I read some short stories and "A Boy in the Bush" by Lawrence before I read this books. It was a dissapointment. In this novel there is none of the sublime romantic darkness of his other works. It is still a pretty good novel, however, he can be so much better. I recommend you to read the Prussian Officer (one of his short stories) to see how just how good he can be. ( )

‘On every side the immense dark silence seemed pressing him, so tiny a spark, into extinction, and yet, almost nothing, he could not be extinct. Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spinning round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core a nothingness, and yet not nothing.

“Mother!” he whimpered—“mother!”’

A little dull, sparkles of monistic brilliance underneath, the searing futility of the incommunicable found between people in relationships amply expressed throughout. England a land populated by beautiful flowers and abundant grey death. ( )

Insightful at times and interesting at times but overall the novel struck me as a bit dull. I was expecting something shocking and didn’t find it. A tragic tale in the end about a man’s inability to escape his mother’s confining gravitational field. ( )

Una novela sobre el complejo de Edipo. Gertrude Morel se ha casado con un minero. Al principio va todo bien, pero pronto el minero se embrutece por el trabajo y el alcohol (no más que cualquiera de su entorno, eso también es verdad) y la mujer se vuelca en sus hijos, que la quieren y la respetan casi como si fuese su novia. Primero el mayor, que llega a obtener un buen empleo en Londres y se marcha; luego morirá. La mayor parte de la novela tiene como protagonista al segundo, Paul, cuya relación con su madre es aún más intensa. El chico entabla una fuerte amistad de tipo más bien intelectualoide y platónico con una granjera vecina, y luego con una amiga casada, esta vez con más componente carnal. En ambos casos la madre lo desaprueba y Paul acabará echando por la borda ambas relaciones.

Bueno, el planteamiento está bien, pero le sobra mucho texto para mi gusto. Hay largas conversaciones con las novias (en especial con la granjera) que no llevan a ninguna parte. El autor nos obsequia con muchos párrafos informándonos hasta del más ínfimo ápice de los sentimientos y pensamientos del personaje. Hay otros personajes cuya función en la novela no se entiende, como los dos hermanos pequeños (una chica y un chico) que parecía que iban a dar algo de sí pero el autor los olvida con rapidez. Se encuentran rastros de Flaubert pero con tendencia a la dispersión.

Lo mejor, los capítulos iniciales, con un aire de novela social que luego desaaparece por completo, y los dos capítulos finales, donde Lawrence consigue poner cierta tensión. El resto, muy largo, no me ha entusiasmado. ( )

This book...

Ugh, I can't really think of enough bad things to say about it.

It was boring. It was insanely sexist. The main character was a selfish jerk with very few redeeming qualities. There was no plot. Women were used as plot devices at best, plot devices that were generally responsible for all the ills in the world. Abusive men were forgiven and the women blamed in their place. The main character used women for mindless sex and then got angry at the women when they didn't want to "belong" to him. In addition, I wasn't overly impressed with the writing style, blah. It was flowery and stupid at some points, while being repetitive and banal in other places.

A terrible, terrible book. ( )