Sons And Lovers

All over! Depressing, tragic, passionate, lovely, oh and just a little bit sexual. Well, that's Sons and Lovers for ya!

I can't really sum this one up in a couple of paragraphs, but I'll do my best. Basically, it's the story of a son's attachment to his mother and how this stops him from forming a successful relationship with women. Mrs Morel's love for her son Paul almost smothers him to the point of suffocation and gives him a sort of emotional handicap, as he's constantly searching for his mother's approval in all that he does. His first relationship with Miriam doesn't work out, because his mother doesn't like her. His second relationship with Clara fails because Mrs Morel is ill and he can't concentrate on anything else apart from her. OK, so this could just be the story of a standard mummy's boy who takes it a little bit too far, but it's a little bit more sinister and twisted than that. At one point, Paul takes his family on holiday to the seaside and goes for walks with his mother, treating her jealously if she pays attention to others, and treating her almost like a lover. Nothing is said explicitly that anything dodgy or incestuous is going on, and I'm not sure that there was, but there are certain undertones of a deeper sort of love that Paul feels for his mother.

Paul's only meaningful relationships are with his family and women, so it's interesting to see how he behaves with men; he only really gains male friends about 100 pages from the end. The contrast between the two types of relationships is clear. With the men, Paul is coarse and base, but with the women he allows himself to think more and to become more philosophical.

The whole book is a journey of not-quite-realisation for Paul, as he never really learns how to correct his ways and thereby move forward. We see him make the same mistakes over and over again and see his unavoidable demise throughout the book. It's definitely worth a punt, because it's genuinely fascinating and well-written (it's partly autobiographical, which gives some insight into D.H. Lawrence himself) and really beautiful. Next on my list is Women In Love, by D.H. Lawrence again, to see if Sons And Lovers was just a one-off hit! I'll keep you posted!

Tess of The d'Urbervilles

I am currently feeling very proud of myself, as this is the first (of hopefully many more to come) work by Thomas Hardy that I have ever read! Talk about depressing for the first taster, though. There is a succession of horrible and dramatic events, some of which include rape, an illegitimate child being born, true love being torn apart and much much more. If you're thinking " I could never ever not in a million years read that book! I would be in floods by the end of it" well, you are not altogether wrong. Yes, you would be in a torrent of tears by the end of it, but it would definitely be worth your while.

The description in this book is outstanding; the rich detail Hardy indulges us in is fantastic. Descriptions of the landscapes, characters and his or the character's observations on the world is astounding-almost like that guilty feeling you get after pinching an extra slice of your sibling's birthday cake...Not that I've ever done that...The immense, amazing and sometimes a little boring descriptions of the fertile landscape could be related back to Tess Durbeyfield and her position in the story, especially as a woman and therefore a vulnerable being. Hardy could either be drawing parallels between the purpose of a woman and the purpose of a landscape, or he could simply be describing what he takes in from looking at a Dorset landscape.

As to Tess herself, I have to say that although I do sympathize and do attempt to empathize with her situations throughout the book, I cannot say that I like her very much at all. I know, I have sinned against the Bible of all classic novels, but I honestly do not think that Tess is a very likable character. If she were living today, we would probably have her referred to a therapist for being a masochist. Truly, the girl seems to love being hurt over and over again by the ones she love. She forgives her rapist, and (spoiler alert) marries him (even though she is already married. That sure sounds like bigamy to me, which I'm sure wasn't legal back then, either) she refuses to tell him to GO AWAY AND STOP BEING A CREEPY STALKER and just lets him carry on stalking her and attempting to gain a way back into her life. She seems (again, I am about to sin) like a bit of a drip, if I'm honest. I could say that for all of the characters, though. Alec d'Urberville is a complete idiot who one wishes she could kill (I shan't spoil it for you) and he refuses to admit that he did any wrong by raping her, and insists that it was her fault for "tempting him"-Hardy's words, not mine. Angel Clare is lovely and I have fallen slightly in love with him. However, I can't forgive him for leaving Tess, drippy as she is. Sorry, I shall stop spoiling and get off the blog. Next, dear followers, I shall be reading, in accordance with what I have just read, a biography of Thomas Hardy, namely The Time-Torn Man, by Claire Tomalin. More updates when that's finished!

Fathers And Sons

Sooooooo... Hard-hitting, morally deep, philosophical Russian novel. Yup, sounds pretty true to type so far. But (although I say this about pretty much every book) there was something different about it which made it thoroughly fascinating to read.

From what I could gather from my dad, who seems to know everything about every book ever, it's the first book of its kind to portray the new breed of "nihilists", who were just emerging in the new generation of Russians in the 1860s. The nihilists basically believed in nothing without explicit proof that it worked or existed. For example, one of the characters, Bazarov, who is a hardcore nihilist, is training to be a country doctor like his father, but when asked if he believes in medicine, he replies that he doesn't. His friend Arkady, on the other hand, professes to be a nihilist, but has romantic inclinations (a romantic was a thing desperately despised by the nihilists for their utter willingness to believe in poetry, music, etc.) meaning that his heart isn't really in it. There's an interesting conflict between Arkady's uncle, Pavel, and Bazarov on their beliefs, but I'll leave it to you to discover the outcome...!

The ultimate test of Bazarov's beliefs comes when he falls in love with Madame Odintzov, a wealthy aristocrat who inherited all of her money from her husband who is, conveniently, deceased. He can't quite accept that he's falling in love as it goes against all of his fundamental beliefs (or non-beliefs, as it may be). His inner conflict (cue Made In Chelsea voice) is incredibly interesting to watch as it starts to define him in a way he doesn't know how to accept.

Well, tres bon indeed, and I thoroughly recommend that you read ca livre! Next, staying with the family theme, I shall be embarking on Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence, my first Lawrence EVER, so very excited to see how it turns out...

P.S. The translation that I've got of Fathers and Sons was genuinely awful. It anglicized all the Russian names and made some sentences very very hard indeed to comprehend! My advice: don't go second-hand with this one, you're gonna need to get a Penguin Classics or Vintage Classics, they've got the best modern translations.