Thursday 20 September 2012

Lorenzo, all is forgiven

Four chapters in, Sons & Lovers is triumphantly passing the iPod test. The tenderness, observation and psychological insight with which Lawrence creates the Morels' world are matchless.  There's real vitality here, the deep vitality that Lawrence worshipped in human relations, not the puffed-up, strained-for vitality that Women in Love bangs on about so tiresomely. So what went wrong? Is it another case of an author seduced by his own publicity (see our earlier post on Hilary Mantel on this subject), of an author writing more books than he has in him, of an author who knows he has death within him flailing about desperately to hold on to life?

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