Finished: Sons and Lovers (Lawrence) A pretty good book, but a bit too angst-ridden for me. Sons and Lovers is very high up on so many lists of the top books that I finally decided to give it a try. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but that might be a good thing. I think one review I had read long ago implied that the mother and her sons actually had relationships that bordered on, well, relationships. Thankfully, I didn't find this to be the case. Both the boys in the story were definitely very attached to their mother and held her in the highest esteem such that it was hard for them to truly love other women without comparing them to their mother, wanting them to have her same qualities, and without feeling as if they were somehow betraying their mother. I don't know...is this rather normal? Maybe so. Anyway...Sons and Lovers is the story of Gertrude Coppard, a young woman of a bit higher class than the coal-mining man she meets at a Christmas dance, Walter Morel, who sweeps her off her feet. They get married and spend the first year, or thereabouts, in newlywed heaven, but then reality sets in. Gertrude must adjust to the lesser lifestyle of being a coal miner's wife. She actually does fine with that aspect, making ends meet, and makes the most of their little home. It's when Walter starts going out drinking with the other men every night that she starts having problems. Soon enough they have four children, William, Annie, Paul and Arthur. Walter is never close to his children and he's a nasty, belligerent, bullying drunk. The boys grow up despising him and adoring their mother, who they feel holds the family together. Of course, Mrs. Morel adores her oldest son most, since he was the only son for seven years. She loves her daughter too, but openly admits that she loves her sons more, as a mother loves her boys. She and William are close and he shares all his thoughts and aspirations with her. As he gets older and moves away to London, she also develops a close relationship with Paul. Paul is the brooding artist of the family who internalizes his every thought and feeling. It is those thoughts and feelings that take up most of the pages of Sons and Lovers. Paul struggles with his physical desire for his longtime "steady" girl, Miriam, and goes eight years without even kissing her. However, he feels that she knows him to his soul...always wanting to talk about deep issues, his painting, literature, etc. Mrs. Morel can't stand Miriam because she feels like she's not like just some nice girl who will take her son away from her, but always leave a little bit behind for the mother. She can feel Miriam sucking Paul's entire soul away from her. Paul and Miriam finally take their relationship to the complete physical level, and Miriam can see that even though they've made love, Paul has not really given himself completely to her. Meanwhile, William brings a girl home that he'd like to marry, but she's very superficial and draining on William as well. He confides to his mother that he doesn't really even love her...that she's not deep enough, but it's gone on so long that he sees no way of getting out of marrying her. All that is a moot point when William dies suddenly of an infection. :-( William's death shakes the whole family and especially Mrs. Morel. She sits for weeks in a daze in her rocker until one day Paul comes down with a near fatal case of pneumonia. Nursing Paul back to health, Mrs. Morel realizes that she has other children to live for, especially Paul, and she comes back to life. Arthur, the youngest son, is not really prominent in the story. He's the best looking of the boys. He drunkenly signs up for the military one night, and though his mom goes down to rescue him from it, it's too late so he must serve. He ends up getting a girl pregnant, marrying her, and growing up a bit. Annie finally marries her longtime beau and also ends up with her own place with children. It's Paul who stays with his parents until he's 24 or 25 and constantly shares his day's events with his mother, vacations with her, paints for her, etc. He also discovers he's attracted to another young woman named Clara, who is separated from her husband. After he and Miriam split apart, he begins a physical relationship with Clara, but again, cannot give himself wholly to her. He frets, and thinks, and broods, and always goes back to the thought that he can't love anyone the way he loves his mother. He always talks about going abroad, but never until his mother has passed away. Unfortunately, his mother does become ill about that time. She ends up having heart problems and then a cancerous tumor, so Paul, Annie, and Arthur watch their mother die a slow death. She tries to be lively, but the life is sucked out of her. Walter Morel is no help. He's always run from his fears and towards the bottle, but he tries his best to be tender to her the one or two times he pokes his head in the sick room. In the end, Mrs. Morel dies and Paul is bereft. He encourages Clara to get back with her estranged husband. And, he turns down an offer from Miriam to finally marry him after all these years. He seems to be heading into the dark abyss to follow his mother into death when he talks himself out of it. He tells himself that his mother would want to live on through his painting, and even through children that he may one day have. He turns from the dark night back towards the lights of the town as the story ends. So...that's it. I really wasn't blown away...not enough for the book to be considered so highly by so many literary types. But then again, I guess I'm not that kind of a literary type so what do I know? Hoping to find a more light-hearted book next time around! And, I promise not to ever make Josh feel like any girls he brings home have to live up to me! Hee hee :-)