Dawn's Reading Blog

The most interesting part of Sons and Lovers was that I participated in an online reading group via Barnes and Noble University. It was interesting to see what others thought and how it corresponded to what I thought. We also had a moderator, who had written the introduction to their edition of the book, who tried to feed us the appropriate interpretations. It’s been a long time since a professional tried to explain a book to me. Not since college. I was impatient with it then and I’m not much better now. I feel uninterested in analyzing a book to the point where you have to read or know something beyond the book.

For instance, Sons and Lovers is apparantly largely autobiographical. Does knowing that change my feelings about the book or my interpretation of the contents? I don’t know. It makes me wonder if Lawrence knew that his lead character comes across as selfish and immature. Does he recognize himself as selfish and immature or does he think he’s painting a different picture?

Then there’s the subject of the other son’s death. According to our moderator, Lawrence first tried to write the book without that death (which had really happened to his brother) but wasn’t able to. But in the book, the death comes across as arbitrary. It’s clumsily foreshadowed (real life deaths are rarely foreshadowed) and the attempt to blame it on some kind of inability to choose between mother and lover is ridiculous. No one dies from loving their mother too much in real life. So it’s a stange blending of fiction and reality. Knowing that there’s some reality behind it helps explain the clumsiness but doesn’t excuse it.

Then there’s the intepretation of various poetic moments, largely dealing with nature, found in the book. I refuse to interpret these in light of biblical events or to equate petals with virginity. If the author manages to convey an emotion to me while I’m reading, then good. That’s what he’s supposed to do. But if I have to scour the book with a copy of the bible at hand to figure out what he meant, I’m not interested. I’m not saying that’s necessary with Sons and Lovers, only that that’s the sort claptrap raised in literary discussions that makes me not like to have literary discussions.

Despite all the above ranting, I’ll participate in another of these sessions in the future. Reading the other students’ responses was very interesting and I did contribute a few comments of my own.

So how did I feel about the book aside from the class? I thought the first and third parts were OK and the middle was boring. The lead character, Paul, wavers around so much that dramatic tension was lost. Perhaps this is Lawrence’s inability to explain his own motivations and resulting actions in a satisfactory way. He wants Miriam, he doesn’t want her, he’ll want her again someday. He’s stringing her along, he’s giving her up, he’s taking her virginity, he’s through with her. Real life does seem to work in tides – the old two steps forward, one step back cliche. Rarely are there the abrupt breaking points we’re accustomed to in novels. Having now read through a couple hundred pages of someone going two steps forward and one step back, I see that real life makes for very dull reading.

It’s not clear to me what makes this one of the 100 Best books of the 19th century. Most likely it had something to do with historical context, which is also not an excuse in my opinion. I don’t care if the middle section being so focused on the internal was a new technique at that time. It’s handled poorly. Show me the first novel that handled it well. That’s the one I want to read.