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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
A bildungsroman seeped in a melow plot of love, loss and inept learning.
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A classic! I found this book very intense. The subject matter demands a lot of engagement, and the main cast of characters are very gripping but also fustrating in their chaos and restlessness. A very good read on the impact of generational trauma, death, relationships and realist existentialism. DH Lawrence paints a very vivid internal world in which the fraught psychologies of these people interact but do not reconcile. There is not happy ending - he curated a cyclical world in which disaster falls into disaster and is briefly caught by other things.
Love & Pain: self love & self-inflicted pain; familial love & the pain of resentment; romantic love & the pain of rejection; physical love & the pain of loss.
I did not love this book during most of the reading, I actually found it to be quite a pain for much of the time. This is not to say that there is not some beautiful writing and superb character development, because there absolutely is. I think I was just frustrated with all the pain - the pain inflicted on themselves and each other. The relationships are largely toxic, but there is love between the pages too, if there weren't it would not be nearly so painful, nor so believable.
Let me go ahead and finish with the gripes straight off, shall I?:
The Nottinghamshire dialect was difficult for me for some reason. The use of dialect often takes some reading before the reader can become accustomed to it, but once they settle into the rhythm and patterns it contributes immeasurably to the immersion. For some reason, I found this particularly stilted and unnatural, and never could quite settle into the Nottinghamshire dialect. It shouldn't have been so - blame the reader for this one. This dialect was in particular used by the father, Walter Morel, and many pages would go by at a time without him speaking at all and when he did it was generally short, so perhaps my not being able to get a handle on it stems from this, but this also means it is not overly detracting.
Praise of sorts:
The story as a whole is psychologically fascinating. The title provides one with the frame for the entire work, we follow the Morel nuclear family relationships from their essential beginnings to their conclusion. Our primary protagonist, Paul Morel, is not focused on until the second part of the book, but everything prior to that provides the basis for the relationships to follow, especially the critical building material/blocks for the paramount relationship, the one between Paul and his mother, Gertrude. The individual characters are sympathetic, but often cruel and manipulative to one another.
A quick and vastly lacking synopsis:
Gertrude marries, but her husband, Walter Morel, turns out to be neither the man she would have preferred nor perhaps the man she thought he was. Walter is coarse and common, and one could debate on how much of his less favorable qualities are innate in him, and how much is brought out by his family's disdain for and exclusion of him. There is plenty of material showing how actions are all really reactions, the results of set relational dynamics and insecurities or misunderstandings. Gertrude, in her dissatisfaction, turns to her sons for companionship and purpose, but I think we see that this reliance on them is in some ways just as dysfunctional as the relationship she has with her husband. Paul was a sensitive child and jealous of his older brother which in time makes him more heavily influenced by and dependent upon his mother. As we follow Paul into manhood, we find that his relationship with his mother influences his romantic relationships. Paul's struggles with the female characters and within himself form the bulk of the second part of the novel. Let's just go ahead and say there is an Oedipus thing going on here.
Wrapping it up - with some praise of sorts:
I found this incredibly intimate novel beautiful and ugly in equal measures. At one stage I grew so frustrated with the characters that I began hoping for a violent turn for them, I think if anything that just demonstrates how effectively Lawrence is able to emotionally draw the reader in. This is a nuanced book wholly concerning it's characters and their relationships, the story is small and intimate, but complicatedly layered.
I did not love this book during most of the reading, I actually found it to be quite a pain for much of the time. This is not to say that there is not some beautiful writing and superb character development, because there absolutely is. I think I was just frustrated with all the pain - the pain inflicted on themselves and each other. The relationships are largely toxic, but there is love between the pages too, if there weren't it would not be nearly so painful, nor so believable.
Let me go ahead and finish with the gripes straight off, shall I?:
The Nottinghamshire dialect was difficult for me for some reason. The use of dialect often takes some reading before the reader can become accustomed to it, but once they settle into the rhythm and patterns it contributes immeasurably to the immersion. For some reason, I found this particularly stilted and unnatural, and never could quite settle into the Nottinghamshire dialect. It shouldn't have been so - blame the reader for this one. This dialect was in particular used by the father, Walter Morel, and many pages would go by at a time without him speaking at all and when he did it was generally short, so perhaps my not being able to get a handle on it stems from this, but this also means it is not overly detracting.
Praise of sorts:
The story as a whole is psychologically fascinating. The title provides one with the frame for the entire work, we follow the Morel nuclear family relationships from their essential beginnings to their conclusion. Our primary protagonist, Paul Morel, is not focused on until the second part of the book, but everything prior to that provides the basis for the relationships to follow, especially the critical building material/blocks for the paramount relationship, the one between Paul and his mother, Gertrude. The individual characters are sympathetic, but often cruel and manipulative to one another.
A quick and vastly lacking synopsis:
Gertrude marries, but her husband, Walter Morel, turns out to be neither the man she would have preferred nor perhaps the man she thought he was. Walter is coarse and common, and one could debate on how much of his less favorable qualities are innate in him, and how much is brought out by his family's disdain for and exclusion of him. There is plenty of material showing how actions are all really reactions, the results of set relational dynamics and insecurities or misunderstandings. Gertrude, in her dissatisfaction, turns to her sons for companionship and purpose, but I think we see that this reliance on them is in some ways just as dysfunctional as the relationship she has with her husband. Paul was a sensitive child and jealous of his older brother which in time makes him more heavily influenced by and dependent upon his mother. As we follow Paul into manhood, we find that his relationship with his mother influences his romantic relationships. Paul's struggles with the female characters and within himself form the bulk of the second part of the novel. Let's just go ahead and say there is an Oedipus thing going on here.
Wrapping it up - with some praise of sorts:
I found this incredibly intimate novel beautiful and ugly in equal measures. At one stage I grew so frustrated with the characters that I began hoping for a violent turn for them, I think if anything that just demonstrates how effectively Lawrence is able to emotionally draw the reader in. This is a nuanced book wholly concerning it's characters and their relationships, the story is small and intimate, but complicatedly layered.
D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is a sort of bridge between two centuries of literature. Its length, breadth, and the length of time it narrates make it a close relative of the Victorian novel. However its concern with themes of sexual frustration, alienation, and meaninglessness place it thoroughly in the twentieth century.
If it's not clear from that introduction, this is not a particularly uplifting book. Not a single character in its two generations can be considered to be happy, fulfilled, or satisfied on anything but a very short-lived basis. The moments of joy are far outnumbered by those of disappointment, disillusionment, and despair.
Isolation and alienation are core themes of the novel, plaguing all its relationships but especially its romantic ones. Gertrude and Walter Morel have about three months of happiness after their wedding, followed by a lifetime of mutual incomprehension, resulting in resentment and misery. Their eldest son, William, initially a rare source of hope in the novel, ends up squandering his promising start in a painful affair with a beautiful but expensive and vacuous London society girl (Louisa). Paul's relationships are the worst of all, and Arthur's and Annie's are hardly treated. Deep negativity about sex pervades the novel, so the basis of relationships between men and women is that of the Fall; rather than building a positive relationship on the basis of amorous feelings, the characters resist each other until finally succumbing to lust or persuasion. This makes them loathe both themselves and their partners, in every case resulting in guilt, resentment, and ever-deeper alienation, even as they persist in their physical relationships:
Maternal relationships overshadow romantic ones in the novel, and while all the sons have moments of aggressive indignation in defending their mother against their father's stupid callousness, it is the close relationship between Gertrude and her middle son Paul that is at the heart of the novel. While her love and pride foster his artistic endeavours, which his father would have entirely discouraged, their relationship nonetheless becomes incredibly painful as well. In Paul's interactions with both the intellectual Miriam and the more worldly Clara Dawes, he is perpetually haunted by an explicit and crippling Oedipus complex. Early in the novel he goes so far as to claim that he will never marry in order to stay with his mother, but by the agonizing conclusion he is literally waiting for his mother to die so that he can get on with his life.
In the way it deals with the failure of ambition and adapting to the realities of life, Sons and Lovers is a relative of Middlemarch. But the differences show how modern it is by comparison. In Middlemarch, the characters are filled with ambition on a grand scale, but everyday life encroaches until the characters are finally forced to accept their mundane reality. "His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do." In Sons and Lovers, neither the ambition nor the failure have quite the same gravity or clarity. While the sons hope to help their mother, this ambition is far more modest and more achievable than the lofty goals of Middlemarch's characters. The characters in Sons and Lovers fail not by gradually acquiescing to the realities of life, but by their own inability to form loving relationships. Though they all make sacrifices and compromise, they never choose the right sacrifices, and are never truly selfless out of love. William, for example, makes enough money to greatly help his mother, but instead chooses to live beyond his means attempting to support Louisa. Even Paul's initial dedication to his mother becomes unbearable and eventually impedes his artistic progress.
Middlemarch, then, comments on the process of maturation into adulthood, and its treatment of this theme is universal, insofar as it is concerned with the way that the demands of adult life erode the idealism and optimism of youth. Marriage may not be salvation it was in earlier Victorian novels, but it is a Pyrrhic victory, a compensation for characters whose ideals are incompatible with their realities. They never reach their goals, but they find solace in what they do achieve. Sons and Lovers, by contrast, comments on the meaninglessness of modern life itself. It is impossible to succeed, not because circumstance prevents success, but because success itself is meaningless. Marriage is neither the ultimate goal nor a half-salvation, but only a further source of conflict and problems in an already difficult life. Rosamond and Lydgate in Middlemarch, while hardly a happy couple, do eventually resolve their conflicts enough to live relatively successful lives; they grow past the torment which nearly all characters in Sons and Lovers suffer perpetually.
I realise that not much of what I've written sounds like a recommendation. Beyond its bleak outlook on life and relationships, it is rather unbalanced in its treatment of the characters, and Paul (who receives a disproportionate amount of pages) is not a very likeable protagonist. And yet Sons and Lovers does offer rare insight into gender relations; mostly the negative sides it's true, but it is often painfully accurate. Lawrence, like Eliot, is a consummate master of interiority, almost unparalleled in his empathy. Since the novel is so clearly autobiographical, the result is a strange mixture of pity for his tortured state, and admiration for his powerful prose. It may not be enjoyed but it certainly should be read, and, one hundred years after its publication, remains a masterful and deeply incisive novel.
If it's not clear from that introduction, this is not a particularly uplifting book. Not a single character in its two generations can be considered to be happy, fulfilled, or satisfied on anything but a very short-lived basis. The moments of joy are far outnumbered by those of disappointment, disillusionment, and despair.
Isolation and alienation are core themes of the novel, plaguing all its relationships but especially its romantic ones. Gertrude and Walter Morel have about three months of happiness after their wedding, followed by a lifetime of mutual incomprehension, resulting in resentment and misery. Their eldest son, William, initially a rare source of hope in the novel, ends up squandering his promising start in a painful affair with a beautiful but expensive and vacuous London society girl (Louisa). Paul's relationships are the worst of all, and Arthur's and Annie's are hardly treated. Deep negativity about sex pervades the novel, so the basis of relationships between men and women is that of the Fall; rather than building a positive relationship on the basis of amorous feelings, the characters resist each other until finally succumbing to lust or persuasion. This makes them loathe both themselves and their partners, in every case resulting in guilt, resentment, and ever-deeper alienation, even as they persist in their physical relationships:
Clara did not know what was the matter with him. She realised that he seemed unaware of her. Even when he came to her he seemed unaware of her; always he was somewhere else. She felt she was clutching for him, and he was somewhere else. It tortured her, and so she tortured him. For a month at a time she kept him at arm's length. He almost hated her, and was driven to her in spite of himself. He went mostly into the company of men, was always at the George or the White Horse. His mother was ill, distant, quiet, shadowy. He was terrified of something; he dared not look at her. Her eyes seemed to grow darker, her face more waxen; still she dragged about at her work.
Maternal relationships overshadow romantic ones in the novel, and while all the sons have moments of aggressive indignation in defending their mother against their father's stupid callousness, it is the close relationship between Gertrude and her middle son Paul that is at the heart of the novel. While her love and pride foster his artistic endeavours, which his father would have entirely discouraged, their relationship nonetheless becomes incredibly painful as well. In Paul's interactions with both the intellectual Miriam and the more worldly Clara Dawes, he is perpetually haunted by an explicit and crippling Oedipus complex. Early in the novel he goes so far as to claim that he will never marry in order to stay with his mother, but by the agonizing conclusion he is literally waiting for his mother to die so that he can get on with his life.
In the way it deals with the failure of ambition and adapting to the realities of life, Sons and Lovers is a relative of Middlemarch. But the differences show how modern it is by comparison. In Middlemarch, the characters are filled with ambition on a grand scale, but everyday life encroaches until the characters are finally forced to accept their mundane reality. "His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do." In Sons and Lovers, neither the ambition nor the failure have quite the same gravity or clarity. While the sons hope to help their mother, this ambition is far more modest and more achievable than the lofty goals of Middlemarch's characters. The characters in Sons and Lovers fail not by gradually acquiescing to the realities of life, but by their own inability to form loving relationships. Though they all make sacrifices and compromise, they never choose the right sacrifices, and are never truly selfless out of love. William, for example, makes enough money to greatly help his mother, but instead chooses to live beyond his means attempting to support Louisa. Even Paul's initial dedication to his mother becomes unbearable and eventually impedes his artistic progress.
Middlemarch, then, comments on the process of maturation into adulthood, and its treatment of this theme is universal, insofar as it is concerned with the way that the demands of adult life erode the idealism and optimism of youth. Marriage may not be salvation it was in earlier Victorian novels, but it is a Pyrrhic victory, a compensation for characters whose ideals are incompatible with their realities. They never reach their goals, but they find solace in what they do achieve. Sons and Lovers, by contrast, comments on the meaninglessness of modern life itself. It is impossible to succeed, not because circumstance prevents success, but because success itself is meaningless. Marriage is neither the ultimate goal nor a half-salvation, but only a further source of conflict and problems in an already difficult life. Rosamond and Lydgate in Middlemarch, while hardly a happy couple, do eventually resolve their conflicts enough to live relatively successful lives; they grow past the torment which nearly all characters in Sons and Lovers suffer perpetually.
I realise that not much of what I've written sounds like a recommendation. Beyond its bleak outlook on life and relationships, it is rather unbalanced in its treatment of the characters, and Paul (who receives a disproportionate amount of pages) is not a very likeable protagonist. And yet Sons and Lovers does offer rare insight into gender relations; mostly the negative sides it's true, but it is often painfully accurate. Lawrence, like Eliot, is a consummate master of interiority, almost unparalleled in his empathy. Since the novel is so clearly autobiographical, the result is a strange mixture of pity for his tortured state, and admiration for his powerful prose. It may not be enjoyed but it certainly should be read, and, one hundred years after its publication, remains a masterful and deeply incisive novel.
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Every year I choose a classic to read. In 2020, I chose Sons and Lovers because I have loved other stories written by Lawrence. I have been working for months on reading this tale and finally was able to close it for good this past weekend.
Being somewhat autobiographical, I can understand why Lawrence got a bit carried away. There were huge sections that were repetitive and droning. I read he cut 100 pages from the initial drafted manuscript and I’m sad to say it wasn’t enough.
I can’t say this was an uplifting story, in many ways it was quite depressing, but it was interesting commentary on sons relationships with their mother and how that impacts their romantic relationships later on. It provided a glimpse into the mind of Lawrence and perhaps some of his emotional struggles.
If you have a complicated emotional relationship with your parents perhaps you can relate to this story. But it won’t bring any closure, only relateability.
Being somewhat autobiographical, I can understand why Lawrence got a bit carried away. There were huge sections that were repetitive and droning. I read he cut 100 pages from the initial drafted manuscript and I’m sad to say it wasn’t enough.
I can’t say this was an uplifting story, in many ways it was quite depressing, but it was interesting commentary on sons relationships with their mother and how that impacts their romantic relationships later on. It provided a glimpse into the mind of Lawrence and perhaps some of his emotional struggles.
If you have a complicated emotional relationship with your parents perhaps you can relate to this story. But it won’t bring any closure, only relateability.