Not that great. ( )

It is always interesting to read a major author's last works first, and then delve into their first novel. I found myself spiralling down from a Love Among the Haystacks quaintness, to a period Enid Blyton curiosity, and finally to a period piece of young adult (YA) fiction. That is, until towards the end when the major characters are approaching middle age. This is where the back cover's "strange genius" is evident. The tone moves with the age of the characters. It is always difficult to limit the affect of introductions and other readings in how one interprets a novel, but I think here the back cover's "strange genius" is right. The botanical and ornithological details provided by the first-person narrator irritatingly reminded me of Jean M. Auel's endless treatise on herbalism in the Clan of the Cave Bear series, rather than being the fine poetry promised by the back cover. Nevertheless, if my view that Lawrence begins the novel with a teenage knowledge of the world and ends with an educated, middle age view of the world is correct, the flora and fauna provide the one constant theme, in the form of the knowledge of a hobbyist that is untouched by formal or social training or experience, that otherwise comes to bear as the characters age. The conclusion left me with a physical shudder. I think it is the ordinariness of the story that makes it so powerful. This is not a fanciful tale but a story that any one of us could, and in fact do, live out, and this is clearly the novel's great strength. ( )

St. Barts 2012 #5 - Lawrence's first novel....a heavily nature-described tale of life of three neighboring households at Nethermere, a forgotten hollow in England. The story is oddly narrated by the character of Cyril, who really does not play much of a role other than to be there to tell us what the others are up to. The title appears to represent the lead female self-centered character of Lettie, Cyril's sister, yet to me, the book is more the story of the decline of George. Multiple relationships develop between the young adults of the neighborhood, all to differing degrees of success, none of them reaching true happiness. Qualities of this book that i loved were the detailed insight into life on a farm in early 1900's England, and the harsh life and death struggles of all of nature's creatures, human and otherwise. Too much flowery descriptions of the setting for my taste, yet, i put the book down with a very vivid sense of what Nethermere looked, smelled and felt like, so there certainly was some value. All in all, an ok book that seemed to take longer to get through than i expected it to, but so it goes with some of the classics. All of Lawrence's defining works still remain on the shelf and i am not discouraged enough to clear them out yet. We shall see...... ( )

Observation without too much drum banging ( )