BOOK REVIEW D H LAWRENCE THE LAST LAUGH (1928)

This may be the most unlikely and untypical of all of Lawrence’s stories. If I had read this without knowing the author’s identity in advance, I might have taken it for a story by Franz Kafka. It seems to bridge the gap between Surrealist Dadism and the later absurdist theatre of Samuel Beckett.

With Hampstead Heath subjected to a harsh winter blizzard, two people venture out from a house. They are Marchband, an inventor, and a young lady called Miss James who has some hearing difficulties.   Marchband describes the wintry Heath poetically as a brave new World, for its virginal snow coating. A third figure, who doesn’t travel with them, and something of a wag, tells him that the snow is merely a ‘whitewash’, a pun that the others find amusing. 

As Marchband and James embark on their journey (with no indication of their intended destination), Marcbband  hears some strange mysterious and yet beautiful sounding laughter from nearby. He asks James about it, and though she can hear him, she does not hear any laughter. Marchband now produces his invention from a bag. It is a large machine intended to assist James in being able to hear more clearly, but even that doesn’t help her hear or identify the source of the laughing he keeps on hearing.  James tells him that he himself is making the noises, which he refuses to believe.

James now starts having visions of her own, seeing a mysterious male figure watching them from the nearby tree lines. The couple go to investigate but the observer proves to be elusive or non-existent.

The search by the couple attracts the attention of a young handsome police constable, who is equally puzzled by their claims to hear noises and see people who there seems to be no trace of. The mystery figure leaves no footprints in the snow.

James sees the figure approach a nearby house, and Marchband goes to the house, knocking on the door. A woman comes out ((Lawrence describes her as Jewish in a way that is a little condescending of him). She has seen no other man than Marchband, and insists that he has been the only one to knock on her door, something Marchband can’t remember doing even though Lawrence has described him as knocking on the door.