Rating: 
Summary: unsatifying
Review: I read this book for my English class and I found it to be ultimately unsatifying. I think Lawrence's prose is incredible but I just could not empathize with Paul Morel - he''s so childish and weak. Paul is only charming during his love scenes with Clara when he affects the Welsh accent of Walter Morel. I thought Gertrude Morel was a despicable woman who treated her husband with undeserved contempt and emotionally suffocated her sons. In the book, Gertrude's death leaves Paul in a world of darkness, he's a broken man. However, it's interesting to note that as much as D.H.Lawrence (the book is semi-autobiographical) came to view his mother as a negative influence in his mature years. As an adult, it is D.H. Lawrence's father who is personified as Walter Morel, for whom he exhibited admiration.
Rating: 
Summary: Mothers and Lovers
Review: A tour de force! Bravo. It is story of Paul Morel who loves his mother more than himself. Mrs. Morel who is married to a ignorant, illiterate coal miner tries to find comfort, solace and love in her sons, first with Walter and when Walter dies unexpectedly, with Paul, the second son. She lives for him, he for her. She is so possessive of him that she objects his involvement with his first love, Miriam. He then goes after, Clara, a married woman. The book revolves around Paul and these three desperate women, who comfort him, torture him and
he scornfully resiprocates. But he is always faithful to his mother , who he adores. I guess we are all like Paul, in some
ways. Miriam is a haunting character who reverberates in the entire book, so innocent, pure, religious, pious and madly in love with Paul. Clara, on the other hand, very rigid, calculating, demanding and yet very vulnerable. In Paul we see callousness, sacrifice, piety, haughtiness, repentance, a bit of Roskolnikov, a young man whose life is torn between a adoring mother and two lovers. In the end his high spirits and intellegence prevail and he conquers his demons.
Rating: 
Summary: Husbands and Mama's Boys
Review: This story of the Morel family begins with a dramatic portrayal of the effect industrialization has on human lives. Mr. Morel, a coal miner in turn-of-the-century Britain, lives a life of drudgery, anger and desperation. He takes his frustrations out on his wife Gertrude, while the real source of his unhappiness is his own low self-esteem. Gertrude is embittered by his hardness and so looks to her sons to fill all her emotional needs. This constitutes Part One of the novel, which to this reviewer's taste is the more satisfying section. The detailed descriptions of the arguments and even outright fights between the married couple are as powerful as anything in fiction, and bleakly dramatize how poverty can destroy the very hearts and souls of the working classes. Morel is oppressed by his employer, so he in turn oppresses his wife, who emotionally smothers her sons. Fight the power!All of which is what makes Part Two such a disappointment. The entire second half of the book revolves around the second son, Paul, and how his closeness to his mother makes it impossible for him to engage in satisfactory relationships with other women. Miriam, the milquetoast who yearns for a transcendent, spiritual love, cares for Paul so much that she lets him walk all over her. The much tougher and independent Clara introduces Paul to a more physically satisfying relationship, but neither of them has any real attachment to the other. The weakness of this second half is not just that it all seems to take far too long; it's that over time, the characters become very unsympathetic. None of them have the strength of will to break away from their failing relationships, despite the fact that these failures cast dark shadows across their lives. And there's certainly nothing tragic about these young people mooning about, complaining that their relationships aren't what they'd like them to be; most especially in the context of Part One, which reminds us that there are people in this world who are really suffering. Readers who are deeply interested in the internal subtleties of male-female relationships (and this probably includes a majority of young women) will love this book. If the two parts were published separately, this reviewer would unhesitatingly give Part One five stars, while grudgingly giving Part Two three and a half. For Mama's boys (and those who've seriously dated them) this book certainly rates five stars, but others will find these characters so annoying that even four stars may seem generous.
Rating:
Summary: Sons and Lovers
Review: Sons and Lovers is a story of how a complicated relationship between Mother and son affect relations with the son's lover. Sons and Lovers is written with more passion that other Lawrence works, probably because Lawrence's own life so closely mirrors that of the characters in this novel. The plot revolves around Paul Morel and his family. The Father is a coal miner whose bruttish behavior makes Paul detest him. Paul's Mother, full of contempt for her husband, pours all of her love toward her children, particularly the two eldest males. As Paul matures his attempts at a relationship with a lover are hindered by these complications. Paul, like his older brother William, finds that his choice of lover can never be accepted by his Mother.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Look at Mother and Son Relationships
Review: D. H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" should have been titled "Mother and Sons", since it is an unflinching, at times harsh, look at a mother's relationship with her two sons, especially with the younger son, Paul Morel, who suffers from an Oedipus complex with his mother. Mrs. Morel is portrayed by Lawrence as someone who tries to steer the lives of her sons, especially Paul, intervening in his choice of lovers and careers. Although her motives may be noble, her actions have unforseen consequences which affect adversely Paul's life. Lawrence's novel is said to be semiautobiographical, since the Morels are seen as fictitious counterparts of his own family. It surely is a literary classic, since it was the first to look at a dysfunctional family's affairs prior to the advent of Freud's psychological writings. It also remains memorable due to Lawrence's splendid, often lyrical, prose.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read!
Review: 'Sons And Lovers' is perhaps the most touching classic by D H Lawrence. The story revolves around the Morel family, a lower-middle class family living on the Nottingham coalfield. Initially, Lawrence vividly describes the hardships faced by Mrs. Morel in raising a family of three sons and a daughter while living from hand to mouth, in face of the frequent beatings delivered by an oft-drunk miner husband. For the larger part, he examines in detail the passionate relationship between Mrs. Morel and her second son, Paul. Disillusioned from her drunkard and temperamental husband and devastated by the death of her elder son, Mrs. Morel has high expectations from her second son, Paul. At the same time, Paul is torn between his duty towards his beloved mother, and his passion for the two other women in his life, Clara and Miriam. It is widely believed that through this novel, Lawrence has addressed the dynamics of his own complicated relationship with his mother, and has depicted the dilemma that faced him. D H Lawrence has masterfully handled the fragile subject of intimate relationships between loved ones. In my view, it is a definite must-read. Also recommended: Waiting by Ha Jin, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: A Complex Examination of Dysfunction
Review: Emotional manipulation and possessiveness are at the core of this most intriguing novel. D.H. Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS greets the reader with the author's elegant prose while systematically immersing the story in a swirling cloud of tangled dysfunction. Married to a drunken, rowdy coal miner in early 20th Century England, Gertrude Morel has neither a life nor a true love. Her only chance for happiness--as she sees it--is to live vicariously through her sons: first William, then Paul. Her subsequent possessiveness, her relentless interference in their lives, is smothering and destructive. When William dies, Gertrude devotes all of her attention--her manipulation--to Paul. Her son becomes a symbolic soulmate. . .lover. . .and Gertrude is unable to let him go to pursue his own relationships. Torn between his love for his mother and his guilt whenever he harbors feelings of affection for another woman, Paul is anything but a suitable suitor. He falls in love with Miriam, but his emotional dysfunction all but dooms the relationship--a relationship constantly sabotaged by his mother. Needing a physical outlet, he has a brief affair with a married woman, Clara Dawes, but even then, his love for and devotion to his mother prevails. As his mother's health fails, Paul's existence becomes even more problematic, culminating in a transcendent death. SONS AND LOVERS is not a "feel good" read, and Paul's inability to break free from the psychological bondage with his mother is frustrating and sometimes exasperating. Yet the true victim of this Lawrence classic is not Paul, but Miriam, who only wishes to love, and be loved in return. The man she has fallen in love with is incapable of such devotion: the tragic complexity of the story lingers long after this book has been put down.
--D. Mikels
Rating: 
Summary: strange love
Review: knowing the reputation of this novel, i was curious to find out what the fuss was about. but i found that the best thing about the novel is the description of his family, especially in the first part. his writing is simple and direct, and part one paints a very vivid picture of working-class life in england circa 1900. the other thing that surprised me about the book is the euthanasia at the end. i wasn't prepared for this and quite honestly was shocked to read about paul and his sister annie 'gliggling' and they prepare the morphium od for their mum. paul's love for his mother is also disturbing. his last kiss of the beloved cadaver is completely morbid. frankly, i'm surprised this aspect of the novel didn't cause more controversy. in comparison, the sexual material is pretty tame, granted i am 100 years removed from the book's first appearance. the structure of the book is based naturally on the biography, but still, the story is a little shapeless. there are characters and incidents introduced that are never taken up and resolved. paul's brother arthur, for example, makes short appearances from time to time, but he doesn't figure in the story at all. you can argue this is like real life, and maybe this is what lawrence was trying to achieve, but by the standards of a traditional novel, it is sloppy. i also never really got into the book. usually, i race to the end to find out what happened, but with 'sons and lovers', i coasted. at first, i thought this was because of the book's shapelessness, but there's no reason a biographical work of fiction can't be well structured. i realized the reason is that paul morel is just not your typical 'hero' of a biographical book. in fact, he's no hero at all. he has too many worts and he doesn't try to cover them up - i think this unlikeableness or aloofness of the main character makes the book itself unlikeable and hard to get into. nevertheless, lawrence does write nicely and the novel has some very interesting moments. worth a read. 3 1/2 stars
Rating:
Summary: On Love, Marriage, and Religion
Review: Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence dwells on the quintessence elements of life. These elements include love and marriage, religion, and filial love (carnal or platonic?). Each of these elements are conveyed by the behavior and choices of each character and the consequences that result from these decisions. Sons and Lovers is considered a quasi-autobiography of Lawrence, and it is Paul's cogitations on marriage (e.g. "Nothing is as bad as marriage that's a hopeless failure" 136), religion (e.g. "God doesn't know things, He is things" 258), and his indefatigable obsession with his mother (e.g. "Paul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect, inspite of hygenists, when it is shared with a beloved" 72) that connects the reader to the realism of Sons and Lovers. Paul, the protagonist, is despondent as a result of his indecisive gallivantings. Much of it appears to be influenced by the passive and inattentive rearing of his father--Walter Morel. Paul is the ideal character to pyschoanalyze. At one point in the book, he says "It's not religious to be religious" (257). It is about his agnosticism, or arguably his atheism. His mind is convoluted with callow perceptions of life. He is a bead left on a spectrum with open ends. Paul Morel is not a believer; he is a pseudo-transient gallivanting through life afraid of commitment. It can be concluded that Paul's filial attachment (whether carnal or platonic, you decide) to his mother is a result of an impassive father figure; his aversion to religion is a result of Miriam's devout and fervent gnawings. In the end, Paul is alone when he could very well have joined Miriam.
"She [Miriam] believed that his chief need in life was herself. If she could prove it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could simply trust to the future" (236).
Like his collier father, Paul succumbs to the recursive hole that has imprisoned his father. Quandaries can be resolved, but Paul has no lexicon (figuratively speaking) of his own. With the death of his mother, he is left spiritually unclad, depraved, and in dire need of the love that he once relished from his mother. When Paul walks away in the end, there was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his disposition, and the void was apparent. Here's a final quote from the book that speaks for itself.
"There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh I could always cry; it seems as if it shows up your suffering. Oh, you make me knit the brows of my very soul and cogitate" (195).
Note: The page number reference "Everyman's Library" Hardcopy edition. I couldn't find this edition in Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: Autobiographical and true to life
Review: Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. Recommended. Sons and Lovers is said to be the most autobiographical of D. H. Lawrence's novels; according to the introduction by Benjamin DeMott, some critics have found it too flatly so. Like the protagonist Paul Morel, Lawrence was born to a coal miner and a woman who has married beneath her class, and his older brother died young, DeMott notes. Many other details coincide as well. Unlike some of Lawrence's other works, such as Women in Love, in which Lawrence explores lofty themes in a philosophical and often grim tone, Sons and Lovers is as down to earth as Paul's rough, violent, yet congenial father Walter. Despite his many apparent and iterated flaws, Walter Morel is shown as a whole person rather than a fictional creation, with a gentle, content, industrious side, at least when he's sober. Perhaps his "smallness" is a function of where he is and who he is expected to be rather than who he could be. He's so tied to his lot in life, the mining life, that it never occurs to him that his more gifted sons could aspire to more. That they achieve more is a source of both pride and derision for Walter Morel. Although Walter is a background character (to both reader and to the Morel family), it is he, "an outsider," who forges the bond between Gertrude Morel and her sons, first William, then Paul. Gertrude Morel is not the first woman to try to live her life through her children, but her hold over her sons dooms their relationships with other women to failure and leaves them deeply unsatisfied and unhappy. Her motivations may be questionable, but she is sometimes right. William's fiancée Lily would have cost him dearly, emotionally and financially, had he lived to marry her, and Mrs. Morel sees her own mistake of a marriage in his future. Although she makes her beliefs known, she seems willing to let William make his decision and suffer the consequences. Having learned from the experience with William, Mrs. Morel takes a different approach with Paul, who seems to be her last, best hope for justifying her own life. Her relationship with Paul becomes overtly sexual. When they go out together, they behave like lovers on a date. "He stroked his mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat." When Paul tells his mother that he doesn't love Miriam (how can he?), she "kissed him in a long, fervent kiss. 'My boy!' she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love. Without knowing, he gently stroked her face." It would be too easy to attribute all this to an Oedipal complex, but it is more complicated, as life is. Paul serves as Mrs. Morel's alter ego, pseudo-lover, and breadwinner. Everything she did not or cannot have must be Paul's. She is savvy enough to know who is a threat to her hold and who is not. She recognises in Miriam a woman much like herself-intelligent, thwarted, let down by men, hungry for a kindred spirit or soul mate. Paul, too, is aware of this and hates Miriam for it-and for the fact he does, indeed, love her, making him unfaithful to the woman to whom he owes his fidelity. There are spiritual overtones as well, as the religious Miriam tries to sacrifice herself for Paul, whom she sees as a "Walter Scott hero." This sacrifice repels Paul ever further. Mrs. Morel rightly perceives that Clara Dawes is not a threat to her-she is fascinating, attractive, enigmatic, and sensual, but she lacks the ability to be more to Paul than a diversion from Miriam, Mom, and himself. Knowing that nothing of importance will come of this affair, Mrs. Morel even encourages it. It cannot divert Paul from her, and it fails as a result. In the end, the only intimacy Paul is capable of is with his mother. She has come between him and his own consciousness-and he has allowed her. Everything is filtered through her. How she has achieved this is not always clear, as she uses more than rhetoric and conscious effort to mold Paul. When he wishes her dead, there is hope that then he would begin to live. "Mother!" he whimpered. "Mother!" Then: "He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her." With the past buried, there may be a future for him. Only Lawrence knew as he wrote this most human of his novels...
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