Erin Reads a Trashy Romance, Part 2

Originally posted December 28, 2012 on ErinBlogue.

Between December’s gauntlet of holiday festivities and several stubborn bouts of illness, I finally managed to soldier through the second half of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Thoughts . . .

Penguin's spiffy 2010 hardcover of Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

I’ve mentioned before that I rarely get fired up over romance in the “classical literature” sense, and that’s mainly because the books tend to be either neat, little bedtime stories that are best served with the final chapter torn out, or cautionary tales that paint doom and hurt for anyone who tries to cast off convention. In reality, we all know that the relationships we build are complex and run the gamut from despair to sheer bliss, so it hurts my pretty, little head to see the romantic ideal forced into one of two extremes without showing the nuance of something so fierce and complicated. Easy storytelling has sent more than a few of the classics back into my donation pile, anyway.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a unique read for me because it is one of the few oldish novels I’ve read that doesn’t fall into either camp—at least not very neatly. The second half takes Connie and Oliver from casual lovers to devoted partners and elaborates on the shortfalls of industry, classism, excess, and the Machine that perpetuates it all. Some dicey stuff happens, and in the end the situation ends up as complicated as any daytime soap. To put a fine point on it, the book calls to question what we live for—what we have built our lives around—and sort of asks us to get back to what makes us human. Are you motivated by progress or by happiness? It’s really a lot of little questions that add up to the bigger picture. And in the end, the plot doesn’t end Jane Austen–style with everyone finding someone and riding off into the sunset. It’s more of a mellifluous cliffhanger—satisfying, but far, far from resolution—just like life.

Written nearly a hundred years ago and an ocean away, this book has a hippie streak that still has a lot to say to a twenty-something career girl with a heap of bills and way too many shoes. Whether you’re looking at the philosophical message or strictly the romantic arc, the book takes the whirlwind of life, love, and progress and kind of snaps it all into perspective. Are you living for what’s important, or are you simply racking up the points?

And now, a purely feel-good line from Oliver’s letter to Connie on the closing page: “Well, so many words, because I can’t touch you. If I could sleep with my arms round you, the ink could stay in the bottle.”

So with that, I finally say good night to this book, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.