Borrowed Time

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was a prolific writer who left Britain in 1919 and embarked on a ‘savage pilgrimage’ across the globe, refusing to own property or settle down. To celebrate Lawrence, and to try to make his work more accessible to students, I have embarked on a digital pilgrimage, whereby I produce a monthly video essay based on his letters. In ‘Borrowed Time’ I explore the various temporal paradoxes of this process. I read his letters in ‘real’ time, knowing what will happen, but experience them in the present. I hear him talking in the letters, but he cannot hear me. The video essay is a means of speaking back to him. Likewise, the production of the video essays are labour intensive which contrasts with the speed with which they are consumed and (perhaps) forgotten. Underpinning this approach is the work of Wendy Chun who shows how digital reshapes our perception of time and memory through habitual behaviour. It is the slow process of reading and making the monthly video essays that creates a sense of control over time, something that may feel absent in our accelerated times. To understand this, I turn to Richard Shusterman’s concept of ‘somaesthetics,’ a philosophical framework that focuses on the body’s role in aesthetic experience. Both slow reading and digital production have provided, for me, a deeper immersion in literary studies as well as much-needed punctuation to my life. The selection of images to convey Lawrence’s feelings in ‘Borrowed Time’ has provided a form of intimacy and the opportunity to make emotional connections. I argue that combining reading and digital production helps develop new insights into literature.