Years ago, I read Lady Chatterlwy's lover. I was much younger and a different person, entirely. That book was the third and final edition of the most controversial book ever written by Lawrence. The book was banned from England. Now I am starting to read the second edition of this book, John Thomas and Lady Jane. This book has three versions that give a unique opportunity to study the creative process of the writer and the development of his book idea.
Chapter four, Connie meets Parkin again. She meets his mean little daughter and take her for a walk to her grandmother. She hates him, as he seems disrespectful to her. She goes back to his house another time and saw him naked to the waist as he was washing himself. He doesn't see her. This incident vibrated through her senses, waking up her dormant bodily desires. She remembers the beauty of a living body. Late at night, she explores her own body in the mirror. Trying to look for beauty.
Chapter five, the christmas party at Wragby is here. Men has sophisticated looking conversation about life and death and resurrection. To me this is just meaningless non-sense. Men always try to be important and superior by talking of the abstract that they know nothing about. Lady Eva had a late talk with Connie in her room. She encouraged her to get a lover, from the lower class. She was hinting that men of their class had no real depth of feelings. Their men never entered into a woman's inner life, never really gave her anything that stayed.
Chapter six, Connie's health was deteriorating. Her sister, Hilda, come to her help. They get Mrs. Bolton to nurse Clifford and give Connie some relief of her daily duties. Clifford resents that, hates Connie for giving him up to a stranger. They still have their daily evening reading which Connie resented still. Clifford still say nonsense in an important tone. He needs to feel important and superior.
In chapter one, Constance got back to Wragby with her crippled husband Clifford. As years passed by in their isolated home, with their lives falling apart, she became stiff inside and the monotony of life was driving her insane.
"She would live virgin by disuse. To this also she set her mind and her will. And she almost exulted in it. Almost in cruelty against herself, with smooth rigour she repressed herself and exulted in her barrenness."
Chapter two, her father comes to visit and he tried to get her to go with him on a vacation away from her depressing house. "Your feelings are going paralyses - not only your legs! Instead of living the life of a young healthy woman, you're going paralysed."
Before he left, he talked to Clifford, who he hates. He reminded Clifford of the fact he seems to forget or pretends to forget that Constance was a woman, a healthy woman who he can't satisfy. She a woman with conjugal desires.
Chapter three, Clifford and Constance had a conversation that dissolved their marriage. Clifford didn't realise the effect of his words. Everything to him was so abstract but to her it was the permission to be free. In her mind, her marriage and her commitment to Clifford was making her die slowly but she could not decide to break it. She was under his spell, under his will. His words broke it, opened a door that she never thought about.
Chapter three, Clifford and Constance had a conversation that dissolved their marriage. Clifford didn't realise the effect of his words. Everything to him was so abstract but to her it was the permission to be free. In her mind, her marriage and her commitment to Clifford was making her die slowly but she could not decide to break it. She was under his spell, under his will. His words broke it, opened a door that she never thought about.
Chapter four, Connie meets Parkin again. She meets his mean little daughter and take her for a walk to her grandmother. She hates him, as he seems disrespectful to her. She goes back to his house another time and saw him naked to the waist as he was washing himself. He doesn't see her. This incident vibrated through her senses, waking up her dormant bodily desires. She remembers the beauty of a living body. Late at night, she explores her own body in the mirror. Trying to look for beauty.
Chapter five, the christmas party at Wragby is here. Men has sophisticated looking conversation about life and death and resurrection. To me this is just meaningless non-sense. Men always try to be important and superior by talking of the abstract that they know nothing about. Lady Eva had a late talk with Connie in her room. She encouraged her to get a lover, from the lower class. She was hinting that men of their class had no real depth of feelings. Their men never entered into a woman's inner life, never really gave her anything that stayed.
Chapter six, Connie's health was deteriorating. Her sister, Hilda, come to her help. They get Mrs. Bolton to nurse Clifford and give Connie some relief of her daily duties. Clifford resents that, hates Connie for giving him up to a stranger. They still have their daily evening reading which Connie resented still. Clifford still say nonsense in an important tone. He needs to feel important and superior.
Chapter seven onwards
I seem not able to describe chapter by chapter but now as my reading gets closer to the end of the book I have been through it all, the whole Connie and Parkin affair.
The strange start of it, that intimate unbelievable moment when unthinkable things take place. Parkin taking it as good as it gets. Connie desiring it but still fighting against submission. She wants the man but don't want to see the man or acknowledge him. She thinks a lot about men, Parkin and Clifford. How alive one is while the other is so absurdly dead although he fains an intellectual brilliance but to me his intellect is as solid dead as his insides, as his legs.
Parkin and Connie experience intimacy they both never knew with their spouses. Then Connie leave to France with her sister.
I sometimes get lost in all the thoughts of Connie about Cliffford and Parkin and other men. The thoughts to me are so not feminine. D. H. Lawrence lost me there. I feel her fight and actions but not her thoughts. He failed me when he added his male intellect thinking this can be female intellect. It makes me real wonder about the differences. I think I like more Simone de Beauvoir's female intellect as she brilliantly showed it in 'the mandarins'.
Somewhere in the middle of the book I started to hate the book. I felt Connie was more of a man. I had this feeling that D H Lawrence failed in touching the essence of the female in Connie. But by the end of the book, I loved Connie again.
The eternal female, the fire is there and is feared by those who can't appreciate, feared by coward. She can't be touched except by a real man made of fire like her.
The image drawn throughout the book of living man/woman who were dead inside, intellect that is just robotic with no essence or feeling. Man's blind ego that he can rule forever is really intriguing.
The sensual deep roots that society and people ignore and sometime taboo is the essence of real men and woman. Only real ones can understand it.
I appreciated the class struggle that was drawn in the book and the fading England people were facing. The higher class had to face the modern society that was growing and soon the two classes will merge and life will change forever.
A nice read
That's what jwoman has to say for today
