Sons and Lovers

By: D. H. Lawrence

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence'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, knows that he must 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 21st century as it was for the beginning of the 20th.

Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor

Beautiful and lingering

Lawrence had a mastery over the omniscient point of view, and it shines here in his first novel.

Like Lady Chatterly’s Lover, the first quarter of the story dips your heart into a very specific place, and then the rest of the story is a contrast built around it.

Sons and Lovers is a worthy read, and like all other D.H. Lawrence stories, it sticks with you for a long time: the journey he takes you on.

Classic

A little boring for me, but it’s a classic. Focus on the 1913 writing style.

Great beginning but 3/3rd in, boring

The Earle descriptions and lives are fabulous, but once the story involves the love life (and implied incestuous feelings ) of the son Paul, the story is interminably boring. Who cares? Simon Vance, however, is superb, as always, in his narration.

DH Lawrence Classic

I enjoyed the storyline, the character development, and the rich prose of DHL. This was my second book of his. The narration was performed beautifully as well.

Amazing and poetic!

Great parable on a mother's influence on boys exploration of masculinity and romance. The narrator is great and fits the deep tone of the story.

Lawrence's hidden talent

Where does Sons and Lovers rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I gave this book a five rating because I injected my assessment of it with a healthy dose of subjectivity. In this instance, I liked the book, I connected with it. I mean that it really resonated with me. Otherwise I would have given it 4.5 stars. But here's something objective. Whilst Lawrence is usually remembered or known for his mooning and swooning excerpts, these sorts of narrations really only comprised 2-5% of Sons and Lovers. The rest of the book was a very strong narrative, very well detailed and compelling, much in the vein of Tolstoy and later Hardy. Lawrence wrote wonderful narrative. Another startling and objective fact about the book was in the way it was read by Simon Vance. Simon gave the story a dimension I wouldn't have thought of, and it was a powerful and deserving dimension. Till now I had interpreted Paul Morel as being a 'moony' overly sensitive mother's boy. And he is such in many ways. But Simon brought a manliness to the character that gave the character and the story real street cred. I quite connected with this story. I found similarities with it in my own formative years, mostly around the town community, the industrialized nature of the town, the opportunities that were available for succeeding generations, being Paul's and his siblings, which history doesn't always make available, contrary to our beliefs in a progressive society ever present, and, yes, even in the relationship Paul shared with his mother. There came a point in the story when I felt like telling Paul to get a hold of himself. But until that point I felt like Lawrence was exploring something universal in a vast proportion of mother son relationships. A good story, in the sense of a good yarn, in places a little like a memoir, and dimensional in terms of the characters and the themes explored in poignant but not over weening sections of the narrative.

This is a new favorite.

Awesome book for anyone to listen to. The narrator kept me engaged throughout the story.

Good Prose and Essential Truth through Life

These excellent prose loosely follow the life of struggling artist growing up in an English coal mining town of Nottinghamshire with a strong loving and involved mother and a rough, disillusioned, alcoholic, and uninvolved father. The later parts of the book seem quite autobiographical, while the early book seems more fictional, more novel like, and less focused on the artist’s character. The author pacts a lot of essential truth into this novel. The characters all feel deeply real, with all the inconsistencies, self-compromises, vagueness of memories, and vacillations of real humans. The author seems fair to all the characters portrayed (which is a common defect of autobiographical novels). The novel does not have any action to speak of, no adventure, little philosophy, just a story about real people living a real life, and that is enough.

The narration is very good, handling the dialect particularly well.

A view into Lawrence’s psyche?

Overbearing themes of male commitment issues. The protagonist Paul had an emotionally incestual relationship with his mother. And two of the boys, clung to women the had love hate relationships with but blamed the women for a lack of commitment. I think Lawrence had some serious issues with women, and his mother perhaps?

Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)

Lawrence is a great novelist and seems to have told a tale no truer than in his autobiographical "Sons and Lovers." The primary characters all have some major defect of character, but I felt most pity for Paul Morel (the Lawrence character) and Miriam (his childhood semi-sweetheart). Momma Morel didn't like Miriam because Mom would then lose control over Paul. And Paul could never let go of Mom's strings even after she'd died.

A novel best illustrating the dangers of a parent frustrated in his/her own life and then attempting to control the life of his/her child such that the parent ruins the child's life too (not only in love but in career and in joy).

Simon Vance does an admirable job narrating. The book is free on Kindle and once you download that, the audiobook is only $0.99. A super deal.