Finished: The Rainbow (Lawrence) Hmm...well, it was complicated, deep, a bit consternating...and now I'm done with it. :-) I'm not sure it belongs on the Top 100 list, but there it sits...and so I read it. Maybe I'm just not deep enough or smart enough? I don't know...I think it just isn't my kind of book. I was interested in the characters, as usual, but there was just far, far, far too much detailed inner turmoil and introspection for me. The story follows three generations of the Brangwen family in rural England. From Tom Brangwen, who falls for the Polish widow, Lydia, who has a young daughter, Anna, we see how quick people were to marry after just meeting another available person. Though, they had two more children together and remained married until their deaths, I never really got the sense they were madly in love. Tom did adore his step-daughter, Anna, though. Then, we follow the independent Anna as she falls for her step-cousin, Will, and marries him. Their relationship is volatile, and mostly sexual, and swings from dark to light to dark...but they stay married and have 9 children together! Anna comes to see that her "role" on earth, and one that she truly cherishes, is to have children and be a mother. Will always has his dark nature, and even alienates his oldest daughter Ursula, who grows up adoring him...but grows to hate him as he treats her cruelly due to his own inability to relate to people. Ursula, the first born of Will and Anna takes on the rest of the story as we watch her also very independent nature come to terms with her own powerful feelings about all things in nature, and then her own sexuality. She falls in love with Anton Skrebensky, but then also has a love affair with a woman. She is never ready to totally conform or give herself over to Anton to be married...yet she hates the independent life she carves out as a teacher. As the story ends, she's not at all fulfilled in her life, but she realizes that she's got a lot more of life to live and many more experiences to come that will define her being. All of the characters analyze their sexual desires and feelings towards their partners to death, and I think that's where the book lost me a bit. I can see where it would have been a bit scandalous in the early 1900's when it came out. And, of course, his sequel, Women in Love, which is the continuing story of Ursula and her sister, Gudrun, is also on the Top 100 list, so I'll probably be reading that at some point.