Observations as I read

As I get further into Women in Love, I am finding that it is truly a book that explores the human soul. We're talking there being not much happening in the sense of actual actions, and a whole lot happening in each character's mind. There's dialogue, but the dialogue is definitely the kind that says one easy-enough-to-understand thing on the surface, but eludes to something much deeper, much more complicated. It's quite the exercise for the reading mind.

There was one chunk of a chapter that I could swear is exactly what my creative writing teacher told us not to do when we're writing, albeit he was talking about short stories.

You see, D.H. Lawrence has this way, as many other authors do from his time, and even today do, of exploring a character's one thought, and pretty much beating it over the head senseless. In turn, it beats the reader over the head senseless, too. He doesn't do it throughout, but there was one particular episode where Ursula was sitting at home waiting one Sunday for her beau to call on her. Her thoughts, as she waits, are centered around the idea that she is going to die, the same way that anyone anxious to hear from their love interest, and unsure when that will be, feels like they're going to die.

It would have sufficed to just say, "Ursula felt like she was going to die, as she waited for Birkin's form to appear." Instead, we are given about five pages talking about how she is better off dead, that there was nothing left in life for her, because she had experienced all that she wanted or could want to experience in life (except of course for Birkin to show up), and therefore, death was only the next step in life.

It's very philosophical and internal a conflict, which although it fits the mood and style of this book, it was just long enough to bore me for a spell, but not long enough to turn me off and away from the entire work.

On a happy endnote: Ursula's beau, Birkin, does finally show up.

Until next time...