Book Review: Lady Chatterley's Lover

I started reading this book because I wanted to read more of the "classics," because as much as I enjoy contemporary fiction, there is a certain amount of snobbery in the book-loving world that makes you feel like you'll never be "well read" if you don't read the classics. But after reading this book, I'm kind of wondering if this qualifies as a classic.

While reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, I found myself getting the same impression I got when I read The Feminine Mystique. The book was interesting, particularly from a historical perspective, but I couldn't help but think that it was lacking relevance. It seems as if this book has the well-known reputation that it has because it was one of the first books of its kind of use graphic and explicit descriptions of sex. And from what I understand it was the subject of obscenity litigation involving publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom, which of course increased its fame.

But in the age of modern romance novels, that sexuality is not uncommon or remarkable in publishing. In fact, I personally felt as if there wasn't a whole lot to Lady Chatterley's Lover once that sex was stripped away. Frankly put, this is a book about sexuality and Lawrence relies heavily on descriptions of sexual encounters between the two main characters to tell the story.

Which leads me to my other complaint. There was something about a male author writing what is supposed to be this great liberation of a female character's sexuality that didn't sit well with me. More than once I felt that Lawrence was slightly patronizing, and I definitely felt that he, as a man, was ill-equipped to speak to the sex lives of women. Perhaps this isn't his fault, because from my understanding much of the hub-bub about this book took place after his death, so maybe he never intended for this book to be any kind of authority on female sexuality. Who knows. But I felt like there was a marked difference between this book and the work of modern female romance novelists. The approach to the relationship was 90% sexual, with little time spent explaining why there was attraction between the characters to begin with. I suppose that is where I became unsatisfied with writing, with his male perspective, because I personally think that the female perspective is different and Connie's viewpoint would have been more accurately captured by a female writer.

What's more, Connie came across as very childish to me (hence my impression that Lawrence was patronizing). And the way that Mellors spoke to Connie is not my idea of romantic in the very least. I was left utterly convinced about the love that was supposedly between these two, at least, regarding his feelings for her. All I can say, I guess, is that I'm not a fan of Lawrence's writing (very depressing and full of anger, in a lot of ways). However, while I wasn't a fan of this book, I do appreciate it for its historical significant. The social interactions described in the book were enlightening, and it reminded me that we are kidding ourselves when we want to believe that the past generations were not as "liberal" in sexual matters as we are now.