Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. It revolves around a couple from of English nobles in the 1920s. Constance (Lady Chatterley) and Clifford (Lord Chatterley). Clifford is wounded in World War I and is left impotent. Lady Chatterley has a fling but finally settles on the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, as her lover. Clifford actually encourages Lady Chatterley to find a find a lover in order to produce a child, however the person would have to be of a respectable position and a lowly gamekeeper simply would not qualify. So the story boils down to the conflict of class and society in Britain.

This is the second book by Lawrence that I've read following Sons and Lovers. It must be said that while Sons and Lovers touched on intimate situations and was quite controversial at the time of its release, Lady Chatterley's Lover did not just imply the sexual acts. He describes them in vivid detail. It was enough to make me blush.

All and all I did not care for this story. Maybe I'm too old school. Lady Chatterley and Mellors were both married and carrying on an illicit affair. I don't know what the marriage vows of Britain in the early 20th century were but from the handful of weddings I've been to I remember "....in sickness and in health...." Meanwhile Clifford isn't much better with his obsession with class and society.

Okay for my next book, I decided to try to take a departure from English literature and noticing how my library of e-books is dominated by books by Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, etc., I decided to choose from the full list of 1001 and the winner is.....Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. So I guess I'll be staying with the Brits anyway.

On a side note, I was flipping through the channels yesterday and I noticed Julie and Julia. If you don't know it's about a woman who has a blog where she is trying to fix all of the recipes in one of Julia Child's cookbooks. It got me thinking Keith's 1001 Books Quest should be a movie. A guy whose hopes and dreams have been dashed on the rocks of inequity finds solace and a purpose in reading list of 1001 classic novels. It sounds great. Plus if I've learned anything in my life it's that a little Keith Adams makes everything better.