Women in Love
Perhaps no other of the world’s great writers lived and wrote with the passionate intensity of D. H. Lawrence. And perhaps no other of his books so explores the mysteries between men and women–both sensual and intellectual–as Women in Love. Written in the years before and during World War I in a heat of great energy, and criticized for its exploration of human sexuality, the book is filled with symbolism and poetry–and is compulsively readable.
It opens with sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, characters who also appeared in The Rainbow, discussing marriage, then walking through a haunting landscape ruined by coal mines, smoking factories, and sooty dwellings. Soon Gudrun will choose Gerald, the icily handsome mining industrialist, as her lover; Ursula will become involved with Birkin, a school inspector–and an erotic interweaving of souls and bodies begins. One couple will find love, the other death, in Lawrence’s lush, powerfully crafted fifth novel, one of his masterpieces and the work that may best convey his beliefs about sex, love, and humankind’s ongoing struggle between the forces of destruction and life.
It opens with sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, characters who also appeared in The Rainbow, discussing marriage, then walking through a haunting landscape ruined by coal mines, smoking factories, and sooty dwellings. Soon Gudrun will choose Gerald, the icily handsome mining industrialist, as her lover; Ursula will become involved with Birkin, a school inspector–and an erotic interweaving of souls and bodies begins. One couple will find love, the other death, in Lawrence’s lush, powerfully crafted fifth novel, one of his masterpieces and the work that may best convey his beliefs about sex, love, and humankind’s ongoing struggle between the forces of destruction and life.
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Community Reviews
Horrible. I read this book in high school. I don't know if it was just connected to the rest of the depressing fare I had to read that year or if D. H. Lawrence really is an atrocious writer. . .oh wait, I read the Rainbow in college, about 4 years later, and it was possibly even worse.
I thought Women in Love was full of unlikable characters who were awfully self-absorbed and whiney. Their love did not seem genuine. In fact, I thought that the men were more into each other than their respective lovers. Which is fine, but they were very blase and repressed about it. So although they really enjoyed naked wrestling and sexual tension, neither one even contemplated the idea that the sexual tension might actually be something. Perhaps if they were wrestling a little more with the weight of their own sexual preferences, I might have liked this novel better. As it was, they just came off even more shallow and jerky. Nothing in this novel seemed genuine, and maybe that was the point, but if so I neither got it nor appreciated it.
All I can say was I found it utterly unappealing. I know what some people will say -- that I just hate D. H. Lawrence and that the things I hate about him are what make him great because I just can't appreciate great literature. I don't really see it like that. I think that if one is to have a character-driven novel about people one wants the readers to be deeply invested in, one needs to make those characters even just a tiny bit likable. I have studied literature extensively and I don't actually see any real evidence in the Lawrence books I've read of any so-called literary genius or even a proper attempt at good writing. Perhaps someday I will read more, but currently I am still, even after all these years, trying to get over the bad taste left in my mouth by the insufferable and hideously named Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen.
I thought Women in Love was full of unlikable characters who were awfully self-absorbed and whiney. Their love did not seem genuine. In fact, I thought that the men were more into each other than their respective lovers. Which is fine, but they were very blase and repressed about it. So although they really enjoyed naked wrestling and sexual tension, neither one even contemplated the idea that the sexual tension might actually be something. Perhaps if they were wrestling a little more with the weight of their own sexual preferences, I might have liked this novel better. As it was, they just came off even more shallow and jerky. Nothing in this novel seemed genuine, and maybe that was the point, but if so I neither got it nor appreciated it.
All I can say was I found it utterly unappealing. I know what some people will say -- that I just hate D. H. Lawrence and that the things I hate about him are what make him great because I just can't appreciate great literature. I don't really see it like that. I think that if one is to have a character-driven novel about people one wants the readers to be deeply invested in, one needs to make those characters even just a tiny bit likable. I have studied literature extensively and I don't actually see any real evidence in the Lawrence books I've read of any so-called literary genius or even a proper attempt at good writing. Perhaps someday I will read more, but currently I am still, even after all these years, trying to get over the bad taste left in my mouth by the insufferable and hideously named Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen.
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