Lost Girl-logo

Lost Girl

D. H. Lawrence

"There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to." In this most under-valued of his novels, Lawrence once again presents us with a young woman hemmed in by her middle-class upbringing and (like Ursula Brangwen in The Rainbow) longing for escape. Alvina Houghton's plight, however, is given a rather comic and even picaresque treatment. Losing first her mother, a perpetual invalid, and later her cross-dressing father, a woefully ineffectual small-scale entrepreneur, Alvina feels doomed to merge with the tribe of eternal spinsters who surround her in the dreary mining community of Woodhouse. Into this drab environment enter the Natcha-Kee-Tawara: a polyglot, poly-amorous troupe of travelling players united, on- and off-stage, in a fantasy of Native American nomadism. Enter Ciccio, the surly dark-eyed horseman. The Italian's potent and threatening physicality overwhelms Alvina and soon will propel her into - what? Perdition, or the paradoxical freedom of a girl who 'like(s) being lost'? (Summary by Martin Geeson) Author - D. H. Lawrence. Narrator - Tony Foster. Published Date - Thursday, 19 January 2023.

Location:

United States

Description:

"There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to." In this most under-valued of his novels, Lawrence once again presents us with a young woman hemmed in by her middle-class upbringing and (like Ursula Brangwen in The Rainbow) longing for escape. Alvina Houghton's plight, however, is given a rather comic and even picaresque treatment. Losing first her mother, a perpetual invalid, and later her cross-dressing father, a woefully ineffectual small-scale entrepreneur, Alvina feels doomed to merge with the tribe of eternal spinsters who surround her in the dreary mining community of Woodhouse. Into this drab environment enter the Natcha-Kee-Tawara: a polyglot, poly-amorous troupe of travelling players united, on- and off-stage, in a fantasy of Native American nomadism. Enter Ciccio, the surly dark-eyed horseman. The Italian's potent and threatening physicality overwhelms Alvina and soon will propel her into - what? Perdition, or the paradoxical freedom of a girl who 'like(s) being lost'? (Summary by Martin Geeson) Author - D. H. Lawrence. Narrator - Tony Foster. Published Date - Thursday, 19 January 2023.

Language:

English


Premium Episodes
Premium

Duration:00:53:06

Duration:00:20:57

Duration:00:32:34

Duration:00:36:55

Duration:00:36:31

Duration:00:34:01

Duration:00:40:20

Duration:00:40:22

Duration:00:42:13

Duration:00:42:37

Duration:00:34:27

Duration:00:29:00

Duration:00:51:21

Duration:00:51:35

Duration:00:40:57

Duration:00:41:38

Duration:00:39:49

Duration:00:33:50

Duration:00:27:15

Duration:00:24:06

Duration:00:57:12

Duration:00:23:16

Duration:00:48:20