Passions run high in Lawrence’s introduction of the Brangwen family, a family he later returns to in [Women in Love]. Beginning with Tom’s marriage to a Polish widow, Mrs. Lensky, the tale follows their bloodline for two more generations. Lawrence focuses the story on the inner turmoil of Tom, his adopted daughter Anna, and Anna’s daughter, Ursula as they come of age and meet their fated loves. Each engages in a battle between feelings of love and commitment on the one hand and the fear of losing oneself in a life of self-immolation. Lawrence frequently and consistently describes the relations between these head-strong characters and those whom they love in the language of war. The Brangwens seem intent on “destroying” or “annihilating” their loves, fearing the same fortune for themselves.

[The Rainbow], and [Women in Love] after it, were praised for Lawrence’s presentation of a new sexual relationship, one that does not involve the merging of personal identity but glorifies the mutual independence of each individual. He presents any other type of relations between people as inherently destructive. While I don’t disagree with Lawrence’s premise that healthy relationships require fully formed and independent personalities, such an ideal is rarely achieved in the messy, conflicted regions of the heart. Personally, I find myself to be a confident, independent soul only about 10% of the time. The rest of the time is filled with endless inner conflict which inevitably spills into my relationships. Sure, I destroy and am, in turn, destroyed in my love for my wife and my family and my friends. But the struggle is where the good stuff is, not the bad.

Lawrence’s book is not unreadable; the language is beautiful, the characters are interesting, and some rabbit trails, like Ursula’s foray in elementary teaching, lifted the story for long sections. But the need to put the idealized romance to death ends up looking a whole lot like just poor judgment in his character’s choices. And the Brangwen’s circular, repetitive thoughts on the matter grow tired after the third time or so.

Don’t get me wrong, I know plenty of folks who have had painful, unfulfilled relationships. And all struggles do not necessarily lead to bliss and enlightenment. I just don’t think Lawrence was preaching a new concept, even for his day. And I certainly don’t agree with the notion, sometimes pondered by his characters, that they’d by better off alone. Humans are communal by nature, even if the mix is sometimes messy, even if we sometimes give rein to our contradictory nature.

Bottom Line: Beautiful, if tiring, book to read. Interesting, if maddening, characters.

3 bones!!! ( )

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. ( )