Love among the Haystacks

by D.H. Lawrence

'Love Among the Haystacks' is a powerful story of sibling rivalry and the destructive passion of sexual envy.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Romance, 20th Century, Literature, Literary Fiction

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[Seyed Mohammad Reza Mahdavi · Rating 2 out of 5]

به خاطر قدیمی بودن کتاب، ترجمه برای زمان حال مناسب نیست و مشکل حروف چینی و ویراستاری هم وجود دارد

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am reviewing only Love Among the Haystacks.

A story about two brothers working and living at their family farm outside of Nottingham, England. Their relationship with each other is one theme. The second is their respective initiation into the world of love and sex with women.

In my view the story doesn’t go deep enough. It occurs over one day and a night. It is written in dialect; I failed to understand all that was said. I had difficulty understanding how the haystack being built was constructed, and when an accident/push occurs, I could not see in my mind’s eye what had happened. The ending is too quick. Nope, the whole story needed to be further developed, added to, worked on.

Observing the brothers’ relationship is what I appreciate most. Over the passage of a day, their relationship and each one's self-perception has changed.

The audiobook, sold by Audible in the US, contains two novellas by D.H. Lawrence –The Ladybird and Love Among the Haystacks. It is advertised as being narrated by Margaret Hilton. She narrates only The Ladybird, while Love Among the Haystacks is narrated by Victoria Morgan. I have informed Audible of the error. Hopefully this will be fixed. I prefer Hilton’s narration, but Morgan’s isn’t bad either. The dialect makes it more difficult to narrate and more difficult for the listener to follow. The speed is fine. Morgan’s narration I have given three stars.

***************************

*Sons and Lovers 1 star
*Lady Chatterley's Lover 1 star
*Love Among the Haystacks 3 stars
*The Rainbow 4 stars
*The Virgin and the Gipsy 5 stars
*The Ladybird 5 stars

*Women in Love TBR
*The Lost Girl: Cambridge Lawrence Edition TBR

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six short stories.
Love Among the Haystacks
The Lovely Lady
Rawdon's Roof
The Rocking-Horse Winner
The Man Who Loved Islands
The Man Who Died.

My favourite stories are The Rocking-Horse Winner and The Lovely Lady.
There are some things to discuss in each story. The Man Who Loved Islands and The Rocking-Horse Winner particularly. As for The Lovely Lady, it is a short story with a powerful finish.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed the title story here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I reviewed several other DHL short stories, including some of those in this collection, here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kaplumbağa Felsefecisi · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 öyküden oluşan bir kitap. Edebiyatın erotizm mimarlarından olan yazar, sekse dair tek kelime etmeden inceden dokunuyor. Dönemiyle değerlendirince çok sıradışı bir şey yapıyor aslında ama bizim dönemimiz için yavan geldi bana açıkçası.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opening lines:
The two large fields lay on a hillside facing south. Being newly cleared of hay, they were golden green, and they shone almost blindingly in the sunlight. Across the hill, half-way up, ran a high hedge, that flung its black shadow finely across the molten glow of the sward. The stack was being built just above the hedge.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having just read Lawrence's "Rainbow", I felt "Love Among the Haystacks" fell short among his works. "Haystacks" double love-story is handled nicely though, balanced with a very satisfactory ending for all. (I must spread more time between reading the works of the same author, as it is hard for me to separate review them on their own.)

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dont think I love his writing style but I actually quite liked the vibe. Pretty thrilling concept and I thought all the characters were fun. This should have been a novel and lady chatterlys a short.

[Catherine Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm commenting on the short story, 'Love Among the Haystacks', which I've read within a different collection - not this one!

I would recommend this story to anyone who doesn't normally go in for reading short stories because it's a very fine example of what can be achieved in short fiction.

I love the fact that DH Lawrence so rapidly creates the world in which the story is set, taking the reader back in time to the rural heart of England. I enjoyed the dialect, reflecting the awkwardness of the brothers, Maurice and Geoffrey. And of course, because it's Lawrence, nothing really is cosy or straightforward: the heroines appear foreign and challenging, and there is conflict between the brothers.

And yet, as the title suggests, this is ultimately a very hopeful story, with happy outcomes.

[Mike Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because on a trip to Hay-On-Wye, my wife picked up a poster of 'The Man Who Died' original cover in a sale and it's been on our house wall for the last year. 'The Man Who Died' is something I've never read, so I bought this collection of short stories to see if I liked the book that has been adorning my hallway for the last twelve months.


I started off enjoying the title story - a simple countryside story about a pair of brothers, sibling rivalry and young love. I also really enjoyed 'The Lovely Lady' - which deals with maternal love as well as how people maintain public appearances. 'Rawdon's Roof' and 'The Rocking Horse Winner' didn't really do a lot for me however, although the allegory was rather blunt, I enjoyed the descriptive prose and the plot of 'The Man Who Loved Islands'.

Finally, I got to 'The Man Who Died'. It is a re-imagining and re-telling of the resurrection of Christ and what he did after he returned to life. Basically, he walks about a bit, realised that he was so busy being a saviour and teacher in his first incarnation, that he failed to experience life before his death. He then walks about a bit, meets a Priestess of Ibis who wants to have sex with him. Ponders whether to or not for a bit and... well. To tell any more would be a spoiler.


I'm still unsure how much I enjoyed the last story. It was an interesting premise, but I'm not entirely sure that he pulled it off.

Nevertheless, the poster matches the colour scheme so, for now, I will keep the poster where it is.

[Janith Pathirage · Rating 3 out of 5]

I much prefer Wimaladasa Samarasinha's translation (Aadarabara Aaryawa) over this one. This book has the same D H Lawrence short stories Aadarabara Aryawa had and one more. The language was bit too heavy hence I felt like it has failed to capture the beauty of Larunace's writing style. Even though some of the magic has been lost in translation, it was a bold attempt. Translating D.H. Lawrence stories is no joke.

[Connor Dempsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a while since I wanted to look at my phone this badly while reading a book. There's some gems in here for sure but my boy D.H.'s ponderous prose was not made for an age where at any moment you can turn and look up Harris Dickinson's filmography.

[Adrienna · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the beginning, it sort of reminded me of a remake of Cain and Abel (Bible). It was a clear depiction that Maurice was the good looking fellow in the fields, working hard (like Abel), and Georgory was lazy, laying in the haystack, and brewing with hatred of his younger, handsome brother. This is supposed to be a German classic. After seeing this drawn up, but Georgory was not successful with killing or seeing his brother die...life went on. It lost me a little with the woman coming in the picture, who was once married or speaks of a husband, and later marries Maurice and also his brother does well off too. I skimmed through it so fast while someone was talking to me...I could have missed it but was bored after the first half.

It was a short read for easy reading, or young people due to the vocabulary and style of writing presented in this novel. It was in our library while going through weeding process which I finally get a chance to do librarian stuff....

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprising range in these six stories from 1929-33, in a 1960 Penguin collection (picked out for 20p in a charity shop!). The title story is pure Lawrence, two sets of male & female bodies to bring to physical union against the odds.But the other stories are disparate & interesting, particularly the long story that brings this pot-pourri to a conclusion with an elegaic treatment of the risen Jesus, who is delineated as 'The Man Who Died'! He consummates his strange 'posthumous' journey by enjoying the toothsome favours of a beatific & lovely priestess of Isis, who sees him as the god, Osiris; he leaves her expecting another divine birth to fade to oblivion.A bearded & dying Lawrence as Christ stretches a thin skein of reality to breaking-point.If you like variety...well, this collection certainly has that!

[Takuma Kusagawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

1.OXFORD,Level2

2.10/7=10minutes,10/8=70minutes

3.love,farm,brother,hay,words,engage,night

4.Maurice said to Geoffrey "But you don't know, do you? You don't know wha happened last night, up here in the hayfield."
Maurice and Geoffrey is brother and they love same girl. Last night, Maurice had same time with the girl and kissed her, so I worried about Geoffrey and sympathized with him.

5.At first, the relationship between Maurice and Geoffrey was not good because they loved same girl, but in the end, Maurice was engaged to the firl and Geoffrey found the new girl. In addition to that, the relationship between them became good, so my feeling became good.

[Mio Takasaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. Oxford, level2
2. 06/06=40minutes, 06/07=20minutes, 06/08=40minutes
3. strong wall, German girl, hayfield, ride, havy rain, another girl, together
4. a. Two brothers who are building the haystack fight among the love. They do not have a experience of love, but they find their love each other.
b. My favorite passage is that Geoffrey helped a strange woman because his action was so kind and cool.
5. The first, I thought two brothers were poor because they were working hard on the haystack everyday. However, the same time, they met their destined person. On the way, many incidents happened, but I felt happy in the end.

[Randy Hendrickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice short novel. The finish is rather hasty... I particularly like the portion that describes a nighttime ascent by horseback of a prominence in the Nottingham neighborhood. Great descriptive writing about place as well as emotional space.

[punchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I already love everything I’ve read by Lawrence. I expected Love Among the Haystacks to be a love story with a lot of inner thoughts from the characters, and it’s pretty much exactly that. That’s what I love about Lawrence—and I’m a romantic at heart.

The way he described the atmosphere was interesting. Usually, writers just describe the scenery—the landscapes, the trees, the buildings, and so on—but in this one, the atmosphere is described through the actions of the people. You can feel that it’s a farm where people are working hard, and there’s still a lot to be done. The story is full of life and energy, which is perfect for a story about young love.

The characters are young men, and they feel like young men. They’re very realistic. I’m a woman, so of course I can’t say for sure what it’s like to be a young man, but I think Lawrence did a great job showing it through the characters. Their frustration, of course—but also the way they see each other and the women. The way they were so ready to fall in love. Their insecurities. It’s beautifully written.

We don’t get to hear the women’s inner dialogue as much as we do in Lady Chatterley’s Lover or Women in Love, but that’s not a bad thing. This story isn’t about the women. Still, the way they’re written is great—they feel very realistic. They’re women with feelings, with their own stories the men don’t fully know, with struggles, tempers, and failings. They’re not just damsels. And they’re not “proper” women like in books written around the same time. They’re common women with common problems many women of the time would’ve had. And the men fall in love with them anyway. I love that part. The moment they fall in love really does feel like young, poppy love.

I’m not sure what Lawrence was trying to say at the time, but it’s probably something about class—and it would’ve been progressive. They’re having relations out of wedlock; one of the girls is foreign, and the other is married and planning to elope. These things weren’t acceptable in England at the time. Which is weird—Thai society is much more relaxed when it comes to love and marriage.

I always love Lawrence’s writing. It’s so emotional—I could feel everything his characters felt. The scene where one of the brothers is trying to warm the girl up, asking about her life, listening to her, consoling her, and falling in love with her at the same time—that was beautiful. I almost cried reading it. It’s so romantic. It’s raining outside. And you’re looking into someone’s eyes, talking about the deepest things. That is how you fall in love.

This book really reminded me of young love and how I’ve fallen in love before. When you’re young, there’s so much going on in your life—work, the season changing, not being sure who you are or where you belong in the world. But then once in a while, you meet someone. And you get a little moment in time that can never be repeated, but it’s like the universe puts you there together. You talk, you bond in the deepest way—and the next thing you know, you’re in love.
This book is perfect for someone as romantic as me, of course—and also for anyone conservative who thinks people in the past were so proper and prudish. Nope—people will always find love. You can’t tell people who or how they’re supposed to love. If the Victorians couldn’t stop young people from doing it in the haystacks, no one can. Haha.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Love Among the Haystacks, D.H. Lawrence explores sibling rivalry, sexual awakening, and the unraveling of oedipal bonds, all set during a rural English hay harvest. The story follows the brothers Maurice and Geoffrey Wookey as they each experience sexual initiation, loosening their complex ties to their mother. Lawrence’s metaphorical treatment of these intimate moments is subtle and evocative, capturing the tension between desire and societal constraints. I find the themes of repressed sexuality and the marginalization of outsiders, like Maurice’s fiancée Paula, a Polish refugee, especially compelling. These themes feel like a precursor to what would become central in The Rainbow.

That said, I do feel that the story is somewhat uneven. The plot shifts between the brothers' psychological development and their sexual experiences, which can make the narrative feel disjointed at times. While the rural setting and symbolism are vivid, the characters themselves don't always have the depth I expected, making it harder for me to fully connect with them. The story’s exploration of sexual repression and societal taboos is fascinating, but it feels underdeveloped within the short format. If given the opportunity to expand towards a full length novel, I believe that Love Among the Haystacks would have been highly regarded in literary spheres. Ultimately, Love Among the Haystacks is an important early work, offering insight into Lawrence’s themes, but it’s not as fully realized as some of his later stories, so I’d give it a 3.5-star rating.

A song that resonates with Love Among the Haystacks is Reba McEntire, Vince Gill - The Heart Won't Lie

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This summer, I decided to clean out my closet. On the bookshelf in my closet, I found an anthology entitled "D.H. Lawrence, Master's Library". It contains 3 of his novels, and this novella. The book is 35 years old, and has never been read.
I know you are thinking...who has a book case in their closet? Well, why not? I don't have to leave my bedroom to explore my "next reads". I have a system. The books move up toward my nightstand after much thought...but I digress.
I considered getting rid of the book. I mean...35 years! But alas, 3 of the novels in the book are on list: "The Greatest Books" (https://thegreatestbooks.org/). So now you know this: I have a bookcase in my closet, and I am not only obsessed with books, but lists about books!! The website "The Greatest Books" tells you what other lists the book is on. So, being obsessed with lists, I also create shelves on Goodreads. And I also print the lists and put them in my bedside table. (Ok, maybe I do have a problem).
So, I looked through the book and said to myself, "What is the deal with this D.H. Lawrence?" I chose this novella because it was short. The book I have is teeny tiny type, and this selection was only 26 pages.
Well, I loved it! If you like writing that has a distinct sense of place, this is was excellent. It is a sweet story about two brothers who are in competition for the affections of a woman, which puts them at odds... but each find "Love among the Haystacks".

[Richard Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The five stars are for the title story, apparently written in 1912; the rest date from the last five years of Lawrence's life, when the tuberculosis must have been taking its toll on his thinking and on his ability to write at all. Compared to 'Love among the Haystacks' itself, they aren't worth serious consideration, though 'The Rocking Horse Winner' has a ghoulish, Roald Dahl like power.

The sensitively drawn and thoroughly human love stories of 'Love...' do make this a must-read but I advise almost anyone to avoid 'The Man who Died'. Re-tellings of the gospel story rarely if ever convince, partly because they suffer by comparison with Saint Luke, who was a biographical writer of astonishing power, even if you don't believe a word. This one is as leaden and uninspiring as 'Behold the Man' and, like Moorcock, Lawrence was, at other times, capable of better.

[Harrison Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Lawrence's shorter works, this novel involves two brothers, close in age, being raised on a farm who are engaged in sibling rivalry that almost seriously injures one of the brothers. Each is at an age where marriage is on their minds, but neither yet has a match. That changes over the course of a few days when one young woman comes to the aid of the brother she believes has been injured, while another young woman arrives on the scene as part of a wandering married couple who are without work and hungry. This leads the brothers to have to consider their futures simultaneously. The difficulty of this book, in my view, lies in Lawrence's frequent use of colloquial speech that is often hard to deduce -- for instance, "now are ter commin?" and "it is an' a'!"

[Buthaina Abdullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"لا صوت سوى صوت المطر. وقف بين الأكداس، وسمع خرير الماء وحده، وهفيف المطر الخفيف. غرق كلّ شيء في الظلام وانمحى لكنه موجود. في السواد الكثيف شعر بنفسه محطمًا. كان يخشى أن لا يجد الأمور نفسها. تعثر بشكل مسعور وتحسس طريقه إلى أن مسّت يده المعدن المبلل. كان يبحث عن ومضة من الضوء."

[Sara SR · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not what I like. I expected a lot from this book, and the first story although predictable was still enjoyable to read. The rest of it, not so much. Gave up over halfway through, since I was just wasting my time trying to finish this in the hopes of giving it 3 stars.

[Beyza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uğur Böceği ve Tilki hikâyeleri çok güzeldi.

"İçinde iki şey mücadele ediyordu, boşluk gibi sonsuz bir yalnızlık duygusu ve kendisini yalnızlığından ona doğru itecek olan karanlık bir alev akını." sf 103

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really very beautiful. Read it one afternoon, set to a Thomas Newman soundtrack.

[Alexander M Nandan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two simple reason for love and sex.

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suddenly remember reading this book in the 5th grade. Don't remember anything about it except that i liked the word "Among".

[Sanjay Chandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful story by Lawrence in which he speaks about two brothers and their finding livelong love among haystacks on a rainy night.

[Amanda mcguire · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 stars

Love among the haystacks - 3 stars
The Lovely Lady - 2 stars
Rawdons roof - 2 stars
The rocking-horse winner - 3 stars
The man who loved Islands - 3 stars
The man who died - 2 stars