Apparently, this is a sequel to another book but that is completely none of my business and I don't care I read it as a stand-alone and understood everything just fine.

I was really interested in this book and for the first 30ish percent, I thought it was going to be a four-star read as it had me pretty gripped. I thought the characters were really interesting and dynamic. It’s wonderfully written, and the plot was intriguing. It did get to a point though where I felt a lot of it was pointless drabble that added nothing at all to the story and made it drag a bit.

I love the writing, honestly DH Lawrence really just makes me think and captures humanity so perfectly and it shows in the way these characters think and talk to each other. He had such an interesting world view, especially for the time this was written, and some of these sentences and conversations were brutally honest and relatable. I especially liked how it completely picked apart the sanctity of marriage and how the way we live is so rigid and exhausting that its undesirable – can honestly say not much has changed on that front. It was also literally packed with homoerotic subtext which I was a) not expecting and b) completely enthralled by. The tension between those two characters got me every time.

I'm not gonna lie and pretend I’m some sort of scholar though, some of the tangents that this book went on seemed a bit intellectual for me and I didn't fully understand historical context so many paragraphs were going over my head. There were several occasions I read something and didn’t actually understand so just carried on and hoped it wasn’t important. Oopsie.

The ending was so bittersweet, and really surprised me to be honest. I was completely unprepared for the many turns it was going to take, it was a bit of a rollercoaster. Glad I read this, but I still think I prefer Sons and Lovers.

Spurred by my current Anaïs Nin obsession, I picked up Women in Love (Nin did a critical study of D.H. Lawrence early in her career). Burned through a third of it on a long plan ride from New Orleans to Oakland. I am in pursuit of a lineage and a vindication (permission?) for doing work that deals with emotions, relationships - that which is written "from the blood", as Lawrence would say.

It has also been a long while since I have read a novel from what might glibly be called the age of novels (or one of the ages of novels; post WWI, post telegraph - pre Enduring Freedom, pre twitter). For me, childhood through say just post-adolescence was a time of serious patience for consuming long novels, akin almost to language acquisition in early childhood. So I am also revisiting a method of reading specific to a type of book that I have since moved away from.

I am also interested in the construction of gender identity in literature and the history and construction of romantic love.

At this point I realize I've said little about the actual book. Lawrence has moments of rhapsodic prose, punctuated by painstaking character creation mainly effected with dialogue.

More on this as I have time!

I read The Rainbow a while back and was intoxicated by its lucious prose. I picked up on this sequel primarily because Lawrence based Gudrun on fellow writer Katherine Mansfield. Not only that, Gerald was based on Mansfield's husband, John Middleton Murry, while Ursula was based on Lawrence's wife Frieda and Birkin on himself.

The chapters are more like a collection of short stories revolving around the four main characters, than a cohesive plot. Each chapter has a different focus. Some were discursives or rhetoric by the author himself. Some were narratives, from wild nights with Pussum, to the tragedy of the water-party and the complicated grief over Gerald's father. There was bromance, from masculine to homoeroticism. But the recurring theme was man-woman relationships. The relationships between each the two couples were pretty extreme though, swinging wildly from love to loathing.

Although Ursula is the heroine of The Rainbow, the outstanding character here is undoubtedly Hermione. The chapter Sketch Book is brilliant! The interactions between the ultra-bxxxxy Hermione, the insouciant Gerald and the ultra-composed Gudrun could not have been expressed better. Hermione the bully, causes Gudrun's sketch book to drop into the water. Her unctuous expressions of remorse are met by Gudrun's sangfroid. She thinks she's controlling Gerald but he is quietly captivated by Gudrun. She loses both of them.

Birkin, because he's a reflection of Lawrence himself, appears more opinionated and philosophical than the others, with whom he has regular discourses. He is also melacholic, irascible and nihilistic.

He has these things to say:

Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is less than a small truth. Humanity is less, far less than the individual, because the individual may sometimes be capable of truth, and humanity is a tree of lies.

“There is life which belongs to death, and there is life which isn’t death. One is tired of the life that belongs to death—our kind of life. But whether it is finished, God knows. I want love that is like sleep, like being born again, vulnerable as a baby that just comes into the world.”

The Industrial Magnate is a discourse on the effect industralization on the individual.

It was the first great step in undoing, the first great phase of chaos, the substitution of the mechanical principle for the organic, the destruction of the organic purpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit to the great mechanical purpose.

So was part two better? Not quite, although the elegant writing is still present. A goodread.

In the Midlands before WWI but no fix date. There are arguments and disagreements of the moral value. Sister Ursula a teacher and Gudrun an artist. They meet up with two men that are friends. They leave and travel together to a snowy Alps here their relationships end badly, but IS this what Women in Love is about?

How one is involved with another in these types of relationships between women and men. What is the ideal type? Is marriage what one wants? Is it imaginable to even be married? Can you have a relationship without being married? Is it more exciting? These are thoughts of the sisters or DHL?

To the sisters marriage just seems crazy and downright ridiculous. They hope to avoid it. They want not to be of the norm. At first the girls are a team but by the second half they are at odds against each other.

The relationships for the sisters are part attraction to the opposite sex to a brutal repulsion of sorts. They enjoy men who fit their needs. The men do not think the same. They want like mindedness like a soulmate. The relationships go from sudden passion to an indifference while in constant dispute. The ending is quite dramatic.

Emotions go flying all over the place. Love and hate each relationship are of equal parts attraction and repulsion. A culmination of Lawrence's thoughts about relationships seems to be that it is filled with uncontrollable force. Thriving on disagreements of morality. Everything is in a tornado state. It is like Lawrence has to write with power, for lack of a better word, that this is how love and sex should be for love to exist.

Women in Love, its working title was Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), full of passion and intensity. It's style is extraordinary. Lawrence writes elegantly and brilliantly when portraying the women. His description of fashion is a nice distration. Totally different than anything I have read before.

Lawrence’s books were banned including Women in Love. The villain in this novel is actually a woman.

His writing has such an intense passionate beauty:

"The week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft, drizzling rain that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set out for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet haze. By the road the blackthorn was in blossom, white and wet, its tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was full of a new creation. When the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously plashing, issuing from the lake."

This is not just because the narrator talks too fast and is really hard to understand, it's also because I'm just too old for this book. In my idealistic youth I would have found the ramblings of these people inspiring but now I'm bored. They go on and on about how the world is awful and I just had enough and can't finish it.

(Reviewed 9-25-16)

I remember almost nothing about this book other than I didn't like it and didn't finish it even though it was required reading for a class I took the spring semester of 2000. I can't even remember the teacher's name. Too much alcohol in those days. If it's any consolation, I do remember liking the teacher even if I didn't like most of the books we had to read that year, though I ended up liking another one I only partly read that I completely read 13 years later. (Maltese Falcon)

I remember there was a woman named Hermione, and that she was a bitch, but I couldn't tell you why. It was the first time I had ever come across such a name, and I didn't know how to pronounce it for a while even though I heard the professor say it a few times. Watching the first Harry Potter movie which came out a couple years later remedied that, though.

I recall this was juxtaposed against another one star book from that class, A Farewell to Arms, and I learned a phrase I still use to this day. We were supposed to discuss and compare Hemingway's use of laconic restraint with Lawrence's effusive excess. Most of us in the class were like "Okay dude, you need to chill with these big words. This is just a 2000 level course; we're stupid students here." (Says the man who just popped out a "juxtapose." I guess I've gotten elitist myself in the ensuing years). But God, that teacher was cool, and it was that kind of thing that made him so.

The plot was a bunch of soap opera codswallop that served as a textual roofie, but I do remember one scene. Two men got naked and wrestled, but even that was so dull that I couldn't be bothered to put it in the spank bank for later.

Recommended for those who enjoy Daze of our Lives, As the Stomach Churns and the like.

So, I loved this book through about the first half. I was ready to call it one of my favorite books, but then the characters changed into people that I could no longer stand to hear about. I still have to say that the book was really well-written with amazingly developed characters. Lawrence creates a profound connection between the readers and the characters because he allows you into the innermost thoughts of the characters. It is also an excellent portrayal of the ideas running through European civilization during the Modern period.

No Pot O' Gold Past the End of The Rainbow

This was a letdown from The Rainbow (1915), which stirred and sizzled, was better written and seemed more momentous. In it, Ursula Brangwen came of age and defied the conventions of the unsophisticated environs in which she was raised, so she could selfishly search for satisfaction of the senses in a university town.

With Women in Love (1921), D.H. Lawrence continues his look at marriage and the relationships between men and women. Ursula is now a teacher who has a relationship with Rupert Birkin as coequals--modeled on Lawrence and his wife--who work to resolve their disputes and aspire to understand and honor each other's uniqueness.

On the other hand, her younger sister Gudrun Brangwen--a young teen at The Rainbow's end--now a sculptor, embarks upon and survives a fateful relationship with the indifferent industrialist Gerald Crich, an affair damned to failure by the uncompromising constitutions of each.

To be sure, Lawrence has something instructive to say about love and marriage, how it requires work, respect and compromise. Unfortunately, this did not work for me. It was too dry and perhaps a bit didactic. By comparison, I admired and enjoyed both Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow. Two out of three ain't bad.

#RetoEdwardianspirit de la cuenta @victorianspiritsblog, premisa “Un Libro Escandaloso”.

Increíble los sentimientos tan encontrados que me ha generado esta lectura.

Para ser sincera, no era mi primera elección para la premisa de un libro escandaloso. Esta fue la que más problemas me dio para elegir que leer, ya que tenía varias opciones. “Mujeres Enamoradas” estaba entre los candidatos, pero no era el libro que más ganas tenía de leer y no era, por ello, mi primera elección. Hasta que hace poco, hable con unos amigos que si que habían leído esta novela y que tenían ideas muy dispares sobre la misma.Eso fue lo que me llamó la atención y me animo a leer este libro. Además es que tenía ya muchas ganas de conocer la prosa de D. H. Lawrence, un autor que hasta ahora no había leído y al que tenía muchas ganas.

Y sinceramente no sé si hecho lo correcto al animarme con este título.

El libro vira entorno hacia el eterno, y muchas veces tratado, dilema de las relaciones de pareja y de lo que estas suponen. Esto se desmenuza por medio de dos relaciones. Por un lado tenemos la de la profesora Úrsula con Birkin, un hombre de personalidad compleja y férreos principios que esconden un alma demasiado idealista y desapegada de la realidad. Irónicamente, estas características de Birkin será lo que en un principio más problemas genere en la pareja, pero paulativamente también será será lo que haga que Úrsula se enamore de él y los dos forjen una relación cercana y saludable. Y por otro lado, tenemos el tandem formado por la hermana de Úrsula, Gudrum, y el rico empresario minero Gerald. Los dos son guapos y cosmopolitas, lleno de ambiciones y con personalidades que necesitan imponerse ante los demás y, especialmente, el uno sobre la otra y viceversa.

Estamos, pues, ante dos relaciones y la representación de diferentes formas de entender la vida, el amor, la sexualidad y las relaciones. Bajo una prosa aparentemente plácida y directa, se esconde una poderosa sutileza narrativa que enmarca todo lo que leemos, toda la narración es un compendio de capas sobre capas que el lector tiene la obligación de ir desenvolvimiento lentamente para llegar a la cantidad de temas e ideas que Lawrence maneja en esta obra. La amistad, el nacionalismo, el existencialismo, la sexualidad y el feminismo jalonan constantemente esta historia, y junto al desarrollo de las dos parejas forma un todo mucho más complejo de que parece a simple vista. Incluso la homosexualidad aparece sutil, pero poderosamente representada en esta obra tan transgresora por su contenido y su continente. La dicotomía entre hombres y mujeres en todas sus vertientes está aquí también explicada. Incluso que al final la cuestión quede abierta, me parece algo muy coherente con todo lo que se ha leído. Porque la complejidad de las relaciones humanas da para mucho, y en ellas nada puede darse por finiquitado o por supuesto. En general la novela es un juego de espejos en los que se reflejan muchas cosas, más de las que las propias palabras de Lawrence dictan. No solo se trata largo y tendido de la situación ideológica y social de la Inglaterra de principios del siglo XX. También (como no podía ser de otra forma) es una crítica cruda y feroz hacia una sociedad firmemente basada en la posición social, el materialismo, la necesidad de poder y el erotismo carente de autentico interés por la otra persona.

Entonces ¿Qué es lo que me ha fallado en este libro? Creo que mi gran problema con él es que no he podido conectar con la forma en que está escrito. Si la novela se centrase únicamente en las escenas en las que se incide en la trama propiamente dicha, sería muchísimo más corta. Pero esta narrativa, más que en esa trama, se basa en escenas en la que los personajes hablan sobre sus ideas y sus sentimientos y en descripciones psicológicas muy nítidas y largas. Es decir, es un libro más introspectivo que otra cosa. Y por ello en muchos momentos sentí que la historia no fluía correctamente, estancándose muchas veces. De ahí que su dramático final me haya dejado muy fría, cuando hubiera tenido que haberme dejado impactada y sobrecogida. Me gusta pensar que esto se ha debido al momento anímico en el que he cogido esta lectura, ya que ahora mismo hubiera necesitado algo con más acción, movimiento y sencillez. Si hubiera estado mentalmente preparada, estoy convencida de que hubiera disfrutado esta novela mil veces más, ya que tiene mucha calidad y Lawrence no es mal escritor para nada. A todo esto se suma una cuestión que no estoy segura hasta qué punto ha incidido en mi impresión de este libro: y es que este “Mujeres Enamoradas” es la segunda parte de otra obra del mismo autor, “El Arco Iris”, algo que no descubrí hasta mitad de la lectura cuando buscaba información sobre la misma . No me ha dado la impresión de que me perdiera muchas cosas, excepto por alguna que otra mención a los padres de las protagonistas, en general he seguido muy bien de qué iba el titulo que nos ocupa. Pero me queda la duda de que si hubiera leído antes “El Arco Iris” no hubiera podido entender mejor a los personajes y el porque actúan y piensan como lo hacen.

Y la conclusión de todo esto es que “Mujeres Enamoradas” ha sido una lectura tan agotadora que, de hecho, me ha dejo prácticamente a las puertas de un paron lector que sigo arrastrando, con ganas de estarme unos días sin leer nada, y mira que tengo mogollón de libros pendientes que me muero por empezar y que estoy convencida de que me van a encantar. Pero nada. Una situación triste, porque estaba convencida de que esta novela iba a gustarme mucho más. Pero mentiría si no dijera que prácticamente desde la página cincuenta me obligue a seguir con ella, motivo por el cual he avanzado con su lectura muy lenta y penosamente. Ha tenido momentos en los que la he disfrutado, sí, y por suerte no han sido pocos, pero durante una considerable parte del tiempo no he logrado conectar realmente con la historia y con sus personajes. No he logrado disfrutar con ella en muchos momentos, ni realmente engancharme a ella, ni nada. Y tengo que decir que me ha dado muchísima rabia y no solo por lo que comento más arriba. Porque no se puede negar que Lawrence escribe muy bien. Realmente bien.

Si hay algo que me ha gustado mucho es la manera en la que incide en la psicología de sus personajes, como va desarrollándola y trabajándola con mucha inteligencia e intensidad, sin dejar nunca de ser incisivo, desnudando sus almas delante del lector con todas sus luces y sus sombras, sin dejarse nada en el tintero. Y esto debe en gran parte de una de las cosas que más me gustado de este autor: la forma en que describe a sus personajes nunca es superficial y tampoco condescendiente. Les representa sin hacer juicios morales sobre ellos, sin prejuicios, sin juzgarles. Su forma de pensar, sus sentimientos y las consecuencias que tienen sus actos son lo que son y no hay nada más. Son personajes profundamente humanos, en ellos no hay nada al azar. Tanto su forma de ser como las relaciones que se establecen entre ellos no son nada tópicas ni cuadriculadas, como suele suceder en el mundo real.Dichos personajes no fueron concebidos para caer bien al publico, y Lawrence ni lo intenta. Muchas veces (la inmensa mayoría de las veces, para que mentir) me habría gustado mucho empatizar con ellos, pero me ha resultado del todo imposible. Había en ellos cosas que se me escapaban y que no acababa de comprender. No en pocas ocasiones me han resultado excesivamente escabrosos y laberínticos, profundamente egoístas y demasiado enfocados en sí mismos.No podía entender a qué se debía muchas de sus reacciones o de los sentimientos que profesaban. Pero, pese a todo, al mismo tiempo tengo que reconocer que esa es una de las gracias tanto de la novela como de los propios caracteres. Ver como van evolucionando y entender sus procesos mentales. Aunque muchas veces no los haya podido entender y me haya dado la impresión que se tratan de personajes que se dedican a pensar en muchas cosas y hacer poco, a su manera están tan bien construidos dentro de su lógica, que el lector puede entenderles a la perfección. Y no solo ocurre con los cuatro personajes principales, también pasa con los secundarios. Esto pasa, por ejemplo, con el padre de Gerald y con Hermione Crich, a quienes las riquezas y la fortuna social no les dan paz y felicidad.

Algo que me parece muy destacable es que aunque los cuatro miembros principales del elenco tienen la misma importancia y están igual de bien caracterizados, si hay quienes se llevan la palma son los personajes de Úrsula y Gudrum. Las dos hermanas no son protagonistas románticas tópicas para nada. Son mujeres de su tiempo, plenamente conscientes de su posición como hijas de un minero y de las dificultades y prejuicios a los que deben hacer frente por su condición femenina dentro de la sociedad eduardiana. No es que las dos deseen ser algo más que simples esposas o amantes. Es que están decididas a ser algo más. Las dos hermanas (con sus diferencias en cuanto a personalidades, metas y formas de pensar) son hijas de una concepción moderna del papel de la mujer, y dentro de la historia no se limitan a tener roles meramente pasivos y a suspirar por sus enamorados. Úrsula y Gudrum tendrán un papel tan decisivo en sus relaciones como Birkin y Gerald. Son unos personajes femeninos muy adelantados para su época, y ellas hay representada una fuerte carga feminista que se ve en varias ocasiones dentro de la obra. Como se ha dicho ya varias veces, Birkin y Gerald no les van a la zaga. Su amistad es también uno de los pilares sobre los que se cimienta esta lectura, tan llena de claroscuros como no están cualquiera de las otras relaciones que aparecen en las páginas de este libro. Tiene un fuerte componente homo erótico bastante bien desarrollado y muy perceptible, algo que reconozco que me ha sorprendido. Sabía que era una novela que se consideró muy escandalosa para la época, pero no me imaginaba que Lawrence hubiera ido más lejos que tratar la sexualidad desde una perspectiva heterosexual.

La forma de Lawrence de entender el amor me ha parecido preciosa y especial, porque no está para nada idealizada , y eso hace que la novela resulte poderosamente realista en todos sus sentidos. Gracias a esto “Mujeres Enamoradas” es una obra que sin ser romántica trate del amor. Y por ello resulto tan rádical para la época en que la novela fue publicada. El amor para Lawrence es algo que no tiene fronteras, que permite que dos personas sean ellas mismas de una forma individualizada, y a la vez puedan compenetrarse totalmente con la otra parte de la relación. La manera natural en que el amor es reflejado en esta novela se contrasta y complementa con la forma en que la sexualidad es representada. Ambos van de la mano, y aunque resulten tortuosos, no por ello hay que rechazarlos o quitarles importancia. La sexualidad es vista como una vía para que el ser humano pueda trascender sus propias limitaciones sensoriales y personales, una forma de derribar barreras y de conocerse a si mismo mucho mejor, de una forma más trascendental y profunda. Y de esta forma, Lawrence crea escuela al hacer que el amor y el deseo se conviertan en partes intrínsecas de las relaciones amorosas, que se encaucen por una senda no exenta de peligros y vericuetos, pero que puede llevar a conseguir un autoconocimiento más completo a juego con una gran satisfacción personal y la perfecta comunión intelectual y sentimental con el otro (cuando recuerdo que a Virginia Woolf y a los del Círculo de Bloomsbury Lawrence les parecia demasiado sensual para ser un buen escritor…no lo entiendo)

Y es que, criticas sociales y personajes perturbadores a parte, no he podido evitar sentir simpatía por Lawrence. Toda esta lectura rezuma un idealismo y una sensibilidad inmensas y una amplitud de miras que muchos de sus coetáneos podrían llegar a envidiar , y por todo esto su figura me ha resultado sorprendente conmovedora. No ha sido hasta después haber terminado “Mujeres Enamoradas” que busque información sobre la biografía de este autor. Y lo que leí no me sorprendió para nada. Ya no solo por haber descubierto como las circunstancias en las que nació y vivío, y su propia personalidad compleja marcaron su bibliografía (o por lo menos el libro que nos ocupa, que ya os he dicho que ha sido el primero que leo de él). Toda esta novela, para mí, de principio a fin ha estado impregnada por una atmósfera de desarraigo y de búsqueda de un lugar en el mundo que he comprendido y asimilado perfectamente después de haber sabido más cosas sobre la biografía y personalidad de Lawrence.

Sé con seguridad que no va a ser la última incursión que vaya a hacer en la prosa de D.H. Lawrence (me pica la curiosidad y me siento, en cierta forma, obligada a leer “El Arco Iris” cuando pueda. Y tengo desde hace mucho tiempo cogiendo polvo en mis estanterías el polémico y celebre “El Amante de Lady Chatterley”). Pero espero que una vez que ya me he metido dentro de su mundo tan complejo, pese a lo que pueda parecer a simple vista, y ya sepa a qué atenerme, estas lecturas me gusten mucho más y pueda conectar mejor con ellas y apreciar a este autor como creo que realmente se merece. Ojalá.

Ever noticed how many people hate DH Lawrence? Often for opposite reasons by the way--there are those who condemn his misognyny, while others allege him to be too doting of the fair sex. Which is it? Sometimes he's damned for being too obscene, but elsewhere dismissed as overly fussy about flowers and horses. He even gets clubbed for creating self-absorbed characters, just after someone has taken a swipe at him for promoting a harmful ideal of sacrificial love. All of these folks can agree that they strongly dislike to read Lawrence's books, but from hearing them converse, one might almost conclude that the entire group can hardly be discussing the works of a single author. The variety of accusations are impossible to reconcile.

I think it is just this pattern of polarized criticism of his work that ought to point us to the obvious power Lawrence held as a novelist. If a single man can provoke simultaneous accusations of depicting egotists and martyrs, obscenity and prudery, sexism against women and reverence for women, then obviously he is hitting his mark in there somewhere as an artist. Lawrence's critics might not all reach the same specific conclusions about the dreck they've just endured, but they are united in judging him a failure.

Now there are plenty of worthy theorists whose tidy explanation of these contradictory responses among Lawrence's critics is that they are not, in fact, contradictory. On the contrary, these psychologists argue that such disparate elements in Lawrence's writing are unassailable proof, not of the man's status as a literary genius, but of his latent homosexuality.

My two objections are strenuous, but almost too obvious to mention. First, the fact that Lawrence wrote a lot about women, love, the self, and sex proves nothing whatsoever about his being gay. It only proves that he was a human, and that his particular strategy for facing his complexity as a human was to write books about it. I happen to think it a great approach, and I find the results to be outstanding and insightful. So I'm happy he turned his feelings and thoughts into novels. Others however will stick to the view that he would have been better off at a gay bar.

The second problem with this dismissive response to Lawrence is that it doesn't answer the original question: how is it that Lawrence's critics say such opposite things when they complain about him, and so vociferously? To call him gay will never do, because simply to accuse a writer of being gay does nothing to explain how he can bring about this sharp contrast in opinions.

I think the truth is that Lawrence is guilty of all of the seemingly dichotomous charges being laid at his feet. But what has caused such alarm in others is a cause of tremendous joy in me. If you couldn't already tell, I'm a Lawrence fan. I love his books, and especially this one. ( Sons and Lovers is also brilliant.) It is full of beautifully made scenes in which you can actually feel the orchestrated and opposing emotions and thoughts of two different characters at the same time. Often these are scenes of disagreement, between lovers, between sisters, and between best friends. As I read, I was pulling for everyone because everyone is sympathetic.

Lawrence's descriptions of nature are often so powerful because of the barely restrained beauty of his objects, and because just as you are beginning to enjoy the ride, violence spills onto the scene and you are swept onto the next chapter. The scene where Gerald is trying to impress his girlfriend by riding his horse up to the edge of the train track as the engine flies past is a perfect demonstration of this ability Lawrence posesses.

The best part of this book is at the end when Gerald dies in the Alps while trying to understand life, and then the final mysterious dialogue between the remaining lovers, Rupert Birkin and Ursula Brangwen. Read the book.

DNF for now, p.100

Realising that I keep falling asleep on this book every night & really, as much as I love this guy's short stories & character portraits, he really wrote this book as a compendium of every single conversation he's ever had in his head with all the people he hates - and while I do love that for him, endless bitching at fancy london clubs & bourgeois tea parties just sort of gets boring after awhile. Every new convo is basically a bunch of intellectual brits getting together for high society chats which devolves into the characters absolutely ripping into one another (verbally) because of Primal and Inexplainable Urges; and while the insight into human beings' "Primal Urges" was meant to be the premise of the book, if this is all the book is doing with that premise then it'd probably have been better as a short story tbh. (Ofc, lots of really interesting introspections in this so I may return to it but each new chapter is basically characters talking about a topic, and then the self-insert Authorial Moment where DH Lawrence tears them all a new arsehole with the Correct Opinion on what they're all talking about. And man I really need to read something more engaging than this, feels like it's been ages)

He sees himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist [...] He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the reflection of himself in the human opinion.

Probably it’s always going to be a mistake to reread a book you loved in your youth. I haven’t read Lawrence for a long time. I believed I had his triumphs and failures pretty clear in my mind. Sons and Lovers, the early stories, The Rainbow and Women in Love all masterpieces; everything that followed going from bad to worse. So it was a shock to discover that Women in Love probably belongs in the latter category. There are, of course, flashes of his unique genius but they are few and far between. As is frequently the case in his later novels Lawrence is here on his soapbox, sermonising and ranting. His fabulous electric insights into the beauty of the natural world are virtually absent.


There’s something of the angry teenager in Lawrence – he’s always on some protest march and his target is always the established order. The four central characters in WIL, with the exception perhaps of Ursula, come across as outgrown children with relentlessly outsized emotions. Every moment is a dark night of the soul or an epiphany. They simply do not do ordinary emotion. He also has the teenage urgency to exalt his own love over everyone else’s, as if what he knows as love is mysteriously denied to all us mere mortals. “How can I say “I love you” when I have ceased to be: we are both caught up and transcended into a new oneness where everything is silent, because there is nothing to answer, all is perfect and at one.” We don’t though feel this at all. They are just empty words. This is a problem in this novel – the characters do not effectively dramatise Lawrence’s lofty ideas. The novel is all caught up in the subjectivity of its author. Lawrence’s mouthpiece in this novel is Birkin. In every novel he wrote he had to have a mouthpiece and usually this is the character you most feel like slapping in the face.


On the positive side Lawrence can be brilliant at understanding women. Forget the overblown kitsch of the wrestling scene the best moment in this novel is when Ursula gives vent to her rage at Birkin. It’s a brilliant depiction of primeval female fury directed at the cajoling bullying instinct of the male.


I noticed Lawrence has a habit of placing opposition in his character’s feelings. This kind of thing - She was happy and yet she was resentful. He was curious and yet he was bored. They were resigned and yet they were hopeful. He does this all the time. I suppose it does have a place as this novel is about will – the wrestling of one will against another, whether it’s an individual or society as a whole. Lawrence is trying to forge a new concept of will. Ultimately the eternal snow-capped mountains will impede this dawning of a new day in human volition.


One of the reasons I loved this novel in my youth was that I idolised Katherine Mansfield and Lawrence uses her for the character of Gudrun and her husband John Middleton Murray for Gerald.


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“Lawrence met Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry when they wrote to him in 1913 to ask for a story to publish in Rhythm - the magazine they edited together in London. When the Lawrences came to England the two couples met and established an immediate rapport. Katherine and John were witnesses at their marriage and Frieda gave Katherine her old wedding ring, which Katherine wore for the rest of her life. Katherine and Frieda never became real friends - Katherine’s affinity was always with Lawrence. There was tension in the relationship because Lawrence was deeply attracted to John, wanting to establish a ‘blood brother bond’ with him. John was also attracted to Frieda, with whom he had an affair after Katherine died. The two couples lived close to each other, first in Berkshire in 1914 and then in Zennor Cornwall in 1915. There were innumerable quarrels and the friendship was broken off several times. Lawrence once wrote to Katherine - a fellow consumptive; ‘You are a loathsome reptile stewing in your consumption. I hope you will die.’ Katherine understood Lawrence and even forgave him, writing in her Journal that ‘Lawrence and I are unthinkably alike.”ttt
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So, Women in Love: heavy on verbiage, rubbled with repetitive pseudo philosophy, burdened with three of most unlikeable characters you’re likely to meet in a novel all year and yet here and there dazzlingly brilliant as Lawrence was when he stepped down from his tiresome soapbox.