Sons and Lovers

I can't remember now how this D.H. Lawrence novel ended up on my kindle; I hadn't really planned to read it.  But it slowly transitioned from something that was conveniently lying on the nightstand at the right moment, to something that drew me in enough to read the whole thing.  Sons and Lovers is the story of the Morel family, and more specifically, the story of the coming of age of the world's most archetypical mama's boy, Paul Morel.  While I enjoyed the keen psychological insight of the novel as well as the writing, at times I felt it reeked a bit of soap opera.  Perhaps the problem is that Lawrence manages to get you invested in characters that you never actually quite like.  As humans they are a bit of a caricature, with their stubborn obsessions and chronic inability to really figure themselves out.  Which of course actually makes them as realistically frustrating to deal with as yourself and everyone you know.  The other thing that drew me into the novel was the way the complexity of the writing progressed as the story unfolded.  Early in the book, when the story is mostly focused on the mother, the succinct, matter of fact tone matches her personality and education.  Then, as the story of her first two sons begins to take shape, the writing changes to reflect their development, until it culminates in the almost cosmic speculative tone that Paul embodies by the end of the novel.  It's a pretty impressive piece of literature that also manages to be an engrossing tale.