Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We ought to be able to arrange this sex thing as if we were going to the dentist.", April 22, 2006
A book which has achieved more notoriety for its sex scenes (shocking in 1930, when the book was written) than for its character studies, Lady Chatterley's Lover focuses on the affair between Constance, the "sturdy" young wife of Clifford Chatterley, and the gamekeeper of the Chatterleys' estate in the remote midlands. Constance, who married Clifford a month before he left for World War I, has become his caretaker since his return from the war, paralyzed from the waist down and impotent. A writer who surrounds himself with intellectual friends, Clifford regards Connie as his hostess and caregiver and does not understand her abject yearning for some life of her own.
The distance between Constance and Clifford increases when Mrs. Bolton, a widow from the village, becomes his devoted caretaker, and he becomes increasingly dependent upon her. In a remarkable scene, Clifford finally tells Connie that he'd like an heir, and he does not care whom she finds to be the father of "his" child. He believes, in fact, that he could treat her affair as if it were a trip to the dentist. Connie, yearning for an emotional closeness which she has never experienced before, soon becomes involved with Mellors, the estate's gamekeeper. Crude and anti-social, Mellors has an honesty and lack of pretension which Connie finds refreshing.
Throughout the novel, Lawrence creates finely drawn characters whose interactions and gradual changes are explored microscopically. The growth of love between Connie and Mellors is complicated by the increasing self-centeredness of Clifford, whose outrage at rumors of their affair is motivated by Connie's choice of someone so far beneath her. To Clifford, the separation of the social classes is an integral and inevitable part of life. Devoted to achieving financial success even at the expense of his workers, the paralyzed Clifford is depicted as a symbol of unfeeling aristocracy and government. Mellors, by contrast, is vigorous and full of life, a strong man of character who obeys his instincts and stands up for what he believes.
Dealing with themes of love, passion, respect, honor, and the need for understanding, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a complex, character-driven novel which, though dated, celebrates the driving passions which can make life worth living. The romantic scenes and language here are tame by modern standards, and the extreme behavior and willingness to flout convention by Connie and Mellors may be less realistic, psychologically, than what would make sense to a modern reader. Firmly rooted in the 1930's, the novel shows an insensitive Clifford adhering to outdated values, based on outdated economic structures, while Connie and Mellors, freed from these conventions, explore their inner natures and their humanity. n Mary Whipple
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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I finally know what the hoopla's about!, June 24, 2002
When I first began to read Lady Chatterley's Lover I thought it was going to be quite a chore. I'm used to flowery language and all that, but I just wasn't in the mood for what I anticipated to be a sex-charged love story. Much to my surprise I got MUCH more from this wonderful classic.D.H. Lawrence makes some striking observations about the state of the social classes in post WWI England, as well as providing some good insights into tough individual decisions we make in regard to relationships. I had limited knowledge of the post-war subject beforehand, but I felt that I learned a great deal in the process of reading. At times the book seemed repetitive, as if Lawrence were beating me over the head with his message, sacrificing character and plot in the process, but after all was said and done I couldn't say that it was a bad book. It's a very insightful, multi-layered work and I'm very glad I read it. The fact that the book was widely banned from publication in its early days is just another tempting reason to read it although, by today's standards, what was so risqué then borders on the ridiculous for us now. As long as you remind yourself of the time period in which it was written you'll be just fine...the laughs and raised eyebrows in conjunction with more serious themes are a pleasant mix.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Lady Chatterly's Lover" ranks with "Ulysses", February 22, 2001
I did not read this book until ten years ago - age forty for those who count - and found it a brilliant work. It touched on every aspect of life in that era, using a difficult premise at the focus. One reviewer called it 'sexist.' In that era, women were kept removed from the world, so men were the ones who made the initial contacts with reality and their sexuality. If Lawrence had written about that society in any other way, he would have been inaccurate. Lawrence shows the social conflict with both subtlety and brutality. Yet, Mellor IS a lover. There are sexual descriptions which are explicit, but within the coccoon of emotional bondings. The way that Lawrence has essayed the class structure of England in that era is brave and accurate in all ways. He makes the posturing of the aristocracy both frivilous and full of assinine criteria at the same time he understands the willingness of those in power to offer their lives in the defense of the general welfare. Lawrence notes again with unpleasant accuracy the detriments of an unchecked Industrial Revolution on the social structure of the time. He has Constance both witness these effects and suffer the olfactory damage. This is a literary work which has an effect across the full spectrum of the possible. Finely drawn characters searching for a better way to survive their lives in a scenario that is rife with obstacles and unpleasantness. He has the touch of the finest artist working with the lightest gossamer and the blunt force of an ogre swinging a stone axe. This was published in an abridged version because it was felt that the societal message it conveyed should be allowed to transit the draconian (by the less filtered standards of today) censorship of the era which DID focus on the sexual descriptions but could NOT stop the voice of social criticism any more than the same group could stop Dickens a few decades earlier.
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