Give me the body. I believe the life of the body is a greater reality than the life of the mind: when the body is really wakened to life.
D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, published in 1928, is an explicit account of married Lady Connie Chatterley and her groundskeeper lover, Oliver Mellors. Mellors’s name is almost never used in the book; he is simply the groundskeeper, even in Connie’s mind.
Connie is married to Clifford Chatterley, who was paralyzed below the waist in World War I. They have a sexless but co-dependent marriage. Clifford relies on Connie for his every need and Connie absorbs the life of the mind that Clifford embraces. Connie experiences fleeting feelings of contempt for Clifford and his technical, pedantic turn of mind, but otherwise has settled down to her life in Wragby. Wragby is the Chatterley estate, a dismal warren of rooms in a dismal coal mining town, where the working class works the mines and the upper class, like the Chatterleys, live off the profits.
There is very little build-up to the consummation of Connie and the groundskeeper’s sexual affair. Connie has had affairs both before and after her marriage, so initially their connection does not startle or move her terribly much. She is considerably younger than the groundskeeper, and I found her decidedly more immature than her lover. The groundskeeper is 39 years old, a solitary man who is separated from a harridan wife he tried to love amid their turmoil, but she turned away from him and he left for his nearby job at Wragby. The groundskeeper is a naturalist, a sensual man who despises the industrial world and sees destruction ahead for humankind. Yet as despairing of the world as he is, he is also deeply rooted in nature, fully in his body. He is keenly aware of the class difference between him and Connie, while Connie–in her privileged upper class lack of consciousness–falls into their relationship more willingly.
In the beginning, Lawrence writes, “Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.” This contrasts with the groundskeeper, who is haunted by his past and uneasy of the future. And yet he is truly of the moment in his carnal relationship with Connie. He gives his body entirely over to it. Initially, Connie wavers between contempt for his carnality and his humanistic warmth. The first time she climaxes, though, she feels an overwhelming adoration, which only builds as the book goes on. Cautious with his heart, the groundskeeper ultimately sees their connection as a “Pentecostal flame,” kept alive by their bodies’ communion.
The book is indeed extremely graphic in its sex scenes, not just for its time. I was truly astonished that this was published in 1928 as literary fiction. I haven’t researched the sensation it must have made, and continues to make, but I suspect the earthy frankness of the book made a public impression.
The book is very much about class and the tension between nature–the body–and industry–the machine. It is clear Lawrence sees the essential humanity in sex, and that through sex, love is ever deeper. He has Connie shed any shame she has as she fully embraces her vulnerability, which the groundskeeper embodies every time they are together.
I liked the book, but for some reason wasn’t terribly moved by it. This novel all about connection left me disconnected, and I’m not sure why. It’s still a fine piece of writing and was compelling enough to carry me through to the end.