Sons and Lovers / Women in Love

by D.H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. Lawrence is now valued by many as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature.

Genres: Classics

811 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars only for sons and lovers and DEFINITELY not for women in love.
Sons and lovers was a decent read, Paul's character is so well written. A mother whose sole purpose in life is to make sure her kids have a better life than she did...who firmly believes that her kids are her ticket out of her pover ridden sad life!! Miriam's innocence, Paul's fickle mindedness, mr.Morrel's fragile male ego...all the characters are relatable on some extent....but his obsession with his mother irked me in certain places....
Overall a good read

Women in love is a whole different story...what a sinfully boring book!!

[Tasbih Abdelsamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

briefly,
In Sons and Lovers, Lawrence examined the family world closely suggesting all the possibilities. he presented both the healthy and unhealthy relationships between mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, siblings, wives, husbands, friends, and lovers...
besides, one can see how a mother's possessiveness of her son may ruin his life..!! (to love your parents and respect them does not mean to let them control, and lead your life, and make decisions in your stead.. )
in the novel nothing is certain, nothing is absolute. love is not necessarily a secure resort where one can find peace and ease of soul...
marriage is not always the best solution, it can be a problem in itself.
it is not inevitable that family is an ideal world.
fiances/lovers not necessarily make ideal husbands... sons not necessarily grow up to adopt their fathers attitudes towards life...
it is a nice novel, the best about it is how real it is.. how things are shown with neither exaggeration nor embellishment.. relationships as they really are in the essence...
i really recommend SONS AND LOVERS to all people

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading these but don't think they're wonderful work of fiction which should have been classified as classic. Lawrence's observation of people which I assume is portrayed through his characters are very disturbing. His characters harbour so much hatred, anger and resentment towards their friends, families and that puts me off a little bit.

[Ashley Chai · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Lawrence when I was studying for English in university, the title Rainbow. The book is intriguing, mundane, obsessively detailed and spans generations of the same families. I recall falling into depression for a whole year after that. Someone wrote that Lawrence has this effect, the creeping feeling he cause to linger long after you finish his books.

I then read the sequel, Women in Love but the impact was less than Rainbow, somehow it doesn't really affects me. My 3rd, Sons and Lovers which I read having now started a family and career, while still evoking the same post-modern helplessness, makes me sufficiently detached to the irony of it. Lawrence had a brilliant knack of extrapolating domestic and personal experiences to great detail, never judging his characters, but always making all of them, even the exceptional ones, flawed and desperate. Some stories are meant to be felt and walllowed in, rather than to be understood.