I forget how weird this book is. Really beautiful in places, and groundbreaking (still, I think) in its treatment of how sex and power play themselves out in male-female (and female-female!) liasons. Lawrence writes women in love almost as if he's a gay man, which is interesting to me, since he seems manifestly to have preferred the weaker sex. He's very in touch with what desire for a male body looks like, which I think is part of what's so ground-breaking (and originally offensive) about hi...more I forget how weird this book is. Really beautiful in places, and groundbreaking (still, I think) in its treatment of how sex and power play themselves out in male-female (and female-female!) liasons. Lawrence writes women in love almost as if he's a gay man, which is interesting to me, since he seems manifestly to have preferred the weaker sex. He's very in touch with what desire for a male body looks like, which I think is part of what's so ground-breaking (and originally offensive) about his writing. But it's like he's skimming along for pages and pages reporting on what's happening, and then occasionally he'll dig in and actually write a scene. There's very, very little dialogue and a lot of "this is what she thought" - a lot of the novel seems, to me anyway, like reporting. The characters aren't in touch with themselves, so Lawrence has to tell you everything that's going on, and after awhile it gets pretty repetitive and boring. "Women in Love" is way better, I think. Because it's actually a novel, not a strung-together report on the love lives of Brangwens, and the gradual industrialization of England. I want novel! I want scenes! I want something I can care about - not skimmed-over reporting about people about whom it's kinda hard to care ( )

D.H. Lawrence's steamy, somewhat biblical depiction of an English family spanning three generations as rural society gives way to industrial and urban stresses. As time and circumstance provide more opportunity for Lawrence's characters to "become themselves", personal happiness comes into direct conflict with an apoplyptic vision of a "new age, a new world" symbolized by the rainbow. ( )

Lawrence's knack for nailing his female characters is astounding. I said to myself more than once, "I know that feeling and never could've put it into words". However, there were a few places that the details were redundant to the point of tedium, and I skimmed through the rest of the paragraph. The ending, like Lady Chatterly, was perfect, though not at all the way I wanted it to end. ( )

This is no. 48 on the Modern Library panel list of 100 greatest books in English in the 20th century, and I finished reading it on 22 Feb 1999. There are some tremendously powerful and lyric scenes in this book, and I responded favorably to some of the writing. Lawrence is a sensitive and high-strung writer, and not all of his tense renderings strike me as valid. But I thought the book was better than Women in Love, and I am not sure reading it after, rather than before, I read Women in Love was so terrible. In some ways it is fresher and more moving than Women in Love. ( )

To be honest, I read about 3/4 of this book, then skipped to the last chapter. I love Lawrence, but could not handle any more of his lengthy sentences. This book (unless I missed some very important part) is about life. About the choices we have, and the difficulty in choosing the "right" path. Also about having to except things and people as they are. ( )