Lady Chatterley's Lover

Well, I finally finished it! It's only taken me two months but I've done it! I must admit I found it difficult to get into at first, but once it got going I thoroughly enjoyed it. As previously posted, it was my new years resolution to read more 'Classics,' so I'm glad I can tick one off the list. 


When you hear the title Lady Chatterley's Lover it automatically makes the reader think of taboo and the rude parts (the book was banned for a number of years due to its explicit content) but I found that it was nothing really compared to some of the books you can buy on shelves nowadays. Of course it won't be as shocking to readers as it was when it was first published in 1928, but I found it enjoyable nonetheless.

 The compelling story of an aristocratic woman, Constance Chatterley who has an affair with her impotent and disabled husbands' gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors is one of escapism and realisation that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. Connie's life with husband Clifford is physically depressing for her, but after meeting gameskeeper Mellors and embarking on a passionate affair, she realises where she truly belongs.

Connie's journey is one of maturation from a frustrated, lonely wife who isn't really allowed an opinion to a 'real' woman and a sensual being. She comes to despise her weak, ineffectual husband, and falls in love with gameskeeper Mellors, and decides that he is who she belongs with. While people argue about the meaning of the book, I feel that I must agree with academic Richard Hoggart, who believes that the subject of Lady Chatterley's Lover is not the sexual passages that were the subject of such debate but the search for integrity and wholeness. 

There are parts of it I felt were a bit long winded (mainly scenes involving Connie's husband Clifford who I took an instant dislike to) but I'm really glad I stuck it out until the end because throughout the last third of the book the pace really picks up and you just become immersed in the story and what's going to happen next.

In conclusion, it's definitely worth a read, so go read it! Or you can borrow my copy if you're lucky. ;)

Next up on my reading list is Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which I've already started... review to come soon!