Lady Chatterley's Lover: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Penguin Classics)

Despite the fact that it was written in the 1920's this book carried the same scandalous notoriety that Fifty Shades of Gray carries today--but in a much milder form. Growing up during that time period in the Appalachian Mountains, I couldn't quite understand why a largely undereducated group of women like my mother and my aunt laughed and whispered while they were discussing this book that they were all reading. Today, this behavior seems almost laughable. Our children and grandchildren are exposed or bombarded with a constant deluge of much more risque material on the internet and television on on a daily basis. But remember, this was the 1950's in the Bible Belt. This was pre-Playboy. This was pre-cable TV. This was pre-adult bookstores. Women stayed in a bad marriage because a divorcé was somehow labeled as undesirable company. Girls who became pregnant out of wedlock went "to stay with Aunt Shirley" before coming back to school a year later. Besides appealing to the prurient interests of the naive reader, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a damned good read. The characters are so well developed that the reader cannot help but empathize with the untenable situation Lady Chatterly finds herself. She has a controlling crippled husband who is incapable of meeting either her mental or physical needs. She lives in a large unmanageable estate that she hates. She has no friends or close relatives in whom she can confide. The dusty dirty polluted coal mining community in which she finds herself does not lend itself to outdoor diversions. It seems inevitable that she would find refuge in an extramarital affair. The world would consider the lowly gamekeeper to be beneath Lady Chatterley's station in life, but Mellors is a true enigma. He is Sir Clifford's minion of the lowest sort. He speaks with the local vernacular that is almost indecipherable. He lives in in a sparsely furnished hut that offers only the most basic creature comforts. But Lady Chatterly falls in love with and into the bed of the Mellors who was well-read, who had travelled the world as a lieutenant in the King's army, who spoke impeccable English, and who could provide Lady Chatterley's psychological and physical needs. The author has the rare ability to combine the language of both well-bred and the slum dweller. He provide a rare insight into the lives of the inhabitants of both ends of the social and economic spectrum. Lady Chatterley's Lover satisfies the reader as well as the main characters in the book. However, it leaves open a question that may be taboo even in our less inhibited modern open society--should a full-time caregiver living in an inescapable situation be given a free pass to go outside the bonds of marriage to find the physical and mental relief that is essential to the caregivers ultimate survival. At this time I guess that we will have to wait for the next author to answer that question.

I finally read "Lady Chatterly's Lover". I'd heard about it for many years, but what I heard made me think it was just a sex book, written back in the time when that kind of thing was utterly scandalous, which is what made it famous (or infamous, if you prefer), and that's why it has lasted as long as it has. I was wrong. There's a lot more to the book than just sex. There is sex, yes, but the vivid descriptions don't come until quite a ways into the book. At first the book seems to be about depression. The characters have a rather depressing view of life, and of relationships, and the language of the book, the words on the page, the vibe of the book, is dry. You wonder that a whole book of it can have been written and somehow become a classic. As it goes on, you see it's not just about depression, but also the different classes; the working man and the aristocrats. A lot of time is taken on that aspect, all through the book. Then Lady Chatterly finds herself beginning a relationship with someone other than her husband (who returned from the war paralyzed from the waist down) and the whole feel of the book changes. As she opens up, like a flower in the morning to the warmth and light of the sun, the vibe becomes less and less dry, less depressing. The outlook of the characters on relationships, on feelings between people, both physical and mental, change in big ways. Life becomes something to reach for. It's not an easy read, as the language doesn't flow freely, but it's quite worth reading. This book deserves its classic status. As far as the e-book version I read (Lady Chatterly's Lover - The Unexpurgated Edition), all throughout the book there were grammar errors, misspellings, and symbols placed amid letters so that you couldn't tell what some words were supposed to be. Such as "of four" instead of "off our". It made for a bit of a slower read, but looking past that, a worthy one.

Es la edición completa del libro. Es la que buscaba; (era para un regalo); tuve que revisar bastante porque hay otras ediciones . Satisfecho con el producto.

灰色の雲が覆う炭鉱の街での不倫の物語。作者は不倫についた肯定も否定もせず、たんたんと物語る。

Un vrai roman d'amour, romantique et sensuel, une critique aussi de la société industrialisée er du dieu argent qui anihile les hommes, du "cultural gap" entre les classes et leur lutte, le tout dans une langue magnifique. A lire!

Breathtaking! Very cleaver and beautifully written. I would highly recommend it as its content and social conscience is universally relevant.

Kannte den Film und die deutsche Übersetzung von Lady Chatterley und wagte mich nun ans Original. Auch wenn es oft sehr schwierig für mich war, alles zu verstehen, besonders die im Dialekt gesprochenen Szenen, habe ich es nicht bereut. Dieses Buch ist ein Klassiker. Viel zu oft verkannt als reine Erotikliteratur, schildert Lawrence sehr einfühlsam und sozialkritisch den Standesdünkel der Oberschicht, die Probleme der zunehmenden Idustrialisierung nach dem ersten Weltkrieg und last but noch least die zunehmende körperliche Frustration der liebenswerten und warmherzigen Connie an der Seite ihres gelähmten und ziemlich kalten Ehemanns Sir Clifford. Wie sie sich in den anfangs schroffen Wildhüter Mellors verliebt und bei ihm die Freuden einer erfüllenden Sexualität erfährt, erstmals Wärme und vollständige Verschmelzung mit einem anderen Menschen - das hat mich sehr gerührt. Dass ein Mann vor fast hundert Jahren die Sicht einer Frau und die körperliche Liebe so einfühlsam schildern kann, ist bewundernswert. Leider wurde Lady Chatterley damals zu einem Skandalbuch und der Autor hat seinen Erfolg wohl nicht mehr erlebt. Schade, ich fand seine Ansichten sehr weitsichtig für die damalige Zeit, nicht nur was die Liebe betrifft. Ein sehr schöner Roman! Es war die Mühe wert, ihn im Original zu lesen.