Well... that was interesting! When returning my last book to the library I decided to seek out another based on a list of classics I had taken with me. Only, none of those books were available so I found myself walking up and down aimlessly, until I sat down for a moment and looked up to see DH Lawrence books on the shelf immediately in front of me. And seeing as I am trying to widen my reading habits this seemed as good a time as any to read something a bit more controversial.
Lady Chatterley's Lover is one of those books that I'd heard of (I imagine most people have) but actually had no idea what it was about. But I decided to read it with an open mind, and taking for granted the fact that 'classics' usually take me longer to get into. Actually, as it turned out, the writing style is really easygoing most of the time, and so I found myself drawn in quicker than some of the fantasy books I've read lately.
The story is based in the heart of industrial England, during the years following the second world war. After a varied, and somewhat wild, childhood, Constance Chatterley finds herself living in a manor house in the middle of nowhere, with very few people to talk to other than her husband, who was paralysed from the waist down during the war.
There's no dodging the fact that this is a controversial book - there's a reason it was banned for so long. And the fact that the mentions of sex started on the third page told me that the reputation was probably well-earned. Many of the 'encounters' throughout the story are described in explicit detail. What seems most strange when reading isn't the language or description used, it's remembering that it was written by a man in the 1920s. If Cosmopolitan magazine published similar descriptions these days then people would hardly bat an eyelid.
For me, though, the story isn't one that should be judged on those details. If you take that out of the equation you are left with a story of loneliness, of struggling to cope when things turn for the worse, and of love. There is a theme running throughout of what love is, what it truly means to say you love someone. And there's very much the idea of having to choose between doing your duty and staying true to yourself.
All this is set against the backdrop of changes to the industrial world. I actually found it quite interesting reading about the coal mines, although I found it harder to concentrate on the descriptions of the towns than of the people. Mind you, even that didn't compare to trying to keep reading through Mrs Bolton's gossip, which at one point stretched to three pages. I have to admit that I did not read every word so carefully that chapter.
Speaking of chapters, the sections in this book are quite long. I nearly overran my lunchbreak by mistake one day as I was halfway through a 38 page chapter. Getting over my hatred of stopping reading mid chapter had to happen quite swiftly at that stage.
Overall I enjoyed Lady Chatterley's Lover. Partially, I think, because it didn't hold back. There's something refreshing about saying things as they are. Reading some of the dialect was difficult at times (I found sounding the words out in my head first helped a lot) but that added to the ambiance. Reading Connie's journey from contentment to loneliness to despair to hope and finally to love made me think a lot. And in my view, a book that makes you think has to be a good thing.
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