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april_does_feral_sometimes 's review for:
Women in Love: Annotated Edition (Alma Classics Evergreens)
by D.H. Lawrence
I did not like ‘Women in Love’ by D. H. Lawrence. I thought the main characters pretentious and self-centered, all of them acting very much like shallow inexperienced youths on the cusp of adulthood, but weighted with the freight of expressing themselves with the values of an artistic/aristocrat education. Adding to their misbegotten moonstruck philosophizing are their upper-class pretensions of possessing emotional sensitivities over those feelings felt by the common herd. Or maybe it was simply a case of people with neurotic tendencies who are unfortunately exacerbating each other’s mental conditions in having become a social group since they live near each other.
As I read, I felt the characters’ examinations of their sensations and feelings in every moment and main event of their lives appeared to be actually the cause of what to me was their growing mental derangements. For the author Lawrence, I believe he meant all of this self-examination to be a high-end character study of sensitive artistic young people, intellectualized through an artistic lens, while finding themselves and falling in love or infatuation. The point of all of this self-examination was struggling to discover who they were, trying to free themselves from social conventions and expectations.
That said, the novel is very well-written in a high-end modernism technique, with an emphasis on interior psychological dialogues. But the book was to me also more than a touch of multiple point-of-view streams of consciousness which was popular among intellectual writers of the early 1900’s, except with punctuation and a story with some actual forward momentum, which is expected by most general readers. However, the only character who actually appeared psychologically logical to me though was Gerald Crich. All of the other characters - Ursula Brangwin, Gudren Brangwin, Hermoine Roddice, Rupert Birkin were what in my day were similar to what babyboomers (and ‘the greatest generation’) called ‘hippies’:
“Hippies were a group of people who rejected mainstream society and established institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. They were part of the counterculture movement, which also included the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement. Hippies were known for their unique style, non-conformist values, and alternative lifestyle.” -Google.
What goes around comes around. I had no idea Lawrence’s apparent intellectual circle (was it? or maybe Lawrence was ahead of his time) would be re-invented by the babyboomers in the 1960’s.
I don’t really disagree with Lawrence’s, or his surrogates the characters’, ideas of examining their lives in order to learn what they really wanted for themselves, and separating out the demands of society and family from their own needs and wants, but omg! To me, the self-imposed artistic intellectuallism Lawrence imposes on his characters’ search for authenticity is a heavy chain wrapped around his characters’ necks! Or maybe I should say, minds?
Anyway.
I have copied the book blurb:
”First encountered in Lawrence's novel The Rainbow, sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are now grown-up women living in the English Midlands at the time of the First World War. Each becomes involved in a love: Ursula with the misanthropic intellectual Rupert Birkin, and Gudrun with Gerald Crich, a successful industrialist. The contrast between the two relationships – the former happy and fulfilling, the latter tempestuous and violent – facilitates an examination of both the regenerative and destructive aspects of human passion, while the novel's Alpine climax is revelatory of the intensity of close male friendship.
Heavily revised by the author in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the controversy surrounding the publication of The Rainbow , which had been suppressed on grounds of obscenity, Women in Love appeared first in the US in 1920, with a British edition following the next year. Straddling the boundary between nineteenth-century realism and modernism, it was regarded by Lawrence as his most accomplished work, and is considered by many to be the author's masterpiece.”
Since the book is considered a five-star read by many readers, and as it is once again being banned in the conservative religious parts of the South and Midwest of America, I highly recommend it to readers, especially young people with artistic and intellectual orientations, seeking a way to be a person beyond their local social strictures that aren’t fitting them very well. Unfortunately, I did not think the book a masterpiece, gentler reader. It is a book written with too overblown verbosity, and neurotic interior psychological dramas, reminding me of the excessive appearance of some designer hothouse flowers meant to overwhelm one with strong scent and large petals. I do respect its groundbreaking recognition of human sensuality, as well as the same-sex attraction that happens with many men and women, having been published (barely, surviving censorship bans) in 1920.
I think the novel can be standalone, but the novel [b:The Rainbow|31491|The Rainbow|D.H. Lawrence|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388193710l/31491._SY75_.jpg|2337578], considered book one about the Brangwin women and their family and their boyfriends, adds depth. I personally liked ‘The Rainbow’ better, too.
As I read, I felt the characters’ examinations of their sensations and feelings in every moment and main event of their lives appeared to be actually the cause of what to me was their growing mental derangements. For the author Lawrence, I believe he meant all of this self-examination to be a high-end character study of sensitive artistic young people, intellectualized through an artistic lens, while finding themselves and falling in love or infatuation. The point of all of this self-examination was struggling to discover who they were, trying to free themselves from social conventions and expectations.
That said, the novel is very well-written in a high-end modernism technique, with an emphasis on interior psychological dialogues. But the book was to me also more than a touch of multiple point-of-view streams of consciousness which was popular among intellectual writers of the early 1900’s, except with punctuation and a story with some actual forward momentum, which is expected by most general readers. However, the only character who actually appeared psychologically logical to me though was Gerald Crich. All of the other characters - Ursula Brangwin, Gudren Brangwin, Hermoine Roddice, Rupert Birkin were what in my day were similar to what babyboomers (and ‘the greatest generation’) called ‘hippies’:
“Hippies were a group of people who rejected mainstream society and established institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. They were part of the counterculture movement, which also included the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement. Hippies were known for their unique style, non-conformist values, and alternative lifestyle.” -Google.
What goes around comes around. I had no idea Lawrence’s apparent intellectual circle (was it? or maybe Lawrence was ahead of his time) would be re-invented by the babyboomers in the 1960’s.
I don’t really disagree with Lawrence’s, or his surrogates the characters’, ideas of examining their lives in order to learn what they really wanted for themselves, and separating out the demands of society and family from their own needs and wants, but omg! To me, the self-imposed artistic intellectuallism Lawrence imposes on his characters’ search for authenticity is a heavy chain wrapped around his characters’ necks! Or maybe I should say, minds?
Anyway.
I have copied the book blurb:
”First encountered in Lawrence's novel The Rainbow, sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are now grown-up women living in the English Midlands at the time of the First World War. Each becomes involved in a love: Ursula with the misanthropic intellectual Rupert Birkin, and Gudrun with Gerald Crich, a successful industrialist. The contrast between the two relationships – the former happy and fulfilling, the latter tempestuous and violent – facilitates an examination of both the regenerative and destructive aspects of human passion, while the novel's Alpine climax is revelatory of the intensity of close male friendship.
Heavily revised by the author in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the controversy surrounding the publication of The Rainbow , which had been suppressed on grounds of obscenity, Women in Love appeared first in the US in 1920, with a British edition following the next year. Straddling the boundary between nineteenth-century realism and modernism, it was regarded by Lawrence as his most accomplished work, and is considered by many to be the author's masterpiece.”
Since the book is considered a five-star read by many readers, and as it is once again being banned in the conservative religious parts of the South and Midwest of America, I highly recommend it to readers, especially young people with artistic and intellectual orientations, seeking a way to be a person beyond their local social strictures that aren’t fitting them very well. Unfortunately, I did not think the book a masterpiece, gentler reader. It is a book written with too overblown verbosity, and neurotic interior psychological dramas, reminding me of the excessive appearance of some designer hothouse flowers meant to overwhelm one with strong scent and large petals. I do respect its groundbreaking recognition of human sensuality, as well as the same-sex attraction that happens with many men and women, having been published (barely, surviving censorship bans) in 1920.
I think the novel can be standalone, but the novel [b:The Rainbow|31491|The Rainbow|D.H. Lawrence|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388193710l/31491._SY75_.jpg|2337578], considered book one about the Brangwin women and their family and their boyfriends, adds depth. I personally liked ‘The Rainbow’ better, too.