Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Lady Chatterley's Lover


I just finished reading D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. I had seen the 70's movie ages ago but I had never read the book. When I first started reading it, it took me a couple of pages to get accustomed to the style of writing. For the most part it was the excessive use of exclamation marks that threw me, and then there was the Hugh Grant style narration. It really felt like Hugh Grant or Anthony Hopkins was the narrating with all the starts and stops. Very British.

I do love British writing though, so I decided to power through and I'm glad I did. It's a great book. Well written, insightful, honest and kind of pornographic. After my last experience reading sex scenes written by a man I thought I would never be okay, but as it turns out it's not all men, just some - or possibly one. D.H. Lawrence deals with it head on in a very factual and straightforward way. It's interesting.

The book is not only about animal lust and sex between a lady and her gamekeeper, no, it's about how boring the British nobility is, for one. It also touches on their social divide, love, tenderness and real intimacy. It's not a shallow book with no substance past the sex, so it does keep you interest and while reading it you understand how relevant the sex is, and even the description of it is.

I highly recommend it if you're in between books and you don't know what to pick up next. It's a solid read and a good time.

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