I went into D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover with a healthy dose of trepidation. Women in Love after all was the only book in this crusade that I’ve been unable to finish so far. But this one is a lot better.
The book follows Constance (Connie) Chatterley, who has married into the wealthy upper class. However, she finds it is a loveless marriage to a man, Clifford, who is not manly enough for her, and not because he is bound to a wheelchair as a result of the war. She begins to stray and falls in love with the gameskeeper, Oliver Mellors. Mellors is a strapping man who has intelligence too, but he is of the lower class. When she can no longer live this double life, she hatches a plan to leave her husband and force him into a divorce.
Like Women in Love, this novel is short on story and heavy on debate, including such topics as the meaning of life, the meaning of love, the meaning of intelligence. Dry writing to be sure, and not page-turning worthy, but the story itself is very well written and engaging enough to keep you going, wondering what is going to happen. The book is really all about relationships and Lawrence’s rather bleak look at the future of humankind.
This book was first published in 1928, but faced an uphill battle due to charges of obscenity. Lawrence is fairly graphic describing Connie and Oliver’s sex scenes, more to show their intimate and loving connection than for any perverse reason, and the publisher had to win trials in both the UK and the USA over the course of several decades before it was openly available. Maybe not the most interesting book I’ve read so far, but perhaps one of the most groundbreaking ones, as it opened up a whole new chapter for freedom of speech.
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