] is obviously a reprise of the start of chapter x, "Diggers" [cf.…He went on till he could look over the tor's edge at the land below. There was the scalloped sea-shore, for miles, and the strip of flat coast-land…] The two passages - eight chapters apart - are almost identical, substantively. The second element, the conversation with "Jaz", is just as clearly - initially at least - a reprise of the conversation with Jack Callcott/Jack Scott in chapter xv, "Jack Slaps Back". At one point in the exchange Lawrence actually writes "Jack" instead of "Jaz", on the MS, and has to cross it out. (Lawrence even has Harriett coming out, as she does in "Jack Slaps Back", with a tea-tray and "pouring cold water" over the two men.) However, this second element soon decays from a reprise of "Jack Slaps Back" into Lawrence preaching about his twin obsessions of love and "male power".. […I've looked for love, howled for love…What I finally want is my own male power…] The last 11 paragraphs of this sermon do not even contain quotation marks, as if Lawrence had dropped any pretence that it is a conversation with "Jaz", but rather a monologue with himself. However, the final, published version of this last chapter consists of much more than these two "Thirroul"-ending elements (which, nevertheless, he largely retained in the final text). They comprise a description of a storm in Mullumbimby/Thirroul, yet another argument or dispute with Harriett/Frieda, a trip up to Sydney to collect their visas, a sulky-ride out into the bush when the wattle is in bloom, their preparations for departure, then travelling up to Sydney to board their steamer, and, finally, sailing down the Harbour and out into the Tasman, where […It was only four days to New Zealand, over a cold, dark, inhospitable sea...] which are the last words of the final, published (UK) version of the novel. However, these words were not written in Australia, but later after Lawrence and Frieda arrived in Taos, New Mexico, to stay with Mabel Dodge Luhan. So we will address that separate writing session - perhaps we can label it session #31+ - in a moment. First, however, we have to take Lawrence to his stated (in his above-mentioned letter to Seltzer) finishing point, four or five days later on Saturday, July 15 - and his last Kangaroo writing-session in Australia. [cf.…Now Jaz, goodbye. Goodbye to you, goodbye to everybody. I'm finished on this side.".…]