I finished reading this book tonight. I wasn't in love with it. It had its share of good moments and its share of tedious moments. The book is split up into two sections. The first is the "Sons" section which covers the Morel family. The second is the "Lovers" section which covers one of the Morel sons, Paul Morel, and his relationships with two ladies who he bizarrely can't have normal relationships with because he is obsessed with his mother. I actually quite liked the first section. It had more of the Victorian feel to it that I like. The second section is pretty tiresome overall and is where my interest in the story and characters began to wane. It was odd how much Lawrence had to contrast love and hate throughout the entire story. Any time he would talk about love it would quickly change to how the characters hated each other. Just tough to relate to and understand.
I did think he was a good writer and the fact that it was semi-autobiographical kept my interest level up higher than it otherwise would have been. And the way the mother's death was handled near the end kind of salvaged the book for me and was superbly done. There were relationships in this novel that I would have liked to see more of. First, the Morel parents' relationship was fascinating and I really enjoyed the father character and missed his absence during the majority of the second part. The relationship between Paul and Dawes has a really interesting one and I like where the story went with that one but wish we had more of it. And Paul and Clara in the early goings was pretty interesting but then turned boring as they became a couple. I liked the teasing, debating Paul who seemed to enjoy getting under Clara's skin.
This book was ok for me and good enough to keep me interested in reading more of D.H. in the future, although I probably won't be sprinting to do so.
