Lady Chatterley's Lover

Written by D H Lawrence

Narrated by Maxine Peake

Lady Chatterley’s husband returns from the War paralysed from the waist down. Frustrated by his attitudes as much as his disability, she begins a love-affair with the gamekeeper, Mellors. She realises that to be fully alive she must live the life of the body as well as the mind, but in doing so she angers the conventions of her day. Banned for over 30 years for the explicit nature of its language and descriptions of sex, Lady Chatterley’s Lover also exposes the dehumanisation of the mechanical age, and underlines the profound power of tenderness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781843794523

D H Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence, (185-1930) more commonly known as D.H Lawrence was a British writer and poet often surrounded by controversy. His works explored issues of sexuality, emotional health, masculinity, and reflected on the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. Lawrence’s opinions acquired him many enemies, censorship, and prosecution. Because of this, he lived the majority of his second half of life in a self-imposed exile. Despite the controversy and criticism, he posthumously was championed for his artistic integrity and moral severity.

Reviews for Lady Chatterley's Lover

[over.the.edge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lady Chatterley's Lover🍒🍒🍒
By DH Lawrence
1928

Constance Chatterley is trapped in an unfulfilling marriage to a rich aristocrat whose war wounds have left him paralyzed and impotent. After a brief sexual affair, she becomes involved with the gamekeeper on the family estate. Oliver Mellors, the composite opposite of her husband, is unfulfilled as well by his wife Bertha, whose method of punishment is to withhold any intimacy. Their relationship develops as Constance begins to use Olivers shed as a sort of retreat. The curiosity and eventual lust grow and develop and soon they are intimately involved. First as a need, then a desire. This is the story of their intimate and beautiful relationship, and an example of this books premise: individual rejuvenation through love and personal relationships.
This book brought to mind, for me anyway, how we define love. What it is...what is means....how it's shared. What is the meaning of adultery...is it more than sex?
Masterful....intense.....a classic.....

[theampersand · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've loved modernist fiction for a long time, but I've had a love-hate relationship with D.H. Lawrence for about as long. Lady Chatterley's lover is the best Lawrence I've ever read. Yes, you can still find what I think of as his bad habits there: his tendency to describe everything using opposites, his obsession with vitality which often seems, as someone else put it, "a sick man's dream of health," his obvious disdain for many of his characters and their choices. But all of these tendencies are reined in here: even his tendency toward repetition comes off as lyrical rather than merely trying. I can enthusiastically recommend it to people who don't much like D.H. Lawrence. What's most delightful about "Lady Chatterley" is that, considering a book that's supposedly about an intense, erotic affair between two people, it's surprisingly wide-ranging. One of the things that makes this book work is, oddly enough, is how carefully Lawrence crafts its temporal and physical setting. Beyond Constance and Oliver's relationship, we get a clear-eyed description of the generalized despair that followed the end of the First World War, a pitiless description of the British artistic scene, a careful transcription of the Derby dialect, and a look destructive effects of the coal industry on Lawrence's beloved British countryside that's simultaneously regretful and buzzing with dark energy. His descriptions of both the main characters' erotic adventures and the lush woods that they have them in are truly beautiful, there are passages where everything in the book seems to pulse with sensuality and life. For all his opinions about the state in which he found the world, I can't think of too many writers who were more interested in writing the body than Lawrence was. This novel might owe its notoriety to its four-letter words and its explicitness, but it also communicates the physicality of both sex and mere being exceptionally well. The paralyzed Clifford is sort of given short shrift here -- one imagines that he's got a body, too, though Lawrence depicts him as largely inert. Also, even while he praises the joy of sexual congress, Lawrence seems to have a lot of ideas about exactly how men and women should and shouldn't have sex. In the final analysis, though, seeing as it was produced by a writer who sometimes comes off as bitter and spiteful about the modern world, "Lady Chatterley" seems like a surprisingly optimistic argument for romantic and physical love. This may be especially true of its lovely final pages, where Constance and Oliver plan out a future that emphasizes the rhythms of nature, their love, and their truest selves. A difficult book from a difficult writer, but certainly worth the effort.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty tame by today's standards, but Lawrence's is still the language of life and was the language of a revolution in its day. Probably the most banned book ever.

[epictale · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the story for its depiction of Connie's journey and, to a lesser extent, Mellors's as well. I also thought Lawrence's depiction of Sir Clifford "Life of the Mind" Chatterley was masterful. The author allowed Sir Clifford to reveal his blind spots and psychoses without being preachy or patronizing. I might have titled the book "Lady Chatterley's Cuckold".

[ajbraithwaite_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this an interesting piece of social history, more than anything else: the conditions of the miners of the East Midlands and their uneasy relationship with the owners of the mines as the countryside got increasingly taken over by industry. It really was a time when the landed gentry were losing their grip over the government of the country; a time of great social and economic change.The book is famous for being the subject of a trial relating to obscenity in 1960 and I was actually expecting it to be more explicit than it is, as a consequence of that. It uses explicit words, to be sure, but not in a particularly titillating way. The focus is on the complexity of the Chatterly's relationship, Connie's confused feelings for Mellors and Mellors' own uncertainty about his place in the world. The style is very literary and as I read, I imagined the reactions of lots of disappointed people who would have bought the book on the strength of the trial and would probably been rather disappointed in its contents.I found the discussions of Clifford and his male friends rather tedious, in the first half of the book, but enjoyed the second half more. Lawrence did a good job of portraying the depth of the various relationships. I did rather wonder about Mellors' relationship with his daughter: he seemed to move on with little thought of her. But I don't think Lawrence had children of his own, so perhaps this wasn't a big deal for him.Mellors' despair over the miners' striving after cash touched a chord with me. My favourite quotations was: "If you could only tell them that living and spending isn't the same thing! But it's no good. If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend, they could manage very happily...".

[kemilyh1988 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Misogyny abound. Regardless, it's quite hilarious. The first time I read this all I remembered was sex and chickens. This time around I picked up on much more. The narration by John Lee was perfect.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If someone having no particular knowledge of literature read Mrs. Dalloway, The Sun Also Rises, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, I'd put the odds at 100 to 1 that the person wouldn't guess that Lady Chatterley's Lover was the most recently written book. Despite the passages referring to cunts and penises and sex, or perhaps because of them, this book feels incredibly dated. What may have been shocking subject matter in its day is now unremarkable, and unfortunately I found that Lady Chatterley's Lover has nothing else to offer: its setting was boring, its characters were unrealistic and changed at the whim of the author, the relationships didn't feel natural, and in general nothing felt true-to-life. No matter what aspect of this work that you point to, there's a book that does it better than Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The most damning flaw in this book is that the central romance, as well as the behavior of the characters throughout the novel, didn't feel realistic in the slightest. D. H. Lawrence obviously set out to write the book that revealed the physical, sex-driven side of relationships (and probably was trying to shock with certain passages as well, but let's ignore that for a moment), but his attempt to portray a sexual relationship and the emotions that go with it is almost laughable. The interactions are so unnatural, so artificial, that they're completely removed from reality: it's as if someone today tried to write a book about sex, but their experience in the topic was limited to watching porn. Perhaps in the broadest strokes the writer would get it right, but all of the details would feel off. Here none of the particulars ring true, instead it feels like Lawrence wrote what he thought a sexual romance would be without having any knowledge of it himself, throwing in the words fuck and cunt, as well as passages of sexual theory blather, in order to mask the fact that he doesn't really know what he's talking about.

This lack of realism extends to the characters as well, who don't seem to do things in believable ways. Clifford is the clearest example of this, with Lawrence changing the character in order to fit into whatever role is needed for that chapter. First he's rather kind and charming, a writer who is shy even among his friends. Then he goes from writer to businessman, developing into an extremely competent businessman and becoming assertive over other people. While doing this he alternates between clingy, stubborn, and mean in a way that wasn't shown earlier in the book. There's one chapter that says that Clifford never had guests over anymore, and then two pages later discusses the important business guests that were staying at the estate that night. Lawrence fails to depict a single realistic character in this book, and Clifford seems blatantly changed at times in order to push forward the story.

The book is also peppered with passages of characters discussing issues or espousing theories, and every single one is boring and foolish. In the early chapters Clifford and his cronies sit in a room and discuss sex and Bolshevism and things, and everything they say is inane bullshit. These characters are supposed to be "intellectuals" in name only and actually lacking in substance, so at first you give Lawrence the benefit of the doubt, but later he puts speeches about sexuality into the mouth of Mellors that are equally inane. Given the largely positive portrayal of Mellors there is no reason to think that Lawrence meant his speeches to be taken as satire, but even if he did and a message of the book was supposed to be that no one knows what they're talking about, that message should have been delivered in a more interesting manner. Instead the general lesson that Lawrence is espousing throughout the book is that modern society, with its obsession with money, is bad and vastly inferior to an undefined yesteryear where men were men and they didn't live only to spend money on things. It's an incredibly unoriginal stance, and Lawrence doesn't say anything new about it, and in general I've always found the position idiotic. That's not to say that most of the book actually angered me or inspired emotion in any way; as exemplified by the shock passages that fail to shock, I would say the overwhelming feeling this book inspired in me was boredom.

Lady Chatterley's Lover just doesn't do anything well enough and sometimes does things downright poorly. If you want to read about a fully realized woman with an inner life, read Mrs. Dalloway. If you want to read a story of a man whose injuries prevent him from being physically intimate with women and the relationships he has because of that, read The Sun Also Rises. If you want to read a male's take on female sexuality and desires, read Ulysses. Heck, even if the setting of a coal town or the unresolved coal mine subplot of Lady Chatterley's Lover is what strikes your fancy, you're better off reading Germinal by Zola. All of these works predate Lady Chatterley's Lover, and all are superior to it. Unless you're interested in tracing the roots of the cheap paperback romance novels I'd recommend skipping this one.

[cathymoore_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I can't say I was particularly enamoured with this, although I am glad I have read it. Perhaps it just wasn't what I expected it to be. I found the political/class war aspect rather dull and all of the characters pretty unsympathetic. Both Clifford and Connie both seemed rather caught up in their own misery and self-loathing and I often wondered whether Mellors actually even liked Connie let alone loved her. To be honest I felt like giving them all a good kick up the backside. I thought the sex scenes, for which the book was banned for so many years, were neither tame nor overly offensive , just provocative, as if Lawerence had incuded them deliberately for the shock value at the time.

[libraryofus · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

(Alistair) Unfortunately for such a well-known and historically important book, _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ posesses the dubious distinction of simply not being very good.Or, to make no bones about it, of being just plain bad.

[tangotango-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Geschrieben 1928, veröffentlicht wegen der als skandalös empfundenen Freizügigkeit erst 1960 in England.Ich hab es vor vielen Jahren mal gelesen, aber ich muss sagen, dass es mir jetzt beim Wiederlesen viel besser gefallen hat. Das hängt sicher mit den Lebensumständen und der Erfahrung zusammen. Wenn man jung und romantisch veranlagt ist, fällt das Buch eher durch.Ich mag D.H. Lawrences Stil im allgemeinen sehr gern. Er hat eine gute Beobachtungsgabe, und schreibt überhaupt nicht emotionsheischend. Man fühlt oder leidet mit den Charakteren nicht wirklich mit (was sonst oft ein Manko ist), sondern sieht ihrem Handeln fast kühl zu. Trotzdem schwingt eine Trostlosigkeit mit, eine Enttäuschung über Menschen und die Welt, das Fehlen von Zielen und Antrieben, ein gewisses Ausgeliefertsein.Darin erinnert er mich an Tschechow (den ich verehre).Was mir weniger gefallen hat:Zum einen die wabernden, fransigen Gedankengänge, die er seine Protagonistin machen lässt, die nicht stringent sind und denen ich daher oft nicht mehr versucht war zu folgen. Überhaupt die vorgebliche Einsicht in die weibliche Psyche und den weiblichen Körper (warum nur sollten Frauen dauernd an ihre Gebärmutter denken??)Dann war ich etwas überrascht, Züge von Mary Sue-ismus zu entdecken. Mellors (der Wildhüter) ist wie der Autor schlank, seit einer Lungenentzüdung kränklich, mit Schnurrbart, aber natürlich potent und ein guter Liebhaber. Und wer außer einem Mann kann auf die Idee kommen, seinem Penis einen Namen zu geben und die Frau das Spiel genießerisch mitmachen zu lassen?Und auch wenn der Roman zu seiner Zeit unerhört war, da er über sexuelle Befreiung, besonders der Frau handelte, ist die Grundeinstellung doch überholt: Erlöst wird die Frau (die urweibliche, nicht zu intellektuelle) vom Penis beim vaginalen Orgasmus, der bitte gleichzeitig mit dem männlichen erfolgen muss.

[poetontheone · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is not the sort of pornographic screed that so many imagine it to be, though I had not expected it to be from having read other works of a similar reputation and finding them to have an altogether different purpose than titillation. Lawrence's goal here is to sound the battle cry of the body against the cold machinery of industry and privileged intellectualism. He makes this evident multiple times in both narration and dialogue. He eventually makes this Connie's cause celebre, but it is not always believable given her upper crust naivete, which moves in and out of her personality like the flicker of a faulty candle. That is to say nothing about Mellors' apparent indifference to Connie throughout much of the work. Despite some thin characterization, Lawrence crafts a lyrical and readable prose and paints a celebration of the body and its passions. All the while, the reality of an increasingly soulless and mechanized world lurks in the background as a phantasmal antagonist.

[justmerosalie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really loved this book, although it's been years since I read it. I loved the romance and the setting. Risky for it's time, the subject of sexual incompatibility was addressed and the need for a healthy marital realtionship, something polite society did not "talk about" when if first published. I'm glad it survived being banned in so many places and can be read with better thought and tolerance today. This aside, it's a lovely story and a beautiful read....very romantic.

[kell1732 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Now this was a slog of a book. I managed to finish it, but looking back, I should have just stopped when I realized that this book was so not worth my time. I had heard from various people whose opinions I respect and often agree with that this book needed to be on my reading list. Well, I got that out of the way.I thought the characters were dull, and I couldn't have cared less how this whole affair ended. Many a time I found myself thinking that this whole thing was just stupid. I got annoyed with Clifford and his whole, "You can go have a baby with some other guy, but I have to approve of the guy" schtick. Really? Constance, run away!While I am normally pretty good with understanding that these books are from a different time period, and that things were vastly different back then, I just could not sympathize with anyone in this book. I just wanted Constance to cut to the chase and run off with the hugely boring and uninteresting Mellors and let me get back to reading something worth my time. Maybe it's because I just don't see this situation being as scandalous today as it was then, and I know that this goes back to reading it with the knowledge of the time period, but I do expect there to be some relevancy to today that will keep me engaged in the book. I didn't see that here. Even in Tess of the d' Ubervilles there relevancy to today's society and the issue women still have fighting against a patriarchal system. While I can see Constance's situation as still being stigmatized today, (cause when isn't a woman making choices about sex not stigmatized) I couldn't help but be annoyed with her after a while for not just standing up for herself and leaving. It took forever!Maybe I would have felt more sympathetic if I had actually like Mellors, but since I really didn't care about him, and didn't understand what Constance saw in the man, I just wanted her to get on with it. I actually found him rather disrespectful and unlikable. I personally would have nothing to do with someone like Mellors, so I couldn't understand why Constance did.It was this and all the pretentious, philosophical discussions between very boring men about the meaning of sex and why they don't get what all the fuss is about. Is it just me or does this just seem a little unnatural? I also couldn't help but notice the absence of Constance's opinion on the matter (cause who wants to hear a woman talk about sex) even though she is the only one in the book who got close to figuring it all out. If that is what we would call her revelations, if we want to call them that. More like confused and muddled thoughts that never actually gained any coherency.As you can probably tell, I hated this book. I hated it so much that I tried to sell it back to Powell's, but not even Powell's would take it, thus it sits on my floor constantly reminding me of all the time wasted that could have been spent reading Junot Diaz's new book, This Is How You Lose Her (review forthcoming). If you want to read a classic, don't read this one. Unless you're into all the things I hate. In that case, go for it.

[hanneri_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was a great look at the 1920's, the struggle between classes and the impact the further development of the coal mining industry had in England at the time. We get to see our protagonist fight an inner battle against form and custome to become her self and find happiness and fullfillment.I admire the way Mr. Lawrence took on society at the time, he was a revolutionary man in the way he offered both social critique and his view of sex in a time where the written world was hardly an honest reflection of either. I loved the ending, the way Mr. Lawrence finds the place for his characters in life without romanticizing their situation or finding an easy way out. It was as realistic as a novel can get, by the end you know the choices made were not easy, and to live with said choices won't be either, but those choices are what happiness means for them and that is more important than what should be.

[xinyi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book hasn't lost its freshness and realistic significance even today! As a male writer, Lawrence's understanding of women is frighteningly profound and precise, and he didn't hesitate to explore to the depth. I can understand why it was banned because of not only the explicit sex descriptions, but also, and more important, the symbolic meaning behind Constance's sexual awakening - which would shake the English gentry class to its foundations.

[blake.rosser · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I picked it up because I was curious to see what one of the so-called sexiest books ever could have going on with it. I was more impressed with the actual story than I was with the sex. It had an excellent running commentary about the destruction of tradition and humanity through industrialization.

[eillinora · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Still making my mind up about this, might change it to 3 stars later.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the end of the first page, you already have an appreciation for Lawrence's talent as a writer. This work is a classic because he applies that talent to convey both the stark reality and the subtle nuances of human relationships - even our human state in modern times (e.g, "And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from our admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall."). Lawrence wrote a propos that explains his intent and expands on his points. He believed that modern man and woman had lost touch with their real emotions, especially about love. They were instead getting by on counterfeit feelings, almost to the point of completely obliterating the real human sense. And this played out in marriage more significantly because of the role of marriage in society.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this way back in 2010. It is a story of an illicit love affair. This book was censored for many years and was first published in Italy and not England and was a subject of an obscenity trial. The affair is between Lady Chatterley and a working man (games keeper) which is one of the themes; unfair rule of intellects over working class. Lady Chatterley discovers she must love with her body as well as her mind. Love and personal relationships are the threads of the novel. A variety of relationships are explored including; bullying and perverse maternal.Themes:mind/bodyclass industrialization/nature

[26kathryn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. Obviously the book has a reputation, which is why I wanted to read it, to see what all the fuss was about. But it's not as scandalous as it's made out to be, not by today's standards anyway.The story is a bit of a cliche now, lady of the house is bored with married life so has an affair with a servant. But I could put up with that because this book is beautifully written.I enjoyed reading the political opinions of the characters, even though I didn't understand a few things they mentioned. I also really enjoyed seeing the relationship of Connie and Mellors develop. It was really easy to get sucked into the characters' minds and understand how they were feeling.

[chrisbookarama · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Finally done!

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book everyone is supposed to have read, so I read it--long ago, admittedly. Although I am sure this book was groundbreaking and I am glad to have it under my belt, it doesn't seem to me to be timeless literature that has much to say outside the context of its own time. I will not be reading any more Lawrence.

[mahallett · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

don't quite know what lawrence was trying to do. ok story but not presented in a very interesting way.

[scaryguy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sexy after all these years. Worth the read!

[lisa.johnson.james · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am thrilled that I finally got a chance to read this book. I have heard many mixed reviews over the years, some appalled at the language the author uses, some at the um, expressiveness & offensiveness of his terminology, & some about how dry some of the book is compared to the more intimate scenes.I found it to be charming, even if some of the vernacular writing of how the Derbyshire accent is written, & I too found myself skimming the dryer parts. I was quite surprised at the terminology used, & the expressiveness of the intimate scenarios between Connie & Mellors. For the time in which it was written, it's quite "racy", although quite tame by today's steamy standards!There's a reason this classic has stood the test of time :)

[jtho_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While at first I was impressed by Lady Chatterley's independence, half-way through the novel she reminded me of a needy teenager in lust. It was an easy read with a fairly interesting plot, but several of the characters are annoying. I understand why it was banned from the US for as long as it was: there were words in print here that I still rarely see now. The sex scenes are also fairly explicit, but written in a style that now seems hilarious.

[melancholy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book has a sordid US legal history and the content lives up to its reputation. It’s much filthier and sexier than I expected it to be, and Lawrence’s interpretation of sex and love and the English social classes is very interesting. Absolutely recommended.

[gracez-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very mixed feelings about this book.

At first I really didn't like it that much. I found Lawrence's writing to be a bit repetitive. He would come up with a nice way of describing something, and then use the same description over and over - for example "broad dialect" - and I hate when writers do that.

I loved the way this book seemed to slow down. When I started reading, I felt everything about me calm down, my eyes relax and move more slowly across the page as I sank into it. So it was a really nice way to relax.

By the end (last 50 pages or so), I was pretty hooked. I found the ending extremely unpredictable. The Mellors character was also. So all in all, a favorable finish.

[joririchardson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Lady Chatterly's Lover" caught my attention as soon as I began reading it. The characters were very realistic, and I liked the elegant, drama-filled writing.The storyline is about an affair. Connie Chatterly is married to a man who has been paralyzed from the waist down. Not only is her husband incapable of performing sexually, but the main character does not love him. So when Connie meets Mellors, a mysterious gamekeeper who works on her husband's estate, she is drawn to him both romantically and sexually. They begin a heated affair, prompting Connie to think about her life, and what she wants from it. For Lawrence's time, this book was shocking. Even today, it is obvious that the author's intention was to surprise the less open minded. This book contains a lot of sex - and I loved the old fashioned descriptions and words used. They simply felt out of place with the X-rated scenes, a combination that I liked.I loved the characters in this book, especially the three main persons of Connie, her husband, and Mellors. They were remarkably realistic. The only thing that I didn't like about this book was that it was so long winded. Much of the book was, though not painful, certainly tedious reading. But, overall, I enjoyed reading my first D.H. Lawrence.

[Noel Parker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was in my twenties when this book was ‘tried’ as pornographic before the English courts. How time switches the focus of things. I found it to be a warm-hearted defence of sexuality, primarily (in post-Me Too terms) from Lady Chatterley’s point of view, expressing poetically a sympathetic view, in vernacular language and, on occasions,
with dotty, outdated ideas. In short, well written and appealing. But pornographic? My arse!