Review of Sons and Lovers

I internalize literature so strongly that it can be embarrassing (like when I start ordering my bagels in iambic pentameter) or dangerous (like when I read To The Lighthouse and went through a pensive depression.) Having DH Lawrence bouncing around my head the past few days has just been inspiring. A 1913 page-turner.

Sons and Lovers is Lawrence's autobiographical account of a poor mining family in 19th century industrial Nottingham. It is actually not a doleful read though. Despite the fact that the first half of the book, Mrs. Morel builds such a disdain for her brute-of-a-husband and in the second half, she destroys any chance her son, protagonist Paul Morel, has of love or leading a normal life. The book teases the reader with pages and pages of talking about flowers, and pontificating on religion and internal feelings before getting to the sex scenes. There are few feelings of sympathy and more of just irritation at the characters to take action, to be heroes and villains instead of just ordinary people. Kudos to Lawrence for drawing the reader close enough to exclude the "poor little miner child" crap. This was a factual world and I walked away kind of hating Paul Morel; weird, since it is an autobiographical novel.

There are arrant scenes of Paul's incestuous love for his mother throughout the book as an exploration of Lawrence's own relationship with his mother. I don't judge him for caring for her, or never marrying in order to be with her, or even kissing her, but the way he passionately confesses his love to her and hates his father is so unbelievably Freudian and Lawrence puts it right out there. Sexual smut...adultery...all over the place. I love it. I can only hope that future generations of students sit in seminars discussing an Anthology of Playboy Articles as high-brow fiction. I hold tightly to my beliefs against censorship.

Here is a clip from the movie version of Sons and Lovers which answered my question: "How could they transfer to screen a movie made genius by dialogue? Actually if you watch this clip (there is a weird boxing dialogue for a minute before hand) you don't have to read the book.



Great book.