Expecting sex and rock and roll? - this has neither! (Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence)

Member Name: pinklady123

Product:	Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence
Date:	30/03/04 (337 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good portrayal of marriage at the time

Disadvantages: characters unsympathetic, long and a little tedious

I had had this book lying around for ages after buying it as one of those books that I thought I should read, but I had never actually got round to it. So a few weeks ago, I decided to sit down and see what all the fuss was about and whether it really was as shocking as all the hype made it out to be.

The plot
The book centres around a woman called Connie who is trapped in an unhappy marriage to a husband who is wheelchair-bound. She craves love, attention and excitement, but he is unable to give it to her due to his own preoccupations and own self-absorbtion. She seeks solace in the arms of their rather gruff gamekeeper, Mellors, and the book is a long and detailed account of their affair and the way in which they choose to live their life.

Characters
There are three main characters with several supporting ones, but I will concentrate on the three within the 'love triange'. Connie is the woman who is caught between the two men, her husband Clifford, and Mellors the gamekeeper. I found her very difficult to like and to have any real feelings for though as she seems so selfish and doesn't seem to care about the feelings of others. She seems to enjoy deceiving her husband. Her husband is also portrayed in an unsympathetic manner, another selfish person who is oblivious to his wife's feelings and needs. And then there is Mellors who we see as the complete opposite of Connie, although this may be the reason she falls for his gruff, manly, imposing image.
In my opinion, the characters are not very well fleshed out and as a reader, we are not able to relate to them or feel any sympathy for them. We do not care what happens to them.

Themes
I started this book expecting there to be fairly long and detailed descriptions of sex, but whether I was expecting the wrong sort of thing or whether I just have different expectations and standards in today's world comapred with what readers thought was acceptab
le fifty years ago I am not sure. There is a strong sexual theme throughout the book, but much of it is veiled and at times, some of it is just laughable. I found it very difficult to imagine a manly, masculine gamekeeper like Mellors threading daisies through his pubic hair!
There is also the theme of women and how they are represented in this novel. Connie is not a stereotypical woman of the time as she is not demure and subservant to her husband. She has sexual wants and needs and seems to lack any real maternal qualities, although these do develop a little as the book progresses.
We can also see how the portrayal of marriage was being changed and altered at the time and how it was starting to become a little more acceptable for women to leave their husbands.

My opinion
I felt that this book was one that I should read, but I doubt that it will be one I will be returning to. For me, a book must have some way of connecting with the reader and a character that you can identify or sympathise with. This book had none of this. I was disappoited as I was expecting more from it and I found it quite difficult to get through towards the end as it tended to drag a little and I had lost interest in the characters and what would happen to them. This may be a classic, but it isn't a classic in my collection.

Summary: