Lady Chatterley's Lover: 3.5 / 5

Let's start the year off with an old(ish) classic. I was required to read this book as part of a University course on Modernist literature, and I have to say, I did quite enjoy it overall. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, this novel was written by DH Lawrence and published in 1928. It was the subject of a famous trial where it's publishers were accused of obscenity due to the sexual nature and abundancy of profanity contained within the book- they won the court case against them and the book's status as a modern classic was cemented. Like they say, any publicity is good publicity.


The story follows a young woman, Connie, who marries a rich, paralyzed man named Clifford Chatterley and tells of her rather unhappy marriage to him and subsequent steamy affair with the rugged gamekeeper Mellors. Now I promise it's not quite as Mills and Boon as it sounds.

 I personally enjoyed how the story focused on the class differences between Connie and Mellors and how this caused issues between them. Mellors is a working class man who achieved a high position within the army, before having to return home and go back to his old working class status, which he finds difficult to adapt to. The themes of social unrest and class divides run throughout the novel and really add an extra dimension to it that I wasn't expecting. However Lady Chatterley's Lover is most famous for it's controversial and frank discussion of human sexuality, including things such as discussion of the female orgasm, the 'c' word and some fairly graphic sex scenes. Be warned though, this is no 20th Century '50 Shades', the main aim of the author is not to titillate but to open up a frank discussion on the needs that people have for sex, love and human companionship and what can happen if those needs remain unfulfilled.

There are problematic aspects to this book. It has been criticized by feminists such as Germaine Greer for portraying women as needy and sexually subservient to men, and it does have some strange moments that took me out of it, just because they seemed to be so jarringly... wrong. But for the time and circumstances in which it was written, this treats the subject with as much sensitivity as can be expected from a male writer, and isn't a terrible start to what spawned an entire generation of erotic romance writing in it's wake.

Overall, Lady Chatterley's Lover has it's problems and is certainly not the best book I've ever read, but it is a nice, non-threatening introduction to DH Lawrence. It's influence can be felt everywhere in almost all the romance writing following the 1930's, and it is well worth a read if you fancy a good discussion of female sexuality and the problems of personal/social identity in English society. 

I would give this book 3.5 stars out of 5 

- Natalie