Women In Love

   
Women In Love
by D.H. Lawrence
read: 2013
Modern Library #49, Guardian 1000 Novels

Women In Love is a sequel to The Rainbow, I guess. Strictly speaking, it picks up where The Rainbow left off, following the adventures of Ursula Brangwen in her quest to find love and meaning. It's quite a bit different in scope, though; while The Rainbow spans three generations, Women In Love all takes place in a year or two.

The first part of this book reminded me of the HBO show Girls, where the characters - all successful, employed, intelligent, attractive people - nevertheless find ways to make themselves unhappy. The later part of the story took a darker turn though.

Of the four major characters, we probably get inside Gerald's head the least, but I didn't appreciate his importance until the end. Gerald has the most interesting history - he killed his brother accidentally as a child, though the novel never directly addresses his feelings around that incident. His decision not to accept Rupert's love is really the moral turning point of the story and the most heartbreaking missed opportunity, and eventually results in his death. But during the tale he feels like the least-important of the four major characters. Perhaps there were subtle things I missed along the way, but I don't especially feel inclined to go back and read it.

The Rainbow

  
The Rainbow
by D.H. Lawrence
read: 2013
Modern Library #48, Guardian 1000 Novels

The Rainbow is a story that spans generations, and while I sometimes like that formula (as in Wuthering Heights and The Cairo Trilogy), here I had trouble pin-pointing a common thread uniting the generations of Brangwens. It was a tough read

One thing I did like was a running theme through the novel, particularly the first half, that the written word is limited in the emotional depth and resonance it posses. One example: "It bored her to write a letter to him. After all, writing words on paper had nothing do do with him or her." Later heroine Ursula, in describing her favorite and least favorite courses: "Most tedious was the close study of English literature. Why should one remember the things one read?" The characters judge written language as dull, shallow, and static. Contrast this with Lawrence's own prose:

So the Brangwens came and went without fear of necessity, working hard because of the life that was in them, not for want of the money. Neither were they thriftless. They were aware of the last halfpenny, and instinct made them not waste the peeling of their apple, for it would help to feed the cattle. But heaven and earth was teeming around them, and how should this cease? They felt the rush of the sap in spring, they knew the wave which cannot halt, but every year throws forward the seed to begetting, and, falling back, leaves the young-born on the earth. They knew the intercourse between heaven and earth, sunshine drawn into the breast and bowels, the rain sucked up in the daytime, nakedness that comes under the wind in autumn, showing the birds' nests no longer worth hiding. Their life and interrelations were such; feeling the pulse and body of the soil, that opened to their furrow for the grain, and became smooth and supple after their ploughing, and clung to their feet with a weight that pulled like desire, lying hard and unresponsive when the crops were to be shorn away. The young corn waved and was silken, and the lustre slid along the limbs of the men who saw it. They took the udder of the cows, the cows yielded milk and pulse against the hands of the men, the pulse of the blood of the teats of the cows beat into the pulse of the hands of the men. They mounted their horses, and held life between the grip of their knees, they harnessed their horses at the wagon, and, with hand on the bridle-rings, drew the heaving of the horses after their will.

This is one of the very first paragraphs in the novel. It's rich with sensual imagery, words like seed, intercourse, nakedness, supple, desire. Lawrence's characters decry the limits of the English language even while Lawrence himself is trying to transcend those limits.

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence
read: 2012
Modern Library #9, Guardian 1000 Novels

I read this not too long after The Age of Innocence, and for a while I thought it was on par with Wharton's masterpiece.  At no point was it fair to compare the novels, and Sons and Lovers is a terrific work even if it didn't resonate with me quite to the degree of The Age of Innocence.  It is probably the best novel I've read this year.


Like The Age of Innocence, Sons and Lovers is a work first and foremost of empathy.  Characters in the book ruin other character's lives.  Protagonist Paul Morel treats his lovers very badly, feeling bored or squashed by their presence until he finally abandons them.  But he is that way because his mother played such a central role in his life and he feels in loving a woman he is being disloyal to his love for his mother.  Paul's mother is overbearing, but that stems from being distraught at the death of her first son, William, and feeling unfulfilled in her marriage.  This tragic chain is no one's fault, but the emotional harm reverberates through it.  Each actor has his or her flaws and strengths, and Lawrence shows both sides.

The central conflict is subtly but importantly different from The Age of Innocence.  One could say that The Age of Innocence is a sociological work while Sons and Lovers is psychological.  Newland Archer struggles against the constraints of a rigid New York aristocracy; the conflict is between his desires and the limitations imposed by the society around him.  Paul Morel's struggle is to define his desires in the first place.  He falls in love twice, but is never sure exactly what he wants out of his relationships.  He carries daunting baggage from his close relationship with his mother.  His unhappiness stems from this internal, psychological tension rather than any external force.