Regular price: $31.47
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.
In The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence challenged the customary limitations of language and convention to carry into the structures of his prose the fascination with boundaries and space that characterize the entire novel. A visionary novel, considered to be one of Lawrence's finest, it explores the complex sexual and psychological relationships between men and women in an increasingly industrialized world.
When Constance Reid's new husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, returns from war paralyzed and in a wheelchair, she sees her future wither. As their marriage grows loveless, she mourns the desires fated to go unfulfilled. But a stirring fascination with Oliver Mellors, the estate's coarse, taciturn gamekeeper, blooms into feelings she feared had died. Soon the lovers find themselves entangled in scandal, and their taboo affair becomes as pernicious as it is passionate.
The story of Lady Chatterley and her love for her husband's gamekeeper outraged the sensibilities of Edwardian England. Lawrence had already been dismissed as a purveyor of the obscene for the attitudes to sex that he had shown in The Rainbow, which had been fiercely suppressed on its publication in 1915. Chatterley, written in several versions around 1928 in Italy in the final part of Lawrence's life, was a deliberate choice on the author's part to address sex head on.
The intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions with which he has been raised. He finally leaves for abroad to pursue his ambitions as an artist. The work is an early example of some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later be represented in a more developed manner by Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The novel, which has had a "huge influence on novelists across the world", was ranked by Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.
Milly Theale is a young, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems: materialism, romance, self-delusion, and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.
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.
In The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence challenged the customary limitations of language and convention to carry into the structures of his prose the fascination with boundaries and space that characterize the entire novel. A visionary novel, considered to be one of Lawrence's finest, it explores the complex sexual and psychological relationships between men and women in an increasingly industrialized world.
When Constance Reid's new husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, returns from war paralyzed and in a wheelchair, she sees her future wither. As their marriage grows loveless, she mourns the desires fated to go unfulfilled. But a stirring fascination with Oliver Mellors, the estate's coarse, taciturn gamekeeper, blooms into feelings she feared had died. Soon the lovers find themselves entangled in scandal, and their taboo affair becomes as pernicious as it is passionate.
The story of Lady Chatterley and her love for her husband's gamekeeper outraged the sensibilities of Edwardian England. Lawrence had already been dismissed as a purveyor of the obscene for the attitudes to sex that he had shown in The Rainbow, which had been fiercely suppressed on its publication in 1915. Chatterley, written in several versions around 1928 in Italy in the final part of Lawrence's life, was a deliberate choice on the author's part to address sex head on.
The intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions with which he has been raised. He finally leaves for abroad to pursue his ambitions as an artist. The work is an early example of some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later be represented in a more developed manner by Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The novel, which has had a "huge influence on novelists across the world", was ranked by Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.
Milly Theale is a young, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems: materialism, romance, self-delusion, and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.
Set in freewheeling Florence, Italy, and sober Surrey, England, E. M. Forster's beloved third novel follows young Lucy Honeychurch's journey to self-discovery at a transitional moment in British society. As Lucy is exposed to opportunities previously not afforded to women, her mind - and heart - must open. Before long, she's in love with an "unsuitable" man and is faced with an impossible choice: follow her heart or be pressured into propriety.
Lady Chatterley's Lover is D. H. Lawrence's last novel. First published privately in 1928, Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned from wider publication in the UK until 1960 and was the subject of censorship and book banning in the United States and elsewhere. Its erotic subject material, colorful language, and discussion of interclass relations were deemed obscene.
Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionist depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on a marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny, and bitterness. Its use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence, and shifting perspectives gives the novel an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an utter rejection of Victorian and Edwardian literary values.
A fictional portrayal of an aging revolutionary, this novel is a powerful commentary on the nightmare politics of the troubled 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1905, a defector from the Communist Party in 1938, and then arrested in both Spain and France for his political views, Arthur Koestler writes from a wealth of personal experience.
Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller's masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for 27 years after its first publication in Paris in 1943. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller's famed mixture of memoir and fiction.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. Clarissa visits London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh, and she "had not the option" to be with Sally Seton for whom she felt strongly.
Philip Carey, a sensitive orphan born with a clubfoot, finds himself in desperate need of passion and inspiration. He abandons his studies to travel, first to Heidelberg and then to Paris, where he nurses ambitions of becoming a great artist. Philip's youthful idealism erodes, however, as he comes face-to-face with his own mediocrity and lack of impact on the world. After returning to London to study medicine, he becomes wildly infatuated with Mildred, a vulgar, tawdry waitress, and begins a doomed love affair.
This collection of 15 stories was first published in 1914. James wrote them as descriptions of middle class life in Ireland but in each story one or more characters has an "epiphany," - a moment where the character has a speical moment of illumination. Many of the characters in these stories later appear in his novel, Ulysses.
Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.
The Portrait of a Lady tells the compelling and ultimately tragic tale of a beautiful young American woman's encounter with European sophistication. Set principally in England and Italy, the story follows Isabel Archer's fortunes as a variety of admirers vie for her hand. Her choice will be crucial, and she is not wanting for advice, whether from the generous-spirited Ralph Touchett or the charming Madame Merle.
Sexually innocent Jude Fawley is trapped into marriage by seductive Arabella Donn, but their union is an unhappy one and Arabella leaves him. Jude's welcome freedom allows him to pursue his obsession with his pretty cousin Sue Bridehead, a brilliant, charismatic free-thinker who would be his ideal soul-mate if not for her aversion to physical love. When Jude and Sue decide to lead their lives outside marriage they bring down on themselves all the force of a repressive society.
Lawrence explores love, sex, passion, and marriage through the eyes of two sisters. Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen are the two intelligent, incisive, and observant sisters whose temperamental differences spark an ongoing debate regarding their society and their inner lives. The two very different sisters pursue thrilling, torrid affairs, but their search for more mature emotional relationships reveals some startling information about themselves as well as their lovers, Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich.
Women in Love delves into the mysteries between men and women as these two couples strive for love against a haunting World War I backdrop of coal mines, factories, and a beleaguered working class.
"One of the 100 best English-language novels." (Modern Library)
More mature but more cynical view of the relationship between men and women. A little difficult to get into because of the ironic tone and the more unpleasant characters but very rewarding as we come to know both the men and women better. The narrator is very good and seems to understand the central women characters. Brilliant prose. Disturbing but thought-provoking ending.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful
I am a huge fan of Lawrence. This book was tough to read due to the emotional intensity, but I couldn't stop. Engrossing. I was addicted to the story and of course the characters. The exquisitely beautiful language often juxtaposed uncomfortably with desperate human situations.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
What did you like best about Women in Love? What did you like least?
I liked the development and description of the 4 main characters, Gudrun and Ursula, the eponymous women in love; and Gerald and Rupert (or Birkin, as he is invariably called in the book), the men with whom they are in love.
However, I think it is important not to imagine that the phrase'...in love' brings with it any form of happiness. It most certainly doesn't in this book.
Lawrence is an author who examines the thoughts and feelings of his characters in minute and scrupulous detail. It can be hard to follow the trail of his thinking.
What was most disappointing about D.H. Lawrence’s story?
I think that Lawrence can labour a point, even to the extent of repeating phrases over and over in order to do so. His writing is dense and dark throughout, with little relief from the misery of his characters.
Which scene was your favorite?
The wonderfully described scene of Gerald Crich and Rupert Birkin wrestling naked in front of the fire at Shortlands. Lawrence brings this alive with colour and introspective revelation. I also remember it was a marvellous scene in the Ken Russell movie of the same name.
Was Women in Love worth the listening time?
I am so glad that I listened to it again. I read the book when I was much younger and cannot imagine what I got out of it then! It is such a dark and sombre story written in a style to match - as I listened I could feel the despair of each character when they were thinking about love.
Any additional comments?
Dear reader, do not think that this book will help you to understand women or love except from Lawrence's point of view, And that point of view is dark, dark, dark.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Although I enjoyed this story and was very surprised by the ending, the book was *very* difficult for me to get through. The author liked to go into quite a bit of detail regarding clothing, environment, etc. and I often found myself not paying any attention when the detailed descriptions started. I am glad that I read it but was also very glad when it was over.
15 of 22 people found this review helpful
What made the experience of listening to Women in Love the most enjoyable?
I am a poor reader so I love being read to
What was one of the most memorable moments of Women in Love?
All of it
Which character – as performed by Vanessa Benjamin – was your favorite?
The sisters
Who was the most memorable character of Women in Love and why?
The sisters
Any additional comments?
No
I know that Lawrence is a contested author, but personally, I think that he has undeservedly lost his place among the great modernists. Yes, he can be somewhat too serious at times, and needs to be read with an open mind, but if you choose to give him a chance, you are in for a treat - a dark, pessimistic treat. Benjamin does a wonderful job reading. This is the British version of the novel, so it has a few of the alternations that Lawrence's publisher demanded, if that matters to you.