Sons and LoversLawrence's first major novel was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives. Their second son, Paul, craves the warmth of family and community, but knows that he must sacrifice everything in the struggle for independence if he is not to repeat his parents' failure. Lawrence's powerful description of Paul's single-minded efforts to define himself sexually and emotionally through relationships with two women -- the innocent, old-fashioned Miriam Leivers and the experienced, provocatively modern Clara Dawes -- makes this a novel as much for the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was for the beginning of the twentieth. |
Contents
part one 1 THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS | 1 |
THE BIRTH OF PAUL AND ANOTHER BATTLE | 26 |
THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM | 45 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
afraid Annie answered arms Arthur asked beautiful began Bestwood better blue Bulwell child Clara cold colliers corncrake cried dark Dawes Derbyshire dinner door downstairs Edgar everything exclaimed eyes face father feel felt fingers fire flowers garden George Coppard girl gone grey hair hand hated head heard heart hurt Jordan Keston kissed kitchen knew laughed leave Leivers looked Mablethorpe marry Miriam morning mother mouth never nice night Nottingham o'clock Pappleworth Radford replied rose round s'll scullery seemed Sheffield shillings shoulder silence Skegness smiled Sneinton soul stood suddenly talk tell there's things Thomas Jordan thought told took turned upstairs voice waited walked walked in silence warm watched wesh wife William woman wonder Yorkshire terrier young