Sons and Lovers (1913)

The best of the lot.

I know. I'm an idiot. Book is listed 9th by the Modern Library among the best novels ever written. I just didn't see it. As a former editor for a large trade house, I couldn't help but wonder where Lawrence's editor was. Just in terms of the amount of sheer repetition ("He almost hated her," and various iterations of this sentiment, appeared once every two pages, it seemed). When you talk about the emerging consciousness of a young man, Joyce has written the handbook, and I feel Lawrence just didn't live up to his own talent here. So yes, shudder at my score if you will, but I have to be honest. I just didn't' like it. ( )

(23) Overwrought and tortured are two words that come to mind. Every year at this time I re-read a book I have read in the past - typically the distant past. This year I chose a classic from freshman English that I chose to read for a book report. I remember liking it, but having a bit of a hard time getting through it. Well - for once my long ago self agrees with my today self. This is the story of a family living in relative poverty in coal mining rural England, maybe turn of the century. The husband and wife are mutually disappointed in each other but Mrs. Morel turns from her husband to her sons for her validation and meaning, and then eventually to one son in particular, Paul Morel. We grow up with Paul as he tries to forge an identity as a man, an artist, a son, a lover. Are Paul's troubles because of his too tight bond with his mother? I really don't know when all is said and done.

Really, I wanted to chop Paul in the throat. He so reminded me of a former boyfriend of mine - an indecisive, self-obsessed, yet self-possessed man-child, who nonetheless is charming and captivating to women. Really what he put Miriam through was unforgivable. But it wasn't so much that he was comparing his women to his mother and finding them lacking. . . Can't quite figure out what I am to glean as a message from Paul's warm and loving relationship with his mother, yet his failed relationships with women.

As I mentioned - the writing is over the top and at times mind-numbingly histrionic with the nature, and the melodramatic emotions. With the overt mentions of sex and the innuendo - my goodness, the scene in the cherry tree before his first union with Miriam -- I imagine this book was somewhat riske for the early 20th century. For better or for worse, I find myself thinking about this strange book and trying to figure it out. It makes me think about my little sons as men someday. It makes me reflect on my own experience with a Paul Morel.

I am glad I re-read it, but I won't rush out to another D.H. Lawrence anytime soon. I have mixed feelings - perplexing, a bit uneven, but ultimately compelling. I wish I could go back and read my book report from 9th grade - whatever could I have possibly said! ( )

I tried to read another Lawrence book. What was I thinking? Go away Lawrence, leave me alone!

( )

A story about love, relationships, and disappointments, told in rich language, evoking a time and a place in British history that is at once foreign and familiar. That specific way of life, the grinding life of a miner and the ways in which mining communities rubbed along, has disappeared. The experience of people struggling to exist through low paid jobs, the tensions within families under that sort of economic stress, are still present. Although set in a different era, there is much that is relevant to modern life. Lawrence writes about people, and the way in which they deal with life. He has great insight into human nature and motivations behind behaviour. He writes fairly about both men and women, recognising that both genders are just people, and there is good and bad in both. I was at times transported by his writing, there with the Morel family in every moment Lawrence describes. He understands the dynamics of family life. He also understands the hopes and disappointments of love. At other times, when he indulged himself too much in ruminating on his own personality through the guise of Paul Morel, he bored me. ( )