David King's Blog: A New Author's Journey - Posts Tagged "love"
Why You Must Read Lady Chatterley
The following is a review I wrote for 'You Must Read This' in the Irish Independent.
Most people have heard of D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book forever associated with the ‘dirty book’ trial of 1960, in which Penguin was victorious against the British Government. But despite knowing of the book, how many people have actually read it? The infamously graphic sex scenes, peppered with Anglo-Saxon and including an indirect reference to anal sex, make it as hot today as when it was first written, but there’s a lot more to it than lustiness.
For one thing, Lady Chatterley is Lawrence’s most easy-to-read book. The style is shorn of the introspection of Women in Love, or The Rainbow. The plot unravels quickly. Constance, the lady of the manor, has a husband, Clifford, who is confined to a wheelchair and impotent, leaving his wife vulnerable to temptation.
Mellors the gruff gamekeeper lurks on the estate in his cave-like cottage, a wild man in waiting. The inevitable and orgasmic collision between Mellors and Constance is not long in coming.
But the story is more complex than urban legend suggests, because Constance’s frustration with Clifford is not simply sexual, but also intellectual. He, and his dry academic friends, don’t touch her mind any more than he does her body, and it’s the lack of any connection or meaning that leaves her unfulfilled.
Mellors is initially unreceptive to Constance’s advances, nursing a corrosive cynicism about the world. He’s far more than the typical gamekeeper - a World War One officer and a refugee from the industrial civilisation he holds responsible for the horrors of the trenches.
What happens between Constance and Mellors is a connection deeper than the sweating and grunting of physical release, though sex is the gateway. When they make love on the forest floor, the simultaneous orgasm they share is transformative for Constance, revealing to her the depth of connection.
A growing understanding of each other builds, becoming a love that unites the two halves of humanity – the intellectual and physical. It’s a love powerful enough to redeem souls and change lives. Constance duly leaves Clifford and sacrifices her privileged life for it. Mellors loses his job, but they are together. <
You should read Lady Chatterley for its explosive passion, for its honesty (one of the first books to acknowledge female desire) and beauty of the evocation of love in the open air (weaving forget-me-nots into your lover’s pubic hair).
But the reason you must read it is the back story. Lawrence was ill with TB when writing and unable to meet the sexual needs of his wife Frieda, and was the model for the impotent Clifford, while Freida was the inspiration for Constance. And well she might be, considering her numerous lovers and the infamous incident in which she swam the River Isar to offer herself on a whim to a random woodcutter.
This begs an intriguing question. Since lady Chatterley is triumphant over her husband, was the book a covert green light to Freida’s infidelities, recognising her needs and setting Lawrence’s feelings aside? That would be real love indeed, and it also happens to be a distinctly Lawrencian train of thought.
Most people have heard of D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book forever associated with the ‘dirty book’ trial of 1960, in which Penguin was victorious against the British Government. But despite knowing of the book, how many people have actually read it? The infamously graphic sex scenes, peppered with Anglo-Saxon and including an indirect reference to anal sex, make it as hot today as when it was first written, but there’s a lot more to it than lustiness.
For one thing, Lady Chatterley is Lawrence’s most easy-to-read book. The style is shorn of the introspection of Women in Love, or The Rainbow. The plot unravels quickly. Constance, the lady of the manor, has a husband, Clifford, who is confined to a wheelchair and impotent, leaving his wife vulnerable to temptation.
Mellors the gruff gamekeeper lurks on the estate in his cave-like cottage, a wild man in waiting. The inevitable and orgasmic collision between Mellors and Constance is not long in coming.
But the story is more complex than urban legend suggests, because Constance’s frustration with Clifford is not simply sexual, but also intellectual. He, and his dry academic friends, don’t touch her mind any more than he does her body, and it’s the lack of any connection or meaning that leaves her unfulfilled.
Mellors is initially unreceptive to Constance’s advances, nursing a corrosive cynicism about the world. He’s far more than the typical gamekeeper - a World War One officer and a refugee from the industrial civilisation he holds responsible for the horrors of the trenches.
What happens between Constance and Mellors is a connection deeper than the sweating and grunting of physical release, though sex is the gateway. When they make love on the forest floor, the simultaneous orgasm they share is transformative for Constance, revealing to her the depth of connection.
A growing understanding of each other builds, becoming a love that unites the two halves of humanity – the intellectual and physical. It’s a love powerful enough to redeem souls and change lives. Constance duly leaves Clifford and sacrifices her privileged life for it. Mellors loses his job, but they are together. <
You should read Lady Chatterley for its explosive passion, for its honesty (one of the first books to acknowledge female desire) and beauty of the evocation of love in the open air (weaving forget-me-nots into your lover’s pubic hair).
But the reason you must read it is the back story. Lawrence was ill with TB when writing and unable to meet the sexual needs of his wife Frieda, and was the model for the impotent Clifford, while Freida was the inspiration for Constance. And well she might be, considering her numerous lovers and the infamous incident in which she swam the River Isar to offer herself on a whim to a random woodcutter.
This begs an intriguing question. Since lady Chatterley is triumphant over her husband, was the book a covert green light to Freida’s infidelities, recognising her needs and setting Lawrence’s feelings aside? That would be real love indeed, and it also happens to be a distinctly Lawrencian train of thought.
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