• Sons and Lovers

  • By: D. H. Lawrence
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (344 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Sons and Lovers  By  cover art

Sons and Lovers

By: D. H. Lawrence
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.00

Buy for $25.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

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

Featured Article: It Was the Best of Scribes—The Best British Authors


With its esteemed history and bold contemporary scene, Britain lays claim to some of the most exciting literature in audio. With the hundreds of incredible British writers throughout the centuries, a person could devote their whole literary life solely to British authors and still never run out of amazing things to listen to. Whether you're an avid Anglophile or just want to discover the best English novelists for yourself, here’s a list of the best for you to choose from!

What listeners say about Sons and Lovers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    150
  • 4 Stars
    104
  • 3 Stars
    65
  • 2 Stars
    19
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    187
  • 4 Stars
    64
  • 3 Stars
    32
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    125
  • 4 Stars
    82
  • 3 Stars
    57
  • 2 Stars
    16
  • 1 Stars
    11

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • a
  • 12-03-13

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Perfect narration, but what is Lawrence really doing?

Considering that The Rainbow and Women in Love are about lesbian love, and considering that homosexuality (primarily male) was still punishable with imprisonment in England in the 1950's (we learn in the film The Imitation Game), one must consider that Lawrence was attempting to depict a cause for male homosexuality. Then his characterization of the overbearing mother, though a good portrayal, is a gross oversimplification.

As for our hero, Paul Morel, he loves Miriam/he doesn't. He wants to marry her/he doesn't. He loves Clair/he doesn't. Then he loves Miriam again/he doesn't. He wants to marry her/he doesn't. This vacillation continues until readers are saying "Choose, already!" He becomes a tiresome character. Finally, readers must imagine where his unsteady character leads him.

As for narration, Simon Vance has a different voice for each character, easy to discern, and even different voices for Mrs. Morel as she ages. Indeed, this narration makes listening a pleasure, even for those who aren't extremely fond of the novel.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

overrated, self-absorbed, boring autobio fiction

Lawrence is a competent stylist with an extreme penchant for tedious repetition of what he just showed again, yet again. The novel is burdened with extremely drawn out rumination over the war between the love for his mother and a women he doesn't love. He paints Paul Morell as a closet case who takes far too long in realizing the obvious. Painfully uneventful and trivial plotline without the needed respite of high flourishes, metaphor or philosophic reflection. His psychological penetration and social reflections are not to scoff at but they could be condensed into 125 pages. The work is unduly praised without due merit.

Simon Vance is a first rate narrator, but even he can't improve upon a wanting text.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

dreary

although well read and stylishly written this is strange tale of a man and his mother is dated, without sympathetic characters, and ultimately dull

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Men and their relationship with their mother!

I loved the story although the ending was a bit abrupt. I read that this book is somewhat autobiographical and from that I found the thoughts of the narrator very interesting. It gave me lots of clues into the minds of men.
An intriguing story that I’m so glad to have read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sons and Lovers

Timeless story of mother-son-girlfriend relations. Well performed. The Freudian overtones are not neglected.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Narrative doldrums

Dull and rambling. Characters are aimless and impotent. A Freudian complex drawn out to extremity.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!