Why the Novel Matters (D.H Lawrence)

The chapter says that all things that are alive are amazing and contrasts the living with the dead or inanimate. So the mark of the animate is being alive, with life/activity as opposed to dead stillness.

Lawrence says: “The whole is greater than the part.” The simple truth the philosopher or scientist misses is that a human being cannot be reduced to soul, mind, brain, body, nerves, or any single part. The whole man alive is greater than any of these parts.

Lawrence reconciles inconsistency with integrity by saying that a person does not remain true by being fixed or uniform. Integrity means the wholeness of a living person, and a living person is always changing. So a person may have different feelings, responses, and actions at different times and still remain integral, as long as these changes belong to the same living whole. In the novel too, characters must live, not merely follow a pattern. Thus consistency according to pattern is less important than being true to one’s changing life.

The novel reflects the wholeness of a human being because it does not present only one side of human nature. It allows body, mind, spirit, feelings, instincts, good and bad impulses to appear together. Lawrence says the novel can make the whole man alive tremble, unlike a saint, philosopher, scientist, or poet who may deal only with one part of human life. A novel shows a person as a complete, changing, living being rather than as a fixed idea or a collection of separate parts.

Lawrence considers the novel superior because it deals with life as a whole. Philosophy may focus on ideas, science on parts of the body, poetry on a special kind of feeling, and saintliness on spirituality, but the novel can include all these aspects together. It communicates to the whole man alive. He also says that books are only tremulations on the ether, but the novel is the one that can make the entire person tremble with life, which is why he treats it as the “book of life.”

By “tremulations on ether” Lawrence means that books, words, teachings, and messages are only vibrations or transmissions—not life itself. A novel as a tremulation means that although it is not life directly, it can still affect and stir living people deeply. It can set the whole person in motion emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. So the novel is valuable because its message reaches the whole man alive, not because it is life itself.

Lawrence argues against denying the body in several ways:

- He says the body is alive, and the living body is not a mere vessel for the soul or mind.
- He rejects the idea that the body is just a bottle, jug, tin can, or clay vessel.
- He insists that the whole person is greater than any part such as soul, spirit, mind, or brain.
- He shows that knowledge, feeling, and experience happen through the body: when he touches fire, he knows it burns with full bodily knowledge.
- He says saints, philosophers, and scientists wrongly value the spirit or thought over the living body.

So the body is not inferior; it is part of the whole man alive and essential to life.

Lawrence reconciles integrity with inconsistency by saying that a human being is not a fixed pattern. A person remains whole not by being always the same, but by being alive and responsive. In the novel, a character must react truly to changing circumstances; if the character only follows a set pattern of goodness, badness, or volatility, the novel becomes dead. So integrity means wholeness and inner truth, while consistency may become a dead rigidity. A living person can change and still remain himself or herself.