In the autumn of 1913, DH Lawrence embarked on a journey from Konstanz, a metropolis in Germany, through Switzerland, ultimately reaching the Italian realm of Como. His travels, conducted primarily on foot and by boat, led him to recognise the damaging impact contemporary tourism was causing to the environment and its inherent serenity. This disruption was severing a long-established bond between the inhabitants and the land’s inherent cycle.
The author was scheduled to rendezvous with Frieda Weekley in Milan, a German woman who was married at the time and with whom he had fled England. Their mutual resolution to disregard societal expectations pertaining to marital vows reverberates throughout this captivating novel.
Daniel Burrow, an ex-principal, tries to dispel the memories of a past relationship by retracing Lawrence’s Swiss journey. His footsteps through the picture-postcard scenery evoke memories of his past travels along the same trajectory with a prior love, Julia, an academic studying Lawrence through an ecocritical perspective.
These recollections bring forth Burrow’s anticipation for Julia to leave her spouse and join him in their London home, contrasted by her own premonitions about the possible drastic consequences of their actions.
Julia aspires to replicate her literary idol, Lawrence, by rejecting societal norms for the sake of love. Yet, she also battles with making the final commitment. At the same time, Burrow’s joy is jeopardised by the potential emotional upset of his partner’s children.
Along his stroll through the Swiss valleys in the present day, the spirits of Julia and Lawrence haunt an aging Burrow, leading to contemplations about the journey’s essence and the engulfing allure of liberation.
Yet, Parks delves deeper into the torturous dilemma of choosing between mundane domesticity and the enchanting allure of forbidden desire. He also scrutinises the complex history of a relationship involving a married woman whose decisions risk estrangement from her children, and her widowed paramour who longs for a life-changing event. All this happens under the symbolic presence of DH Lawrence, one of literature’s most renowned challengers of sexual norms, suspended in the lofty Alpine atmosphere.