*Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers -D. H. Lawrence
Some things I really like about Lawrence. This is my third novel of his, after The Rainbow, when I thought I had found my fairy godfather in the first ten pages, and Women in Love, which I found beautifully written, spicy, boring, and “surprising.” His verse, no, no, no, his prose, is pretty good. His repetitive word fixations are bold. His adverbs are unabashed. His eye inexhaustible. His plots ruthless. Yet… Joyce has more ear-drumming grammar. Proust has more endurance. And Dickens has more wit. So why do I continue to read second-rate fiction? It’s really his impudence that keeps me coming back to Lawrence. His passion is childish and chauvinistic, but it is passion. Like Henry Miller- violent, grueling, and often filibuster- Lawrence is a droll, brilliant tour guide to a freak show without any freaks. His text, in a compound word, Godless. Godless yet devout.
I will be surprised if I decide to read another of his novels.
Playing pin the tail on the donkey with Sons and Lovers, a sentence that makes me wince, especially as I know I am tempted by them: “But he felt as if his blood was melting into tears, and he cried in terror and pain.”
And some sentences that I love: “He put the flower in his mouth. Unthinking, he bared his teeth, closed them on the blossom slowly, and had a mouthful of petals. These he spat into the fire, kissed his mother, and went to bed.” and “The beauty of the night made him want to shout.” and “Once roused, he opened his eyes to see his mother standing on the hearth-rug with the hot iron near her cheek, listening, as it were, to the heat.” even “It seemed as if virginity were a positive force, which fought and won in both of them.”