While it may be true that this book was groundbreaking in its time, and that it necessitated some important legal battles about freedom of speech in literature, I had to plod my way through it with the aid of caffeine and a sense of historical import.
Its characters are walking ideologies who interact with so much melodrama that they're difficult to believe in.
I'm sure Lawrence's approach to the spirit/body dynamic was fresh in its time, but this reader/reviewer finds it fresh no longer. And the explicit language, so horrifying to our ancestors, seems more than a little cheesy in retrospect.
I thoroughly enjoyed Lawrence's earlier novel Sons and Lovers, and I intend to spend time with his other books in the future, but I ended this one with a sense of disappointment. I gave it some credit for being a brave effort by an author I like, but I can't offer any real praise for the content and approach of this novel.
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