Women in Love

I'm glad I did persevere to finish this book, although there were several times when I felt like giving up, that I was putting in a lot of effort for minimal reward.

I found the relationship between Gerald and Birkin to be the high point of this book. Their conversations seemed to me to be the most alive, whereas those between the women and these men were frequently repetitive and overly melodramatic. And, to be honest, I struggled to understand what the sisters Ursula and Gudrun actually found attractive in either man. However Lawrence's view of the roles of women and men are very much of a time and of a class and, as such, it was interesting to discover his perspective.

Took quite a while to finish. Similar thematically to Lady Chatterly’s Lover in some regards…however far more sweeping in its implicit claims about romantic and fraternal love. A lot to unpack here, and perhaps a monumentally important work in which the author’s insights subtly work their way into your mind until, by the end, you feel you’ve had a vague epiphany that requires you to sit back and digest the essence and work out the logic.