Slow read and wordy - so so. An Englishman's life in Surburban Sydney, post WW1, the politics, people and his sole searching. ( )

Lolle, una vaca del norte de Alemania, pasa por una etapa bastante mala: no sólo ha descubierto que su queridísimo toro Champion la engaña con esa vaca idiota de Susi. No, además se ha enterado de que el agricultor quiere vender la finca y que todas las vacas del rebaño acabarán entre dos rebanadas de pan. Pero aún hay esperanza. Un gato italiano de mundo le dice que existe un paraíso para las vacas: ¡la India! De manera que Lolle decide poner pies en polvorosa esa misma noche con sus dos mejores amigas y emprender el peligroso viaje hacia la tierra prometida. Situaciones delirante y una particular filosofía de la vida.

CANGURO ♦ EN EL ERIAL

I read this in 2011 for one of my modules at university, which was all about D. H. Lawrence. Found out during the module that I'm not a Lawrence fan. He seemed to divide opinions among students, some of whom shared my negative view, others - along with our tutor - thought he was a brilliant author. I guess from a writer's perspective that it's better to be loved or hated in turn than being treated indifferently.

Of all the works by Lawrence that I read, "Kangaroo" was the worst of the bunch. With such a title it's perhaps fitting that I "skipped" many of the pages, owing to being bored stupid by the lackluster story - or "lack" of story. Would've quit altogether had I not needed to join in with class discussions.

I remember at one stage the narrator states something like, "Page after page and still nothing." This is the reason why I had trouble with it, as there was little actual *story*. It was just self-indulged rambling rubbish.

I know the author received praise for his descriptive passages, but while I agree that he does a good job in this area, it doesn't appeal to a reader interested in character interaction and progressive plot development.

I did take a shine to one of the secondary characters - Victoria - but she wasn't enough to save what I consider to be one of the worst books I've (almost) ever read. ( )

Kangaroo is an account of a visit to New South Wales by an English writer named Richard Lovat Somers, and his German wife Harriet, in the early 1920s. This appears to be semi-autobiographical, based on a three-month visit to Australia by Lawrence and his wife Frieda, in 1922.
The titular kangaroo is the central image of this novel. Somers travels to Australia in search of traditional cultural values. He finds, based on his experience there, a dichotomy between the spirit of the place and the character of its people. In spite of strange place names and the strangeness of the sky and seasons he does not sense the cultural differences from modern Europe for which he is searching. "Kangaroo" is the fictional nickname of one of Lawrence's characters, Benjamin Cooley, a prominent ex-soldier and lawyer, who is also the leader of a secretive, fascist paramilitary organization, the "Diggers Club". Cooley fascinates Somers, but he maintains his distance from the movement itself.
While rejecting Cooley Somers finds what he is looking for in the Australian kangaroo - an image that embodies his ideals. The novel is rich in ideas epitomized by the awareness of the sovereignty of the individual's power over self, his "extraordinary privilege of responsibility". Nietzsche's influence is seen in the idea of "master and slave" found in the Genealogy of Morals and its relation to the discussions in the novel. This is a somewhat disorganized novel, but one rich in ideas which carry the reader forward throughout. ( )