My latest read was "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence. I surprisingly had never heard of this book before getting it in the mail, despite its having some notoriety for being banned at least once in the past. Written in the late 1920's, the book was banned in the U.K. for being too sexually explicit. Reading it in 2022, I have to admit I was surprised at how direct and open the book was on the topic of sexuality. Indeed, I think there were more sex scenes in this book than I've likely read in my entire life, though my reading history is admittedly light on those.
Sex is complicated. The book doesn't gloss over those complexities as it dwells on the topic throughout the narrative. Lady Chatterley has more than one lover in the book, but her later lover, Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper for her husband's estate, is the main focus of her story arc. Her husband is paralyzed from the waist down due to an injury he suffered in World War I. This, in conjunction with his coldness and aloofness with his wife, drives a wedge between them that she ultimately fulfills elsewhere. Sex is portrayed as something physical in the book, but also as something that has the bandwidth to become more than physical. Indeed, something that can breach the most heightened states of awareness and of existence approachable by mortal humans. I find that assessment illusory, personally...I think we, as a species, are always isolated even when we don't seem to be. Perhaps even especially when we don't seem to be. The arbitrary walls and barriers that encapsulate and entrench the class system exist also in the other realms of socialization, including in the closest of relationships. Sex is complicated. People are even more so.
She learns a lot about herself, her biases, and her passions during this affair. The book uses Oliver's perspective, as a commoner but also as a wholesome albeit bitter individual, to paint a picture of classist society and the walls and barriers that are erected around it and throughout it. The situation spirals out of control later in the book, though, as Lady Chatterley becomes pregnant and wants to divorce her husband, and wants Oliver to divorce his estranged wife, so that the two could become married and live together. Lord Chatterley is opposed to a divorce, even upon hearing about the nature and extent of her relationship with the gamekeeper. Oliver's wife is similarly opposed, though for her own reasons.
Lady Chatterley had some personal income and therefore moves forward with segregating herself from her husband's estate. Without a divorce, though, the distance is uneasy as the unborn child would inevitably belong to Lord Chatterley under law. This is further complicated by Oliver's true desire to bring more to the relationship than his liability and reliance on her and her class. It's an unhappy situation.
I enjoyed "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and am glad that I was introduced to it and read it. This was yet another of the Greatest Books Written collection from Easton Press. I almost have a full set of a hundred of them now.
Comments