Parrots that taunt dogs and a railway journey that would frighten Michael Portillo….
Lawrence enjoys a wild railway journey down from the Mexican capital, pottering along at twelve miles an hour. Fastidious as ever, he lists in meticulous detail the prices and times of his connections. There are only forty passengers onboard ‘and twenty soldiers to guard us.’ Mexico is always on the edge of revolution.
In Oaxaca, he’s impressed with the Hotel Francia ‘such good amusing food – 4 pesos a day for everything’ and finds ‘a big market humming like a beehive, where one can buy anything, from roses to horseshoes’ though he’s less impressed with the ‘awful things to eat – including squashed fried locust-beetle.’
He’s happy with his new home and reports ‘a splendid verandah with table and rocking chairs’ and an ‘enclosed garden with gigantic trees, coffee plants, hibiscus flowers.’ Offsetting this tranquillity are a pair of parrots in an orange tree that mock the bark of a local dog. ‘He is horribly embarrassed by the parrots and their intimidation’ writes Lawrence. It is as peaceful as it will get.
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly as part of the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre project.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1922, click here.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1923, click here.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1924, click here.
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