The Man Who Died

Rating:
Summary: DARING MASTERPIECE!!!
Review: Anyone who has a passing interest or knowledge of the origins of Christian Myth will recognize those roots in this final masterpiece by D.H. Lawrence. It is amazing how prescient Lawrence was here. Remember, this was written some 20 years before the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels at Nag Hammadi. Although gnosticism was known of, and to some degree what some of the gnostics believed about Christ, it was rarely acknowledged beyond the study of heresy within the Catholic and Protestant seminaries. Laypeople knew almost nothing of the origins of Christianity. That most original Christians had very different ideas about their Savior, and that indeed many believed that He was a sexual creature (and some even a homosexual), was blasphemy of the highest degree. And that many also equated Christ and Mary with the myth of pagan Isis and Horas (which many today believe is the real precusor of Chritianity), would have been unthinkable even as late as the 1930s.
But Lawrence was an autodidact when it came to religion, and like many autodidactics, had some very strange and original ideas about that and Christianity in particular. Essentially a mystical deist, he found much to despise in organized, modern Christianity. Like so many of his generation, he blamed it, correctly, as one of the main causes of the First World War and the ills of the modern world. He also had an abiding interest in pagan religions of all types (read his The Plumed Serpent), but especially Roman/Etruscan paganism. How much he knew of the Egyptian Isis-Horas/Mary-Jesus connection I have no idea, but it was probably intuitive: Isis was one of the most popular godesses of late-pagan Rome, which Lawrence was very familiar. Did he know that certain early Christians also worshipped Isis and, indeed, believed in a sexual union between the two? I can't say. But knowing of Lawrence's interest in "mystical" sexuality, mixed with his other interests, it was probably natural that he would combine these into one of the most daring novels of all time.
While simple-minded, prejudice readers might find this work blasphemous, it is in fact one of the most original and exciting novels written about Christ. This has none of the nonsense of Kazantzakis'Last Temptation of Christ, which was essentially a reverent and wholly orthodox work (but which also has an element of original Christian philosophy -- and thus the unjust controversy). Lawrence dispenses with all that, and somehow discovered and revealed the pagan heart at the core of much Christian philosophy. In his tale of a Christ who "survives" the crucifixion, has a sexual relationship with a priestess of Isis, and then renounces aesthetism for the wordly pleasures of the flesh, Lawrence typically and bravely went for the jugular, while also retaining his elegant, inimitable style. What emerges is one of his most profound and poetic works, and not surprisingly, as he was to die a year later, also pretty much sums up his philosophies in one, neat little package. If you have the chance to read this small, but rich and powerful work, you will have discovered one of the true masterpieces of one of the greatest writers of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Obscene!
Review: I had no trouble reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, but I did indeed have trouble reading The Man Who Died. It is gross and blasphemous. D. H. Lawrence must have been mad when he wrote this. His tuberculosis was sure getting at him.

The book, which is a novella, was about Christ's resurrection. He discovers that men are put on earth to have sex with women. And He Himself takes part in this heathen notion.

I was insulted when I read this. Christians and non-Christians alike will agree that this book is not worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Update for Previous Review
Review: In my previous review of this masterwork I used the word "aesthetic", when of course I meant "ascetic..." Also, regards the quality of the prose: This book was published in 1930, at the height and influence of the simpler styles of Americans like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. While remaining intensely metaphoric, the style nevertheless shows the influence of this younger generation of writers who had emerged in the past half-decade. The result is one of Lawrence's most accesible novels, while also retaining the quality of Imagism that distinguishes his earliest work.

Rating:
Summary: Update for Previous Review
Review: In my previous review of this masterwork I used the word "aesthetic", when of course I meant "ascetic..." Also, regards the quality of the prose: This book was published in 1930, at the height and influence of the simpler styles of Americans like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. While remaining intensely metaphoric, the style nevertheless shows the influence of this younger generation of writers who had emerged in the past half-decade. The result is one of Lawrence's most accesible novels, while also retaining the quality of Imagism that distinguishes his earliest work.

Rating:
Summary: Kind of Silly
Review: This is D.H. Lawrence at his hobby horse again. He gives a portrayal of the risen Jesus after the crucifixion who is tired of life . . . weary of it all, with the life force at an all-time low. What can save him? Sex, of course. What else? It's the same old song-and-dance. Lawrence seems to think that the answer to all of life's problems is sexual union, which makes about as much sense to me as regarding vegetable curry as the meaning of life. Sex has it's place, to be sure, but I don't understand the primacy that Lawrence ascribes to it in each and every one of his novels. In certain instances, sex can revive a sense of purpose or ebbing energy, but it cannot and will not aid anyone in a sense of world-weariness. If attempted it will just be like trying to give live into a dead horse. It would probably only make one feel all the more disgusted with existence rather than giving one a sense of rejuvenation, as Sartre so adequately demonstrates in his "Nausea". All, in all, i felt the whole attempt was kind of silly. The Christians will get mad, the Lawrencians will love it, but it is really just another testimony to one man's inability to make sense of live in anyway other than genital terms.