Review: Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Jade @ Scatterbooker 2015 year in review, 4 star review, David Bowie Reading Challenge, DBowieBooks, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is famous for being banned for its racy sex scenes. There is a lot ofchatterley  discussion about sex and quite a few swear words are sprinkled throughout, but it really isn’t that controversial for this day and age.

The novel was published in 1928, so it definitely was considered to be scandalous for those times. What I think is far more interesting about this novel is the discussion surrounding class the way Lawrence viewed the ways that England had changed due to the Industrial Revolution. These views were extrememly controversial for the 1920s and this is what makes Lady Chatterley’s Lover such an important novel. It’s a snapshot of a time of great upheaval.

I also found the contrast between this novel and The Great Gatsby interesting. They were both written about the same time but from very different perspectives. Where The Great Gatsby is about the wealthy New Yorkers, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is about the titled familys of England.

I found Lady Chatterley’s Lover to be a bit of a slow read. I didn’t really feel= interested in any of the main characters and didn’t much care what happened to them in the end. I did find Lawrence’s views on class and the industrialisation of England enlightening and found myself pausing to highlight quite a bit.

Definitely a novel worth reading, but not simply for racy sex scenes. I do wonder if the 2020s will be as tumultuous as the 1920s? That seems about the right time for the digital revolution to be in full effect!

David Bowie Song:

Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie feels like a good choice to describe the pressure felt by the workers during this period


Description

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER was banned on its publication in 1928, creating a storm of controversy. Lawrence tells the story of Constance Chatterley’s marriage to Sir Clifford, an aristocratic and an intellectual who is paralyzed from the waist down after the First World War. Desperate for an heir and embarrassed by his inability to satisfy his wife, Clifford suggests that she have an affair. Constance, troubled by her husband’s words, finds herself involved in a passionate relationship with their gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Lawrence’s vitriolic denunciations of industrialism and class division come together in his vivid depiction of the profound emotional and physical connection between a couple otherwise divided by station and society

Details

Title: Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Author: D.H. Lawrence

Published: 1928

ISBN: 0007925557 (ISBN13: 9780007925551)

Genre: Classics, Literature, Romance, Historical Fiction

Pages: 402

Source: Own Copy

My Rating: 4/5 stars

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This book is part of the David Bowie Reading Challenge #DBowieBooks

Books Read: 4/100

1. 1984

2. The Great Gatsby

3. The Gnostic Gospels

4. A Clockwork Orange

5. Lady Chatterley’s Lover

24 thoughts on “Review: Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence”

  1. I read this as a very innocent teenager and was deeply traumatised by all the sex. I feel that my parents should maybe have bought me some Jane Austen instead! I still shudder at the thought of forget-me-nots…

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  2. I’m so glad someone else felt the same way about the book! Not that racy at all, although I agree the comment above- I guess it makes a difference as to where you are in your life when you read the book. If I had been a teen reading this I would have thought it was much juicier 🙂

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  4. It’s so long since I read this that I really remember very little about it – except for the swearing! But even at the time, I didn’t rate it as one of Lawrence’s best novels. Sons and Lovers was the one that got me hooked…

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  6. I agree with the above regarding when in your own life and level of experience you approach the book. I read it as a young teen and remember thinking it was quite racy in parts. (this was long ago in the olde world however, with mobile phones as big as your head and dial-up internet) when I read it a second time as an adult many years later, it had lost all of its ‘scandal’ and felt quite tame. Makes you want to revisit other books you read when younger to see how you’ve changed since your first reading too.

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    • I think I would have hated it when I was a teenager and all the social commentary would have gone straight over my head. I think this is one worth revisiting as an adult, because Lawerence makes some interesting points once you get past all the swearing and rude parts.

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  7. Great post, Jade. I really must read this as an adult. I read it as a teenager for the scandal value and didn’t rate it though I suspect that much of it did go over my head. All that sticks in my mind is the swearing. I loved Sons and Lovers, though.

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  8. The full version of this novel wasn’t published in Britain until 1960. My experience and rating is much the same as Katrina’s – though I’ll swear it didn’t go over my head, but then, I think I was 18.

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    • Yes I am aware of that. Just the topic of adultery, particularly between the upper and lower classes was incredibly scandalous for that period. If you compare the actual sex scenes to what we see in film and television today or popular books like 50 Shades of Gray it is pretty tame.

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      • You’re so right! However, I don’t think it was the topic of adultery that shocked (in 1928 certainly -there wasn’t much that shocked us in the sixties) but the fact that it was the WOMAN who was upper class. Whatever one thinks of the morality, men were expected to mix it with the lower classes and literature is full of examples where they DID.

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      • Definitely! Adultery was bad enough, but for a lady to do it with the gatekeeper would have just been unheard of in the 20s! I’m going to focus a bit more on this in my next review of Madame Bovary 🙂

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