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Rating  - I lost my virginity to this book
This book really awakened my sexuality back in college. I was lifted and washed away on a tide of passionate longing, straight into the arms of a cute road crew guy who had been working on my street that summer. Before I read it, I was just another shy nerd. Afterward! I became the audacious sex goddess that you see today! O, beware this magick book, for it will unlock you!!!
Rating - Utterly Gorgeous Writing!!!
I had actually never read any of Lawrence's works before, though I had heard much praise about him. Saga type stories tend to interest me in the way you can trace growth in characters and really get into them, so I thought I would give this a try. So glad I did! Lawrence writes with some of the most beautifully lyrical and lush wording. Even when speaking of the dirty coal mines of England, you can almost feel the grime on your own skin, or when Ursula travels to the shore and plays in the surf you feel as if you're right there feeling and hearing the ocean on yourself. It reminded me somewhat of the way Fitzgerald writes. Also, seeing the growth and change in the different generations of one family was very interesting to me, especially the way that Lawrence as a man so keenly captured the struggles of girls developing into womanhood and accepting those changes and dealing with first loves and heartbreaks. If you come across this book, dont let it go!! I am currently reading this book's sequel Women in Love - let you know how it goes!
Rating - The Rainbow is one of D.H. Lawrence's finest achievements
Daivd Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11, 1885 in the ugly mining area of Nottingham in the English Midlands. His father Arthur was a hardworking miner who opened the world of natural beauty to the lad. His mother was a woman who focused her attentions on "Bert" so the boy would develop his artistic inclinations. Together this ordinary couple produced a literary genius. Lawrence would change the novel and the way we read novels.
In 1915 he wrote the Rainbow which tells the three generational tale of the Brangwen mining and farming family of Nottinghamshire. The generational stories revolve around:
a. Tom and Lydia Brangwen-He is a strong man who marries the Polish widow Lydia. Together they have several children as they build a world of their own on their farm.The couple has difficult communicating well together except in the marital bed.
b. Will and Anna Brangwen-Anna was the daughter of Lydia and her first husband a Polish physician who died young. While Will and Anna have a brood of children it is Anna who is in the spotlight. She weds her cousin Will. We see them making love; Anna dancing in the nude during a pregnancy and becoming an earth mother loving her man, home and land.
c. Ursula is the oldest daughter of Will and Anna. She is a shy girl who blossoms in the novel. Ursuala becomes a schoolteacher in a grim urban school; falls in love and leaves Anton Skrebensky and returns home to her family and the friendship and love of her sister Ursula. These two girls will be the main characters in "Women in Love" the sequel to "The Rainbow." Ursula develops a lesbian relationship in this novel but is clearly bisexual in orientation. The novel ends with her miscarriage as she is chased by a herd of horses in the rain.
That is the outline of the story. Nothing much happens on the surface; plot is there but is minimal. What Lawrence aimed for in this fiction was the experience of sexual awakening; the female organism and the stormy but essential relationship between the sexes. His language is poetic in beauty and bristles with the life force. His descriptions of nature are detailed and evocative making him the heir to Thomas Hardy.
"The Rainbow" was removed from the bookstore due to the strict and puritanical English censorship during World War I. Lawrence's wife Frieda who was German was under suspicion as a spy and the couple had a terrible time. Today in our sexually liberated culture "The Rainbow" is far from shocking. What we remember is the beauty of the language and the sense of time passing in the genealogical study he gives to one English family.
Lawrence hated modernity, industrialism and the rape of the English countryside due to mining. He is romantic yearning for a simpler time.
This classic novel published in the Cambridge Edition by Penguin paperbacks is well worth your time and money.
Rating - emotion
This book delves into the thoughts and feelings of the Brangwen family and their loves. It shows how beautiful life really is and does it in the most meticulous fashion. The Brangwen women display an air of grace and wonder as they examine the numerous changes occuring around them. Their character is the most beautiful aspect of the book. Anna and Ursula are dear protagonists and are hard not to love for their spry and dissenting yet caring personalities. This book is of medium length and is a very thorough look at life through women's eyes and emotions from a male novelist. A great read!
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Customer Reviews for Penguin Classics,0141441380,9780141441382,0141441380,823.912 |
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Books : The Rainbow: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Penguin Classics) Customer Reviews
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