D.H. Lawrence had a flair for offending people. It wasn’t just the explicit content of books like “Sons and Lovers” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” He turned friends into enemies, and his enthusiasm for incorporating real people and events into his writing didn’t help much.
Frances Wilson’s new biography, “Burning Man: The Trials of D.H. Lawrence” paints a picture of a complex and not entirely admirable man, a frequently difficult and very human individual. Here we see a novelist who embraced his passions — his lusts, his angers, his resentments, his envies and his jealousies — who, indeed, was largely driven by them.
