The Rainbow

"I chose this for two reasons. The first is because it takes you into the 20th century and it shows how the encroachment of industrialisation had an affect on the English landscape. D H Lawrence was the son of a miner and knew about all the workings of mines. But perhaps more importantly, it’s about a family. The men in that family are still close to the land while the women look outwards for knowledge, and look towards the future. Lawrence writes the most wonderful passages, even in the opening pages. ‘Heaven and earth was teeming around them, and how should this cease? They felt the rush of sap in spring, they knew the wave which cannot halt, but every year throws forward the seed to begetting, and falling back, leaves the young-born on the earth… Their life and interrelations were such; feeling the pulse and body of the soil…’ ‘So much warmth and generating and pain and death did they know in their blood, earth and sky and beast and green plants…’ So here, you see, we have the rawness of nature and the complete interdependence of humans with the land. Well in The Rainbow it was the encroachment of mines, iron works and the early industrialisation process on the land. In fact the family’s farm is eventually cut off completely, by a canal and they are left isolated. And the book takes you through the next 20 years or so of their lives. Once you have lived beyond the age of about 45 I think you can see what has happened to the landscape – you can feel what has happened to the atmosphere and the weather. So you can actually see the changes within your own lifetime. And of course the changes since the time of D H Lawrence have moved even faster."