Author: D.H. Lawrence
Translator: Sang-jun Jeong
Publisher: Minumsa
2-volume set.
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About This Book
Sons and Lovers was the first modern portrayal of a phenomenon that later,
thanks to Freud, became easily recognizable as the Oedipus complex. Never was a
son more indentured to his mother's love and full of hatred for his father than
Paul Morel, D.H. Lawrence's young protagonist. Never, that is, except perhaps
Lawrence himself. In his 1913 novel he grappled with the discordant loves that
haunted him all his life--for his spiritual childhood sweetheart, here called
Miriam, and for his mother, whom he transformed into Mrs. Morel.
It is, by Lawrence's own account, a book aimed at
depicting this woman's grasp: "as her sons grow up she selects them as
lovers--first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by
their reciprocal love of their mother--urged on and on. But when they come to
manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their
lives."
Of course, Mrs. Morel takes neither of her two elder sons (the first of whom
dies early, which further intensifies her grip on Paul) as a literal lover, but
nonetheless her psychological snare is immense. She loathes Paul's Miriam from
the start, understanding that the girl's deep love of her son will oust her:
"She's not like an ordinary woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants
to absorb him." Meanwhile, Paul plays his part with equal fervor, incapable of
committing himself in either direction: "Why did his mother sit at home and
suffer?... And why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the
thought of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated
her--and he easily hated her." Soon thereafter he even confesses to his mother:
"I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you."
The result of all this is that Paul throws Miriam over for a married
suffragette, Clara Dawes, who fulfills the sexual component of his ascent to
manhood but leaves him, as ever, without a complete relationship to challenge
his love for his mother. As Paul voyages from the working-class mining world to
the spheres of commerce and art (he has fair success as a painter), he accepts
that his own achievements must be equally his mother's. "There was so much to
come out of him. Life for her was rich with promise. She was to see herself
fulfilled... All his work was hers."
The cycles of Paul's relationships with these three women are terrifying at
times, and Lawrence does nothing to dim their intensity. Nor does he shirk in
his vivid, sensuous descriptions of the landscape that offers up its blossoms
and beasts and "shimmeriness" to Paul's sensitive spirit. Sons and Lovers lays
fully bare the souls of men and earth. Few books tell such whole, complicated
truths about the permutations of love as resolutely without resolution. It's
nothing short of searing to be brushed by humanity in this manner. --Melanie
Rehak
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