Zennor in Darkness: From the Women’s Prize-Winning Author of A Spell of Winter

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Clare, a young local woman artist, nevertheless strikes up a friendship with the couple. Later on, she has sex on the beach with her cousin. Then he dies in WWI. She has his baby. People say that DH Lawrence seduced her, which provides the smokescreen to oust the two outsiders. I found it a rather uneven novel, brilliant and thoroughly engaging in parts but a little overly ambitious and even pretentious in others (it was Helen Dunmore's first novel).

Helen Dunmore's 1993 novel Zennor in Darkness is set in and around the village in 1917 when D. H. Lawrence lived nearby. Zennor is also mentioned in the Ulysses Moore series of books, written by Pierdomenico Baccalario; in fact, near Zennor and St Ives there would be the mysterious hamlet of Kilmore Cove, the place where the series is mainly set. In 1915, D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, moved to the Cornish coast and spent two years living in a cottage in Zennor. (You can read a little bit more about that here and see pictures of the cottage where they stayed here.) On the one hand, there is a heart string tugging love story at the centre of it, in which all the horrors, futility and despair of the first World War on both sides of the English Channel are invoked. This central thread is beautifully written, and the story is rounded in as much as such a story can be rounded - but the questions it asks in themselves are thought provoking and evocative. If this were the only story written about in this book, it would have been a far, far better read. Did it take chutzpah, to put words in the mouth of one of her literary heroes? Not really, she says: their story needed to be told. "We know the bare bones of what happened – but what was it like for him and Frieda in this landscape? The details intrigued me: Lawrence creating a garden, growing things like salsify, getting in tons of manure. He knew how to do practical things – the ironing, the washing – and his combination of day-to-day good sense and the life of the mind fascinated me. I felt there were some interesting things about that particular period and about what turned him against England."Carn Cottage is one of a number of abandoned buildings in Cornwall. However, it is claimed this cottage used to belong to the occultist Aleister Crowley in the 1930s. [25] It is claimed that the death of Katherine Laird Cox on 23 May 1938 was connected with Crowley and the cottage. [25] Overall, I found it very generic. Aside from the design of the details, the story could take place anywhere and anytime. Also, I suspect that Ms Dunmore is one of those writers who cater mainly to a conservative female audience. My mother would probably very much enjoy this kind of writing. Zennor lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Almost a third of Cornwall has AONB designation, with similar status and protection as a National Park. Nicholas Johnson and Peter Rose (1990). Cornwall's Archaeological Heritage. Truro: Cornwall Archaeological Unit. ISBN 0-906294-21-5.

The start was slow for me- for the first almost half of the book, I actually would rate it a 3 ! But for just over the second half of the book, I would rate it a 5!Many of the sharp-edged shapes in his artistic works are reminiscent of the aged Cornish coastline, while the rounded shapes recall the granite boulders in his own garden. He died peacefully at his home in Zennor in March 1999, at the age of 79, and many of his works are displayed at the Tate St Ives art gallery. [27] Gallery [ edit ] Deceit gives Helen Dunmore's novel a jagged edge. Secrets, unspoken words, lies that have the truth wrapped up in them somewhere make Dunmore's stories ripples with menace and suspense' Sunday Times Asked about the appearance of D. H. Lawrence in the novel, Dunmore explained "Their story needed to be told. We know the bare bones of what happened – but what was it like for him and Frieda in this landscape? The details intrigued me: Lawrence creating a garden, growing things like salsify, getting in tons of manure. He knew how to do practical things – the ironing, the washing – and his combination of day-to-day good sense and the life of the mind fascinated me. I felt there were some interesting things about that particular period and about what turned him against England." [2] Reception [ edit ] This leads in turn to their expulsion from Zennor by the authorities. Only Clare among the locals is sad to see them go. She is determined to follow the Lawrences out of Zennor, using her art as a means to escape. The title is less mysterious than it might seem. Zennor is a tiny town near St. Ives in Cornwall where D. H. Lawrence leased a secluded cottage in 1916 and 1917. The Darkness is of course the First World War, which claimed the young men of the county, brought German U-Boats to their shores, and set the suspicious villagers against Lawrence, his strange pacifist ways, and his German wife Frieda von Richthofen (a distant cousin of the celebrated Red Baron). Also straddling the gap between two worlds is the fictional Clare Coyne and her widowed father Francis, an impoverished younger son of minor Catholic aristocracy. Francis' wife, a former lady's maid, died of TB while Clare was still an infant, leaving her to be brought up mainly by her extended family in this Cornish town, people of good heart but a different class and religion from her father. But while Francis Coyne lives in isolation on dwindling investments, writing a book on local botany, Clare leads a full life among her relatives and friends, developing her talents as an artist, and eventually striking up a friendship with Lawrence himself.