Ratings39
Average rating3.4
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence written in 1928.Printed privately in Florence in 1928, it was not printed in the United Kingdom until 1960 (other than in an underground edition issued by Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in 1929). Lawrence considered calling this book Tenderness at one time and made significant alterations to the original manuscript in order to make it palatable to readers. It has been published in three different versions.
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Lawrence's commentary on English industrial society is pointed and vitriolic. It's clear he sympathises with the working class and disdains upper class hubris. It was useful having background on the time period from reading Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier and Hommage to Catalonia. Both Lawrence and Orwell share similar perspectives on the pernicious impacts of industrialisation, consumerist society and the consequential demise of romanticism and celebration of the human spirit. The period is a pretty fascinating one as it seemed that the old aristocracy were on their last legs, recognising (albeit reluctantly) their irrelevance in a society that was growing to recognise modern ideas of social mobility and egalitarianism. The characters felt a bit one dimensional, each one having a strong point of view, never really questioning their own perspectives. The novel is a sucker for romantics, with a lot of romantic literary techniques used by Shelley, Eliot and what not. Overall, I liked Lawrence's criticism on social injustice and entrenched class norms in modern England but found myself eye rolling at the shallow characters and cliche romantic narrative. I appreciated the provocative language and (for its time) unconventional focus on a woman's sexual desires and sexual fulfilment.
Read this one because I enjoyed the Netflix adaption (which was sort of Pride and Prejudice vibes but more horny). But in the book version, the male lead definitely isn't a Mr Darcy :( definitely very explicit for a 100 year old book, I can see why it was banned!
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