"An analytical study of sexual depravity" and "an epic of vice" were two of the critical expressions which greeted the publication of "Women in Love". Yet Lawrence regarded this novel as his best book and F. R. Leavis considered it Lawrence's supreme masterpiece. The novel tells of the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, who live in a Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls in love with Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself) and Gudrun has an intense but ...
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"An analytical study of sexual depravity" and "an epic of vice" were two of the critical expressions which greeted the publication of "Women in Love". Yet Lawrence regarded this novel as his best book and F. R. Leavis considered it Lawrence's supreme masterpiece. The novel tells of the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, who live in a Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls in love with Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself) and Gudrun has an intense but tragic affair with Gerald, the son of a local colliery owner. This book is a sequel to "The Rainbow", and contains some of the clearest statements of Lawrence's beliefs. It contains much philosophical discussion and descriptions of the characters' emotional states. and unconscious drives, and many of the ideas arc expressed through elaborate symbolism. The characters and relationships are probably based on those of Lawrence and his wife Frieda, John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield.
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Asked to name the ten greatest novels of the 20th Century very few well read people would leave this explosive, sensitive novel off the list. Lawrence had so many artistic talents - poet, essayist, travel writer, painter. But above all his best novels display all of these talents; and none more so than "Women in Love."
Many may disagree with his convictions that drive his characters in this powerfully unfolding tale, but somehow faulting what Lawrence believes, or for that matter, what his creations do to themselves and others, seems especially beside the point, as the poetic passion simply drowns any cool headed intellectual attempt to reduce the raw recreation of experience with such precision.
This is not suggest that Lawrence lacked the deep intelligence to delve into what it means to be human and expose the frailty of his passionate conduct. He senses with a sure instinct that it is this very passion that makes us all so vulnerable. Yet, he nevertheless shows us in scene after unfolding scene that being false to our true selves leads to even greater misery: the reductive misery of unfulfillment..
