Letters + Bits
From Rananim December 1996, Vol 4, No 2-3

Letters:

Congratulations to all on the
April edition of Rananim. The poems
and pictures are marvellous and such
a thrill to see my piece on the
Etruscans. Is Coo-ee an Australian
word? I have often wondered why
Lawrence used it in the early.
Eastwood part of Mr Noon. tne
novel was written before Lawrence
visited Australia' and the typescript
sent to the publisher was not to be
seen again for 30 years. Has anyone
an explanation?
- Marylyn Valentine
Many thanks for Rananim. I have read it with some absorption. The colour and black and white reproduc- tions are outstanding and so simply and effectively displayed. I remember seeing DHL's own paintings displayed in the hotel in Taos in 1963 and those in your Rananim seem to match very well. ''Elephant'' is interesting too - at five I was brought to see HRH The Prince of Wales driven along St Kilda Road in Melbourne on that same trip. Lawrence seemed to sense the ultimate fate of the House of Windsor up there in Kandy.
Congratulations on a fine issue... - Dymphna Clark
l enjoyed the latest edition particuiarly the watercolours. What about arranging an exhibition of them along
with the next seminar?...
Enclosed is a photo of the war memorial (see page 32) which has been relocated and refurbished. It is near the Railway Station. Frieda' s plan for a fence around it has almost been implemented! The inscription at the base ''unveiled by Grannie Riach 25th April 1920.. is becoming a bit faint due to the erosion of the sandstone so I've drawn it to the attention of the heritage officer at Wollongong Council.
If there is time you might also be interested in calling at the Bulli Railway Station museum where they now have preserved a steam engine that pulled the coal trucks out onto Bulli jetty. When you see how small it is it helps to make sense of the scene in Chapter 7 where Somers talks with William James who was driving one of these engines along the jetty...
- John Child

Bits:

A recent article in the Weekend Australian about the former footballer/film star and acquitted murder charge defendant) O.J. Simpson reported that while holidaying in Florida he booked into the local Edgewater Beach resort under the unlikely pseudonym of D.H. Lawrence.

In Kylie Tennant's biography of H.V. Evatt she recounts a debate between Evatt and W.L N. McNantara, afellow trustee of Sydney's Mitchell Library Evatt forthrightly declared that Lawrence wrote 'awful pornographic stuff". McNamara insisted on getting up from the library's basement some of Lawrence's pictures. Evatt enthusiastically' decided that Lawrence was not hisfavourite writer. at least he ppd an artist.
Gerald Pollinger tells us his firm.
Laurence Pollinger Limited, is in the
process of placing Love Among the
Haystacks with Australian film
producer J. McElroy.

In 1952 at the Washington mansion of Mrs Dupont. Dylan Thomas read the D.H. Lawrence poem, ''Kangaroo''. An audio tape of the reading was made and is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
In. reference (see letters below) to
the mention of the words ''Coo-ee ''
Treasurer Steve O'Connor points out
that DHL again referred to the old
Aboriginal call ''Coo-ee'' in the First
Lady Chatterley.
We have received a letter from Peter Preston, of the DHL Centre at Nottingham, alerting us to the problem facing - literally - one of Lawrence's famous homes - the ''DHL Cottage'', Higher Tregerthen, Zennor, in Cornwall (where Lawrence set much of the Nightmare chapter in Kangarooj. A large and vulnerable fuel tank has been erected in the front garden, desecrating - shades of Wyewurk - the view of the cottage and presenting a danger from local vandals. Our committee is writing to the local council to support appeals for the tank's relocation.


The University of NSW has a ''Great Books Group'' which each month meets to discuss what others might call ''the canon'' of Western Literature (1997 books include Proust's Remembrance, Boldrewood's Robbery Under Armss and Rushdie's Satanic Verses). Last October the group discussed Kangaroo and Professor
Donald Horne addressed it on this ''Great book'' (he recalled the famous J.I.M. Stewart story about Kangaroo being the only example of Australian literature). Horne praised the novel, which he described as ''a book about human relations''. It was not a fascist novel but ''a Socratic dialogue'' about authority. Lawrence was particularly good about the Australian male character and the absence of class distinctions in Australia. The plot - democracy against the mob - was a bit of a let-down (''lots of things don't happen''). ''Not a great novel...a bit of a mess...self-indulgent...comes to life in its 'bits and pieces'.'' However, it had many good descriptive passages - ''.5 out of 1().'