I have just read ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ as a buddy read with a brilliant bunch of book lovers. And it was not quite the book I was expecting it to be. Of course, I am aware of all the scandal that surronded this book on its publication. For its time, I can see it would have raised a few eyebrows – and maybe it being a banned book added to its classic status – after all, isn’t the phrase ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’? However, it is not a classic in the way I view even a modern classic.
I did not feel that this was a book of likeable characters – I did not root for them. There is no romantic hero in Mellors – in fact, I think I liked him the least. However, I still enjoyed the read because, for me, this was a fascinating study of society. This was a book about relationships; not of romantic ones, but of relationships across class and society. And a book about the world of the interwar years, when men had returned damaged in so many different ways from World War One – not just them struggling to return to the world that they had left behind. There is a clash of ideas as new and old collide – Connie, appears to be a modern woman, but does she just want to follow the traditional role of a woman, and her struggle with this leads her down the path she takes?
I am so glad I have read this book – and I do think I will return to it one day, because I think you probably find something different each time.