Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence's randy and controversial magnum opus made for a refreshing change after reading Austen's cold, stiff prose. By far the most scandalous novel picked up this year, I was surprised at the sheer level of filth present in what I had previously presumed would adopt the Madame Bovary approach, i.e. flowery innuendo and glossed-over sexual encounters. Not this book; everything hangs out in graphic detail and unashamed directness. Lawrence's very 'accessible' language, whilst a novelty at first, could not hide the fact that the story itself was rather uninteresting. It is well-written, with areas of great insight and sensitivity, but I found the sheer 'muckiness' of it all rather underwhelming. Shocking and crude it may be, but without a tense and enthralling narrative to drive the reader forward it dragged and faltered like Clifford's chugging wheelchair - Sir Clifford being the leading harlot's disabled and impotent cuckold.

Set in the grim industrial Midlands of the 1920s, the novel is a powerful portrayal of a young woman's transition from hopelessness and celibacy, to adultery and sensual rebirth. Trapped in a cold and passionless marriage, the sexually frustrated Constance Chatterley despairs of life at Wragby Hall, her husband's grand but dismal estate. Following a lacklustre liaison with a miserly cad, Connie is about to abandon all hope of sexual fulfilment until she embarks upon a lusty love affair with Oliver Mellors, the local gamekeeper. With the threat of scandal hanging over them, the pair must bridge the gulf caused by class difference if they wish to endure society's scorn and escape a life of mediocrity. The plot is simple enough, with the main focus being on Connie's character, her mental and physical suffocation at the hands of the amiable but soulless Clifford and her salvation with a man from the working class. If there was ever a definitive novel written about utter alienation, this might be it. The sense of isolation and social estrangement has rarely been more potently captured than it is here, but at what cost?

Lady Chatterley's Lover is an uncomfortable, depressing read, particularly the first half of the book. Lawrence's sheer pessimism and constant, unwearying nihilism succeeds in sucking the life and energy out of the reader. There are beautiful descriptions of Spring and erotically charged passages of rippling orgasms and anal intercourse, but the void in between is a philosophical wasteland of misery. Rampant sex aside, the book is essentially an anti-war message. It presents a post WWI world in a state of denial and shock, a social and industrial crisis with the ever looming threat of worse to come. Lawrence anticipates the horrors of WWII with Mellors' prophetic comment: “...there's a bad time coming! If things go on as they are, there's nothing lies in the future but death and destruction...” The mechanisation of industry is described as a sickness sweeping the country, a degradation of modern civilisation which only a return to earlier ways of existence can cure, namely the real and unaffected gritty intercourse between man and woman. As Lawrence states in 'A Propos to Lady Chatterley's Lover', the rejuvenation of England depends on marriage and the phallus.

I gave the book a two star rating which was perhaps unfair considering the amount of contemplative reflection it stirred in me, but some of the chapters were tedious and Lawrence's preaching did get tiresome at times. The man has some interesting ideas on social reform but he is manic in his execution of them, relentlessly hammering home the same points ad nauseam. Some might call this device hypnotic, poetic, or mesmerising; I found it frustrating. Only very occasionally does LCL come close to anything like humour. There are some wry comments on the futility of mankind, an amusing chapter where Clifford's motorised wheelchair gets stuck on a hill, and playful sexual scenes bordering on the ludicrous, but the majority of the book is deadpan serious. I would say that LCL is marginally more appealing to women due to the escapist fantasy of getting down and dirty with a grubby gamekeeper. Depressed people should probably give it a miss.

Rating: 2/5