Lady Chatterley's Lover

[PrettyCandlesAndTinselToo]

Just finished reading this (apart from the fact the DHL is an anti-Semitic, word-waffling wimp, it's quite good) but don't get why it was banned for so long. OK, I'm reading it from a 21st century perspective, but there's very little 'dirty' stuff in it. Mentions a few innocuous body parts, as well as 'breast' a few times, but nothing overt. It's all in the asterisks! Is it the frank discussion of adultery, or perhaps the anti-class issues that were shocking?

Anyone?

It was as much a class thing as anything I think - the gamekeeper (with a working class accent, Heavens Forfend!) and the lady of the manor at it up against a tree. And it portrayed Lady C as just as much "up for it" (in fact, with sexual needs of her own - unfulfilled by her impotent husband) as randy old Mellors - not your traditional bodice ripper where the blameless woman was taken advantage of (eg., Tess of the d'Urbervilles was quite shocking at the time of publication but at least Tess was 'taken advantage of') And for a book written in the 1920s it is graphic - though incredibly tame by today's standards.

And when it was published in Britain in the 60s (and the ensuing court case happened) - despite the Rolling Stones and the pill and copious drug use - was really a very innocent time.

Gosh, it's years since I read it. I should read it again.

I agree with Marthamoo, and she's expressed it far more eloquently than I could. Great book!

And the BBC adaptation (with Sean Bean) is fab too

And Mellors can cross class boundaries, drop in and out of King's English, being educated himself and having been an officer. Yes, I suppose the 'up for it'ness of Lady C, and the way her father and dh encourage her to have an affair - until she actually goes ahead and does it.

According to the flysheet in my copy, it was originally published in 1932, and I think it was - what's the opposite of banned? in the 60s.

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three,
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Who?

Larkin, isn't it?

Unbanned ?