Lawrence's maxim 'we shed our sicknesses in books' is usually applied to Sons and Lovers, where he disposed of his nearly fatal over-attachment to his mother. But Women in Love is a cathartic novel too, though here the sickness is less easy to cure. The sickness itself is obvious enough: it is misanthropy, a continuous rage at almost everyone around. If Lawrence did not manage to shed it he at least made his most strenuous attempt in Women in Love to probe, and to judge, the 'indignant temperament' that has tarnished his reputation since the Great War.

LRB 3 September 1987 | PDF Download