Customer Reviews

Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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D. H. Lawrence excels in presenting human emotions of love and lust, hate and hope, faith and passion. The main protagonist, Paul, is said to be an autobiographical account of Lawrence's own self, and perhaps that explains why Lawrence is able to present his array of emotions as well as he manages to do in this novel. The novel is about the relationship between mother and sons, and about the lovers of the respective sons.

The character of mother is actually the one around whom all the story is woven. No one writes about the feelings of woman as well as Lawrence does, and like in other novels, he captures the feelings through delicate and beautiful descriptions of seemingly trivial events. Paul's brother William and the woman he loves Gypsy, present the life of London in backdrop of romance between a highly intelligent male, and a blonde-like bimbo. Paul's own romances with Miriam, a simple, homely girl, who is religious and respecting, and with Clara, a much older than himself and modernist in views female makes this novel a classic study of passionate love and sexual attraction. Among all this, is the role of mother whose compensates for her unhappy marriage by devoting all her energies to her sons, and then in later years has to deal with loves of her sons that threaten to tug them away from her.

The story is also a story of struggle of a family, where a young wife must come to grips with a drinking husband, where children must grow in shadow of the strained relationships of their parents, where Paul, William and the other siblings will grow from childhood into an age where they will fall into love, find vocations and finally the family will grow into a happier, richer bunch. Like typical Lawrence, all relationships are treated with rich and emotional descriptions, and the innermost thoughts of characters are spread out in beautifully written prose. The novel captures commotion of love and lust quite well, and eventhough Lawrence has refrained from talking about sexual attraction in a way that cause much consternation in his times, the descriptions are lush and unforgettable.

I have always loved the way Lawrence describes nature. Sunlight, leaves, forests, evenings, stars in the night sky, clouds, sea and seashore: all nature itself is woven into the fabric of this novel in very artistic fashion, very poetically and imaginatively. Lawrence, I repeat, is the novelist of last century that no one ought to miss, and trust me his world is run by universal emotions that only writer of his talent, perception and feeling can write.

Lastly, this is a classic, it requires time and effort. The beauty of the writing is in the descriptions, rather than the sequence of events. From seemingly mundane lives of few family members, and using seemingly trivial daily events, Lawrence tells a story of romances, relationships and (I believe one of the best accounts of)mother-son relationship. Its a kind of story that stays with you, makes you understand yourself better, and is wonderful to remember!

Vauw! This is a great book! It tells the story about the gradual emergence of an artist in a rural coal miner community in England. D. H. Lawrence is all about nature and love. He depicts the coming and going of the different seasons in a simple but quite moving way. The main character Paul Morel is a romantic. He develops a very close relationship to his mother, but the relationship to his father becomes almost non existent. It's kind of scary to read that this buddening artist simply less and less find any point of reference with his coal miner father, who is just an ordinary hardworking bloke. There is a definite loneliness sorrounding Paul Morrel in his dealings with his peers. Although he spends time with them, he is always moving on and they are left alone behind. They simply don't match him. Paul Morrel has the ability to manipulate most of the people he meet, there is a touch of something cruel and human experiment about his dealings with people. He exerts a strong influence on people, but it's like he is seeing it from above. He is to some extent shaping other peoples destinies, but sometimes with no real concern for the consequences which they eventually will suffer. Sometimes his manipulations assumes a comical air, for example he starts a relationship with a married woman Clara, her husband Baxter hates Paul, but Paul latter seeks out Baxter and becomes his good friend. One gets the sense that Pauls friendship with Baxter is bound more on a kind of morbid curiosity than true affinity. Later Paul looses interest in Clara, he then manages to reunite wife and husband again and then he disappears. D. H. Lawrence's characters are skillfully modeled and very trustworthy. He has a stunning ability to x-ray his characters attitudes to each other and also their attitudes to important aspects of life, like love, death, etc. A thread during the whole novel is Paul Morrel's relationship to his mother, this relationship is a spine in Pauls life. The death of the mother in the end of the novel is a crucial turning point. It's quite moving how D. H. Lawrence desribes Paul Morrels perception of the world after the death of his mother, he experience an absolute implosion of all meaning. He sees the first snowdrops appear in early spring, but he simply don't see any point in them being there. He sees the trams run around in the city, but he can't understand why they take the trouble to move. When he talk with his friends, he is responding to their words, but in reality he is far away and their words just appear to him like strange sounds.