Bid Me to Live cover

Bid Me to Live

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

" ... a thinly disguised roman à clef in which most of the leading members of London's Bloomsbury Group are easily identified: D.H. Lawrence, his wife Frieda, Ezra Pound, English poet Richard Adlington and, in the character of the heroine Julia Ashton, H.D. herself. The time is World War I, the setting is the London of the 1917 air raids, and the theme the disintegration of love, undermined by the distant but ubiquitous war. Julia lives for her husbands brief leaves from the front, only to discover that he has transferred his sexual interest to an earlier mistress, Bella. Into Julia's crumbling, trancelike world enters Frederick, the fiery writer whose scandalous novels on the problems of sexuality no one dares publish. Not until she finally escapes the fog and fever of London for the quiet of Cornwall can Julia discern of face the truth about Frederick, and about herself."--Back cover.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?