"sons and lovers"

finished "sons and lovers" yesterday while sitting around waiting for luuk's surgery (for carpal tunnel, simple procedure, still took all day with recovery and check ups and paperwork...). i enjoyed the way characters were described and developed. i found particularly interesting the relationship between the mother and father, the slow move from passion to coldness to resolute commitment and eventual tolerance. how often does that not happen in real life! (not to me of course, we have a perfect relationship). i had a hard time, however, relating to and empathizing with the constant battling love-hate relationships of young paul. or the painful dedication to his mother. i trudged through the last half of the book, hoping for at least some hot love scene to at least make it slightly more exciting only to be treated to less than explicit descriptions of any such behavior and the constant back-and-forth of "he hates her, he loves her, he wants her, he detests her...she hates him, loves him, wants him, detests him...". egh. the focus was on the inward struggle, never resolved, quite frustrating really, and eventually somewhat boring. poor lawrence. he must have had a difficult and un-necessarily complicated life. so much import given to emotions. had he, paul, only been more like his mother, willing at least to choose a route and stick with it, come what may. instead he allowed himself to be led by the lesser, unsteady rule of feelings, passion, desire.
i suppose, at some point, i have experience this struggle myself to some extent, "do i want him, he has some power over me, but i don't really love him, what to do, what to do?", and so on. but i never really stayed in such a position long enough for it to become a real problem. perhaps the one element of the story that i could relate to was the feeling of trapped-ness (is that a proper word?) accompanied with being with someone to whom you do not feel equal. one will always have power over the other, and the other will always suffocate the first. happily, i do not find myself in that situation now. perhaps partly due to resolute commitment, accompanied with steady sense and choice. passion comes in bouts, and affection is constant. love has many forms. i suppose that is all easier when the relationship started with is equal to begin with. i guess, after thinking about it a bit, that that was lawrence's greatest struggle. but i still think he was too emotional. ah, but so it is with all them artist types, no?
cheers.