Lady Chatterley's Lover

Image credit: Booktopia

There are many sayings and proverbs that highlight the intimate and influential relationship between the past and the future (and the present in between) and most, if not all of them preach that history has the high ground of being more important; there would be no this now if there hadn’t been a that then…

Whilst I agree on the importance of the past and its continued influence on the present and the future, it’s not always wine and roses when it comes to visiting a prior time. Cinema and literature are classic examples of the ravaging affects of time and while some books and movies prove to be immune, others are not so lucky. One interesting example is the book I read this week: Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Written by D. H. Lawrence, the book tells the story of Lady Constance Chatterley who suffers from a sexless marriage to her husband Sir Clifford, a Midlands landowner, writer, intellect, and cripple. Aware of their mechanical plight, Clifford encourages Connie to take a lover, so long as he’s of the same social standing. However, Connie becomes strongly attracted to Clifford’s gamekeeper, Mellors, and the two embark on a forbidden love affair. Can such a thing as true, intimate love flourish amid the increasingly modernising world of class, society, industrialisation, and capitalism or are Connie and Mellors’ ideas of love too old to survive?

The history of this book is undoubtedly what keeps it in the literary classics canon. It was published privately in the late 1920s and available in foreign printings for years before Penguin took the risk and published an unexpurgated version in 1960. Penguin and their controversial book went to trial under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, but were acquitted with many famous authors of the day appearing as witnesses for the defence. A book that causes that much of a stir, of course people are going to want to read it!

And for its time, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was quite risqué and controversial, tackling many prevalent themes such as class, intellectualism, and capitalism; sometimes reminiscent of Jane Austen, whilst being written in a fluid style of poeticism and intellect that actually depicts the intricacies of sexual intercourse. While it’s very cool to read the physical and emotional affects of sex act and its influences on relationships, which we know much more of nowadays, there’s a certain type of crassness in the poetic uses of words like ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ that Lawrence employs, which don’t translate as well to a modern audience. As a modern reader, I found this book to be intriguing in what it was doing, but more on the level of novelty. It’s a funny book in that way because, even by the end, I was still confused as to how I felt about it.

Image credit: Lapham's Quarterly

Interestingly, I think a large part of this comes from certain events that take place having an unnervingly prophetic edge to them, the book’s climactic third act sharply reminded one of the Weinstein Scandal and the #MeToo movement. And the characters themselves are another ‘problem’. Being a social commentary on the state of society and indeed the advancement of humanity, there’s a real defeatist attitude amongst all of the characters, which makes it really hard to bond to any of them and support their causes. In a sense, it’s a very reflective novel, with the characters voicing the attitudes of the author, which then in turn transgresses to the reader.

Me personally, I like books where I can like at least one character and there is a sense of closure at the end. So I’m not sure that Lady Chatterley’s Lover is quite my cup of tea. However, I am glad that I have read it and, who knows, I might take it off the shelf again sometime in the future and change my mind…

Author: D. H. Lawrence.

Published. Privately in Florence in 1928. First English-language publication by M. Secker (London) in 1932. First Expurgated version published by Penguin Books in 1960.