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Sons and Lovers

(Wordsworth Classics)

By D. H. Lawrence

(182)

| Paperback | 9781853260476

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Book Description

Lawrence's first major novel was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly-knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. WContinue

Lawrence's first major novel was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly-knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives. Their second son, Paul, craves the warmth of family and community, but knows that he must sacrifice everything in the struggle for independence if he is not to repeat his parents' failure. Lawrence's powerful description of Paul's single-minded efforts to define himself sexually and emotionally through relationships with two women - the innocent, old-fashioned Miriam Leivers and the experienced, provocatively modern Clara Dawes - makes this a novel as much for the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was for the beginning of the twentieth.

4 Reviews

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  • 2 people find this helpful

    when I read this first, I got really surprised when, more than two-thirds into the story, the author finally describes Paul's face: as "coarse" and rather plain. It was a shock because the psychological insight in this book is so deep and delicately done that one imagines Paul as some pale, frail po ... (continue)

    when I read this first, I got really surprised when, more than two-thirds into the story, the author finally describes Paul's face: as "coarse" and rather plain. It was a shock because the psychological insight in this book is so deep and delicately done that one imagines Paul as some pale, frail poet - totally forgetting he's just a lower-class guy from the North. An extremely compelling story.

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    Paola said on Feb 11, 2008 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    This book undoubtly represents that D.H. Lawrence is one of the greatest writers in the twentieth century. The extremely intimate, almost lover-like relationship between Paul and his mother is on every page. This book also brings the reader to see how a mining family struggles to make its way up to ... (continue)

    This book undoubtly represents that D.H. Lawrence is one of the greatest writers in the twentieth century. The extremely intimate, almost lover-like relationship between Paul and his mother is on every page. This book also brings the reader to see how a mining family struggles to make its way up to the middle-class one.

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    myself0826 said on Mar 3, 2012 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    What a delightful story. Such wonderful scenes of life lived in a mining village, but the spotlight really focuses upon the home. It is a home set up by a couple who are very poor - after all he is only a miner - but they are so in love. She is so proud.

    Then, as Lawrence knew only too well f ... (continue)

    What a delightful story. Such wonderful scenes of life lived in a mining village, but the spotlight really focuses upon the home. It is a home set up by a couple who are very poor - after all he is only a miner - but they are so in love. She is so proud.

    Then, as Lawrence knew only too well from his own experience, the husband takes to drink. He looses interest in his wife; he looses interest in himself. He lives only to get down the pub!

    But, apart from the drink, he is still a good husband, and she loves him dearly. Then children come along. Her time is taken up with them. Now there is a change in her: she begins to hate her husband. Her love and affection is poured upon their first child. Oh, she is so proud of him.

    Then, tragically, he dies. She is numb. Eventually she is able to love their second son, Paul. Paul grows up and becomes involved with two girls - they are girls at this stage. Not women. He seems to love them both. But his mother is the stronger, she won't let him go. She wangles things her way. She won't loose him.

    The growing-up and the tension exhibited in Paul is typical of what Lawrence himself experienced. He portrays the agony with such delicate touches.
    A truly great novel. It reveals such consummate understanding of human nature.

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    GraJon said on Oct 5, 2008 | Add your feedback

  • "Why can't a man have a young mother? what is she old for? [...] what are you old for! why can't you walk? why can't you come with me to places?"

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    Bianca Rita Cataldi said on Sep 2, 2010 | Add your feedback

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