The Virgin and the Gipsy

by D.H. Lawrence and David Herbert Lawrence

Book Overview

An electrifying short novel published posthumously set in a small village in the English countryside and tells the story of a sheltered rector's daughter whose life is changed when she is introduced to a world of unfettered passion.

The Virgin and the Gipsy was discovered in France after D. H. Lawrence's death in 1930. Immediately recognized as a masterpiece in which Lawrence had distilled and purified his ideas about sexuality and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679740775
• ISBN13: 9780679740773
• Release Date: June 1992
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Youth and 'meaning'

Two sisters, Yvette and Lucille, have just emerged from the constraints of youth into the freedom of young adulthood, but Yvette finds to her surprise that life is dull and meaningless rather than full of portent. Their father is a Church of England curate and their household is full of what seems to be false morality. The girls' granny dominates the household, even their father, with her psychological plotting and manipulation. Then, by chance, Yvette meets the gypsies, who seem to have an earthy passion and grip on life. Gradually Yvette becomes entangled in a crush on the gypsies and in particular on one black haired, wolfish man. What is most interesting about this book is that the main character, Yvette, is naive and even flighty and thus much of her own thoughts, deductions and philosophies cannot be trusted. In order to understand Lawrence's true intentions the reader must follow the nature imagery he has embedded in the story. The novel is also well plotted, containing a number of surprising twists and turns that keep the reader interested. It is often said that this book is a precursor of Lawrence's last novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). Certainly both books are about higher-class women having relationships with very low-class men, and certainly both these women feel the emptiness of their class' values and the hypocrisy of societies morals, but that is where the comparison basically ends. Yvette is a very different person from Lady Chatterley, the course of the relationships is different, and to my mind Lawrence has very different opinions about the appropriateness of the two relationships.

Youth and 'meaning'

Two sisters, Yvette and Lucille, have just emerged from the constraints of youth into the freedom of young adulthood, but Yvette finds to her surprise that life is dull and meaningless rather than full of portent. Their father is a Church of England curate and their household is full of what seems to be false morality. The girls' granny dominates the household, even their father, with her psychological plotting and manipulation. Then, by chance, Yvette meets the gypsies, who seem to have an earthy passion and grip on life. Gradually Yvette becomes entangled in a crush on the gypsies and in particular on one black haired, wolfish man. What is most interesting about this book is that the main character, Yvette, is naive and even flighty and thus much of her own thoughts, deductions and philosophies cannot be trusted. In order to understand Lawrence's true intentions the reader must follow the nature imagery he has embedded in the story. The novel is also well plotted, containing a number of surprising twists and turns that keep the reader interested. It is often said that this book is a precursor of Lawrence's last novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. Certainly both books are about higher-class women having relationships with very low-class men, and certainly both these women feel the emptiness of their class' values and the hypocrisy of societies morals, but that is where the comparison basically ends. Yvette is a very different person from Lady Chatterley, the course of the relationships is different, and to my mind Lawrence has very different opinions about the appropriateness of the two relationships.

Distilled Lawrence

The Virgin and the Gipsy, told in the language of a vivid, pared-down parable, though short, seems somehow an essential addition to Lawrence's canon. The story of a younger sister simmering with rebellion against the stifling morality of a rectory, society's expectations, and a vampiric mother figure, it seems to incorporate themes of Lady Chatterley, Sons & Lovers and Women in Love in a potent distillation of Lawrence's obsessions. It's like a voluptuous poem that affirms and fortifies his earlier work. This is a great book for those who find some of the more well-known novels "baggy" or "loose." Direct and unadorned, the language nonetheless probes the protagonist's inner life with Lawrence's characteristic poetic incisiveness. The language catches us at the elemental level of a fairy tale, and in places, the vividness is almost startling. Lawrence can be eyebrow-raising in his directness: not even about sex, but about human beings, their true hidden feelings and motivations. Highly recommended.

Longing For Love

In this book, Lawrence is in usual top form in describing the longing of a young girl, a virgin, for the slightly unconventional. Her vision of her future being a stayed and commonplace marriage to one of the local boys of character and money, she longs for something else before that fate befalls her. She does find that love, very much by accident. She comes across a Gypsy and she falls deeply and viscerally in love with him. Yet, she is coy and she is proper about it. Although she badly wishes to be with him, she understands the potential scandal of such a union. Her father being one that is a non-believer, despite his position as the rector; she sees his revulsion for those things of the body. The rector's wife had left him for an impoverished boy. She sought something the rector just could not provide to her. Even though she was his everything, he was not able to make her feel the love she wished deeply even to her bones. Her daughter too felt that there was more than just the future she envisioned. She felt that it was not a matter that could be ignored. It was a matter that had to be satisfied and soon. But how to do so, without being seen as a prostitute by her own family; that was the mystery and the beauty of the book. Finally, amongst a great flood and terror that is more frightful than can be imagined, she finds herself with the Gypsy in her own bedroom, safe from the outside world of people because of the isolation and protection afforded by an unanticipated flood. Here she makes the passionate love to him that she had heretofore only dreamed about. Here she becomes a woman, and becomes a lover at the same time. As always, Lawrence fills the text with serious metaphor and memory. He uses symbolism, systematically revealing the undercurrents of his character's huge love and anticipation with thinly veiled double entendres and images. This book is specifically recommended for Lawrence readers, but in addition, the book is highly recommended to those seeking love and those fulfilled in love.

A Deep Exploration of Female Feelings

Though it is a quite short story, the Virgin and the Gipsy, tells a lot about the feelings and thoughts of a lot of young women from all over the world. Yvette is a beautiful 19 year old virgin, still discovering a lot about life and sexuality. She stumbles upon this gipsy who eventually helps her settle down her turmoil of emotional confusions. Yvette has felt as a prisoner all her life. A prisoner living in a house which is supposedly occupied by her family, whereas in fact they were her enemies. A prisoner of convention and narrow defintions of important things as love and sex. And a prisoner of her own past, where she has always struggled to jusitfy her mother's escape for the sake of love. The looks of the gipsy transfer to her liberty, more precisely; sexual liberty and understanding. Although it takes her sometime to discover that, her discovery is sure at the end and at last she becomes capable of declaring that she knows what love is.