Set in Lawrence’s native Nottinghamshire, Sons and Lovers is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence and the clash of generations. The marriage of Gertrude and Walter Morel has become a battleground. Repelled by her vulgar, choleric and sometimes violent drinker of a husband, delicate Gertrude devotes her life to her children, especially to her sons, William and Paul - determined they will not follow their father down the coal mines. Conflict is evitable when Paul seeks to escape his mother's suffocating grasp through relationships with women his own age but he is so emotionally bound to his mother that he has a difficult time of it.
As Philip Larkin is reported to have written, aged 19 “I have been reading ‘Sons and Lovers’ and feel ready to die. If Lawrence had been killed after writing that book he’d still be England’s greatest novelist.” This book will rekindle your love for classic literature or ignite it for the first time if it hasn’t developed yet. It’s a beautifully tender and engrossing portrayal of familial love, sexual love and romantic love and all of their complexities. I adore it.
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| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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The classic novel about a man torn between his devotion to his mother and his desire for a lover. Cited by the Modern Library as one of the ten best twentieth-century novels in the English language, Sons and Lovers is considered by many to be D. H. Lawrence's masterpiece, with its deep psychological insight into the bond between mother and son, and the difficulties of emotionally separating from a parent. Considered a semiautobiographical work, it follows protagonist Paul Morel as he experiences the loss of his older brother, hostility toward his coal miner father, and a burden of responsibility toward his more genteel mother, who inspires maddening mixed feelings in him. Paul struggles to find room in his life for a meaningful, romantic relationship of his own as he works to hold his family together.
Sons and Lovers features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Classic fiction: general and literary, General Fiction, Fiction
Sons and Lovers is available in Paperback, Ebook, Hardback
Sons and Lovers was written by D. H. Lawrence and published by Open Road Media
£1.40
