D.H. Lawrence’s writing is not easy to handle. Dense, rich and tackling serious matters of life, like family, sex and the constant battle between generations and social classes, any of his novels is an endurance sport that can, nonetheless, be extremely rewarding.
A book which has turned 100 this year, Sons and Lovers is considered by many to be his finest. A work of youth—he was only 27 when he completed it—it tells the story of Paul Morel and his family, with an emphasis on the relationship between Paul and his strong-willed mother. Deeply autobiographical, the book was praised by the author himself, who considered it to be “a great novel”.
Sexuality and class, especially the issues of the working class environment, childhood and adolescence and the coming of age in a disturbed time that echoes the disturbed balance of the protagonist’s soul, this story is one to keep you reading and wondering about your own unsolved juvenile tribulations. Whoever—and we are sure that among you there will be quite a few to admit it—plunged avidly into Lady Chatterley’s Lover in his teens, will no doubt rediscover the same thrill of Lawrence’s sensuous, forceful and organic writing, in this great novel indeed.
