Sep 29, 2010 12:08 AM
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“She was so tired, so tired, like a child that wants to go to sleep, but which fights against sleep as if sleep were death.”
May God never put to trial our faith and devotion for Him; May God never put to test our love and perseverance for our loved ones; May God never test our strength and Confidence in ourselves. For we are too weak and selfish to stand even a speck of his ordeal. Thats what my learning is, from this short novel called "The Fox".
ABOUT THE STORY: “The Fox” tells the tale of two women, March and Banford, who have setup their lives in a secluded farm. The place is well organized and far from the world; there is no one else without them; and most of all its free of the presence of any men. Their nature well compliments each other with Banford being a bit chatty and nervous at times and March always quite but strong. They have found solace in each other’s company and were living life quite well with whatever they’re getting from Farm work, till the arrival of the Intruder.
One day a man, a stranger, comes to the farmhouse in search of home that he had there long back before women’s arrival. Henry, only a boy of 20, with his warm and happy temperament reminded Banford of brotherly figure, with whom she can talk and discuss things. But March finds him differently, and boy succeeds in provoking a vague restlessness in her and it becomes hard for her to control her hidden desire anymore.
Banford allows him to stay with them for some days, till he finds some other place in some other town. But within days only, March loses her heart to him, inspite of all her inner strength and wisdom and Banford had to deal with the unwanted and adverse news of their decision to get engaged and married within. March being her only company and strength, Banford finds it hard to let them go; so tries in every way possible to poison March’s mind to stop her and behaves badly and rudely in every way possible to make the boy leave. And Henry on the other hand works on making March leave with him.
So whose love wins in the end, Henry’s or Banford’s? What will be March’s decision; stay with Banford and have safe and comfortable but dull life, or succumb to the passions of boy and have unpredictable and harsh but desirous life? That’s what forms rest of the story. The climax indeed is very unpredictable and sensational, but a bit disheartening.
Parallel to it runs the story of the Fox that comes from jungle to hunt the farm fowls, context of which is very well used by the writer to engage his character’s lives and to raise reader’s excitement in the story. It brings the aspect of horror and mystery to the story.
ABOUT THE CHARACTERS: Though there are only three characters, if you leave the Fox, writer has not used separate space to develop them; they are being brought to life very beautifully with the flow of story.
March is the central and most important as well as interesting character of the story, and she remains like a mystery to the very end, both to the reader as well as other characters of the story. One feels a strange kind of likeness as well as sympathy for her.
Banford, with her open and blunt nature, at first seem to be very simple and innocent girl but as the story reach the part where Henry first tell her about their plans of marriage, her characters takes a complete U-turn and becomes very mean and spiteful . May be, we all behave like that when faced with the prospect of solitude.
Henry, the boy, is cute but cunning. Very dislikable character, till the very end, you’ll really hate him for disturbing women’s lives. But then, I guess, that’s how such stories are formed, with unwelcomed intruders.
ABOUT THE BOOK: With this novel, I am able to understand, the meaning the word “TAUT” holds in book writing. There is no wastage of words, no redundant characters and no needless plot to complicate the story. There are repetitive words every now and then (one can see in the extracts given with this review) but they are used to a good extent to stress on the things important to life of the story.
Within only 110 pages, that too used very leisurely in terms of space and with a good enough font size writer has well captured the essence of the story. There is no division of story in chapters, and it all moves in a single flow, like a dream. It indeed feels like a dream, more than ever when it finishes. Various Philosophical opinions put forward are brilliant. A master writer knows how to render his own thoughts through the characters and circumstances of the story, and that’s what makes all the difference.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Who doesn’t know about D. H. Lawrence? With classics like “Women in Love”, “The Rainbow”, “Sons and lovers”, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” under his name, he’s surely a master story teller. “The Fox” is the first book by him that I have read, and with that only I feel like I’ve known and read this writer for a long time now. His symbolic subtlety in exposing the forces which deny life, and his insistence on the central importance of sex, revolutionized the 20th-centuary novels.
FINAL WORDS: “The Fox”, a story of two man less women whose love and friendship is put to test with arrival of an intruder. Though it isn’t the best of Lawrence, but surely can be read for the purpose of whetting the appetite, for its short length. It has a simple but magic words and brilliant flow with 3 very different and interesting characters. For the character of March and the mystery she carries around her, it’s a must read.
Let me end the review with following words from the book.
“You wanted to make your beloved happy, and his happiness seemed always achievable. If only you did just this, that or the other. And you did this, that or the other, in all good faith, and every time the failure became a little more ghastly. You could love yourself to ribbons and strive and strain yourself to the bone, and things would go from bad to worse, as for as happiness went. The awful mistake of happiness.”
How true are these words, and what fools we humans are!
P S: Two more very interesting and thoughtful Extracts are given in the comment section.
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Take Care and Keep Writing and Smiling
Vikky Gural
PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAEGA..
