Review My Way - D. H. Lawrence' Sons and Lovers

Hollaaaaaa!

Ok. That was very uncharacteristic of me. However, quite a lot of things are different today from the way they used to be. The sun and the rain constantly fight for possession of the sky, confusing us all (sunglasses…no, no…umbrella…wait, no, sunglasses…arghhh make up your mind weather dude!).

For British Fiction Class this semester, I had to read D. H. Lawrence’ Sons and Lovers, written in the days of the industrial revolution. I thought you'd like to read my review of it, well, I really just wanted to write a review of it.

First things first, the industrial revolution is really just the time between the 19th and 20th century when industry arrived at England. Some guy named Thomas Carlyle called it, The Mechanical Age”. Factories sprung up on every sidewalk (well, they didn’t have sidewalks then, so, streets), the rich people were no longer the people with land, the rich people were the men who owned the factories. With the factories came the inevitable environmental pollution; smoke all over the place, dirt everywhere, deafening noise; seriously messed up working conditions, smoke in people’s lungs et cetera. Poets and novelists were not happy about these things, and it can be seen in the works written at that time.

Now, it appears we have tired of writing about situations a majority of the masses don’t care about and we have given up sending cryptic messages to moguls who are really just interested in profit. Industries still mess up the ecosystem without apology. In those days, it was dangerous coal mines that ruined the miners’ lungs and created a hazard for children minding their business and playing around extremely large holes dug by industrialists. Today, it’s oil on our water, oil in our farms, fire on our streets from exploded oil carrying vehicles, gas fumes in the air and general destruction of the ozone layer (that great, big cloud thing that protects earth from the violence of the sun).

Again, I have wandered far away from the path I set out on. The book, Sons and Lovers starts with Gertrude Morel, a woman for whom the description “small” is apt. She is ambitious and intelligent, beautiful too I must add, in my imaginations anyway. Well, Mrs. Morel’s life should be great, except, she fell for the wrong guy. Her husband, Walter Morel personalizes the phrase “deadbeat dad”. Walter Morel drinks too much, drinking away their saving, and of course when he drinks like he always does, he does dumb things like hit his wife and occasionally lock her out of the house in the cold. Of course, he’s very sorry and ashamed in the morning, because he didn’t really know what he was doing. This dysfunctional couple live in an area occupied mostly by miners, because Walter is a miner. With all the work he puts in daily, we see how little money he makes and how crappy their living conditions are, at first. Well, just like the lower class people of my country, Nigeria, this broke couple just keep having babies, 4 babies actually (not quite as much as my people, but still, more than they could afford). Eventually, Mrs. Morel does not  like her husband anymore, because, well, because he “doesn’t have sense”, as we say where I come from.
Consequently, she turns to her children for love; she dotes on them, fusses over them, showers them with love. Parents are not supposed to have favourites, but this woman did, she didn’t even make a lot of effort to hide it. Her first son William is the love of her life, she bases all of her dreams on him and sees him as the family ticket to gentry. Walter Morel  becomes jealous of his own son, but don’t worry, he didn’t do more than cut the boy’s hair and hit him a couple of times. William is the perfect son; intelligent, ambitious, hardworking, not difficult to look at. William gets a job and begins to send his mother money regularly, from London. Everything is great. Then, William dies. After the huge loss, Mrs. Morel shifts her attention to the 2nd son, Paul, not quite as good as his deceased older brother but “manageable". Paul loves his mother more than anyone else in the world. At some points in the story, their love for one another reach the borders of weird, but have no fear, there is no incest or inkling of it in this novel (Hallelujah!).

Mrs. Morel pours all of her love on Paul, of course, she cares for the other children; Annie and Arthur, but everybody knows where her loyalties lie. Generally, Mrs. Morel is known as a friendly woman, all-round good person, however, all of Paul’s relationships (or almost relationships) turn out to be cases of “my momma don’t like you, but she likes everyone”.

Mrs. Morel sucks all the love from her son, Paul, she is super possessive of him. He meets girls, they like him, he likes them too, but it appears he is incapable of giving himself wholly in love to a woman who is not his mother.  Paul meets Miriam, a lovely farm girl (I rooted for her), but he just can’t give himself up fully, especially since his mother does not hide her disdain for sweet, beautiful Mimi. After years of hanging out with Miriam in open spaces and hidden rooms, our guy breaks up with her and and begins to go after her older, married friend Clara, like a lost puppy. Again, momma doesn’t quite like her, but she’d rather have Clara than Miriam who she believes will suck all the energy out of Paul and turn him into an average human. Well, things don’t go great for Clara either. Paul loves her, but he’d rather be with his mother.

Close to the end of the story, Mama Morel dies, Paul is devastated, he even considers suicide. However, we, the readers are whooping for joy, (well, maybe just me) because we think Paul will finally have a decent love life, but noooooooo...Mrs. Morel still holds him from the great beyond. Paul breaks up with his girls and rides off into the sunset (or is it the sunrise?) to pursue greatness and make his mother happy.

The End.

No kidding, it’s actually the end. I turned the page too to find answers to my many questions, but D. H. Lawrence left us with none. Bottom line, human relationships are strange, none are perfect.
Read the book; let me know what you think.

Goodluck!