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Women in Love Audiobook
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(3.00) - 13,425 listener ratings
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A powerful and engrossing tale of extremes and extremists, D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love follows the passionate relationships of two sisters, Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen, with their respective lovers, the ominous Gerald Crich and the charismatic but fragile Rupert Birkin. Beginning in a narrow-minded English colliery town and culminating amidst the ice and snow of the Alps, the abortive alliance between the two men and the couples' affairs are played out against the derangements of industrialism and the need to find new ways of living and better ways of dying.
A masterpiece that heralded the erotic consciousness of the twentieth century, Lawrence considered Women in Love his best novel, exploring through it his belief that love is "the great creative process."
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"It is Lawrence's most complete statement. He argues with himself all through it: struggling to find a way to define what he wants to know about the individual and others. The characters are intense, fierce, intelligent, combative. They clash; they pound into each other. Lawrence explores ideas through the fist-tight dialogue and the bold imagery. And he quests for answers in his insistent narrative too. Ursula remains the real centre of the book, but Birkin, Gudrun and Gerald all get close-up focus too. I remembered from the film that one of the male characters died at the end. Funny, I was relieved to find that it was Gerald. Birkin is more congenial to me. Sadly, Ursula has no more sapphic adventures, but Gerald and Birkin represent an awkward attempt at male companionship that never quite happens. Lawrence is never less than interesting, and he has a great talent for rendering action with vivid immediacy. This is a book that is worth arguing with."
— Richard (5 out of 5 stars)
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His masterpiece.... An astonishing work that moves on several levels.... Lawrence compels us to admit that we live less finely than we should, whatever we are.
— The New York Review of Books
Women in Love Listener Reviews
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" a beautifully written book. A book that makes you both think and feel deeply. "
— Emi, 2/19/2014 -
" Lawrence's characters are well-developed psychologically, especially the males, which makes them interesting to read about. I preferred this novel to Lady Chatterly's Lover which I read a few years later and which gets all the hype. As a woman, it was interesting and amusing to read about women and sexuality from a male's perspective; all the stuff about 'penis envy' and the revered phallus was very new to me. "
— Jamie, 2/18/2014 -
" I fell in love with D.H. Lawrence after this novel. Like most loves, I suppose, I would like less of him after "Sons and Lovers" and "Lady Chatterley," but still "Women in Love" takes the reader to great places and makes him/her eavesdrop on pretty interesting conversations. "
— Ke, 2/14/2014 -
" Lawrence is writing philosophy so reading him is sometimes exhausting and to be done little by little. The chapters are almost a series of self-contained illustrations of ideas although there are characters (Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, again) and a story (love, or course). For example, how to have a conversation with an acquaintance on the train in which one says all the things one ordinarily would not say; how loving one's sister and hating her are pretty much the same thing; whether the best way to be a person is to subsume oneself in another person or remain coherent and unmixed; the wonderfulness of thick, brightly colored silk stockings; and, finally, whether or not naked wrestling with a friend makes one gay. "
— Josie, 2/11/2014 -
" I'm utterly ambivalent about my feelings towards this book. It was delightfully homoerotic and delivered on its promise of scandal; however, the unending emotional and philosophical roller-coaster became a bit too much. I'm loath to admit that I stopped about 70 or so pages from the end. It may have just been my mood or the fact that I did not read it consistently enough but I grew completely disinterested in all of the characters. I generally find discussions of freedom, will, and individuality in the context of relationships quite moving, but for some reason in the context of this novel they just didn't hit the spot. Preferring simple and stark language, the writing style, being so florid, was not really my taste and I found the repetition of such hyperbolic phrases (and overuse of the word loin) unappealing. I can see the appeal and appreciate it in the context of its epoch; but, this book was rather flat for me. Although I did find moments of humor and enjoyment, I felt more the pull to put it down soon after I had picked it up. "
— Emm, 2/9/2014 -
" Words words words. Lawrence does have a flowerly style but this was a bit much. This is supposed to be his best work, but I loved Sons and Lovers so much more. "
— Megann, 2/8/2014 -
" I liked it because it was funny, but not usually on purpose. "
— Holly, 2/3/2014 -
" I read it as a school text in high school. It was very tedious to read the stream of consciousness style of writing and some concepts i just found perverse, like the star equilibrium which Birkin proposes. Imagery is vivid and often too intense. But i think there is a lot more to be gained from reading this again, if one ever feels up to it. "
— Sahe94, 1/28/2014 -
" Have to say I did not get on very well with this book and could not relate to the characters at all. I did manage to get to then end but can not say that I enjoyed it. "
— Kingfan30, 1/26/2014 -
" Read it a long time ago but don't recall a whole lot about it. I remember liking it well enough but not enough to read it again or to write home about it. "
— KJ, 1/26/2014 -
" While I appreciate Lawrence's writing style and character development, I found this novel difficult to get through. There is little plot to speak of and more philophosizing than I typically like in a novel. That said, I can definitely see how it would improve with discussion. Maybe I would have gotten more out of it had I read it for a class or book club instead of on my own. "
— Abbey, 1/24/2014
About D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) was a British writer of novels, poems, essays, short stories, and plays. Some of the books he wrote in the early 1900s became controversial because they contained direct descriptions of sexual relations. His best-known books are Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
About Wanda McCaddon
Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.