The Dark Flower

11 hrs. 33 min.

Classics

Language Russian

Author John Galsworthy

Narrator Mikhail Bogdasarov

Description

John Galsworthy’s novel “The Dark Flower” is a subtle and profound meditation on the nature of love. Its composition is built like three parts—“Spring,” “Summer,” and “Autumn”—three stages of a man’s life and three all-consuming passions corresponding to youth, maturity, and middle age. Three women, in turn, awaken feelings in him: one, by age, could be his mother; another could become his wife; and the third would be fit to be his daughter. That is the meaning of “The Dark Flower”: a careful study of male attraction and female vulnerability.

“Spring” is the time of first hopes and discovering the world, but Lennen’s love turns out to be unattainable and forbidden. Will he be able to pass the trials that this feeling sets before him? Later, having grown older, he understands that love can be different: one is calm, almost platonic, providing support and capable of lasting for years; the other is stormy, obsessed, dangerous. He grows used to a steady and safe marriage, but life brings him again an anxious enchantment—in the image of a young lover returning brightness and risk.

The climax comes when it is necessary to choose between what has endured the test of time and what lures with novelty but is doomed to remain forbidden. After making his choice, Lennen sees how a delicate carnation scatters in flames.