Lady Chatterley's Lover, chapter 6
May. 10th, 2016 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI've just finished chapter 6 of Lady Chatterley's Lover; I could be going faster, but I'm finding it rough going. Not the writing, the writing is lovely, but emotionally speaking: one gets the feeling that World War I gave the entirety of England shell-shock, or possibly that Connie's husband Clifford's shell-shock reaches out malignant emotional tentacles that wrap around everyone around him.
Not because of any malignancy on his part, but because the shell-shock is a parasite that has hollowed him out and now is looking for someone new to eat.
And they're in the coaling country, so the air always smells of sulphur, and the sky is gray with ash, and it always seems to be raining, although that at least is probably not the result of the coal; and Connie has concluded that all there is to life is nothingness, except for money, and even money is important only because you need it to fulfill the bodily necessities of your unfortunate carcass so you can drag it through the grim, gray, rainy days.
All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people...
I'm hoping that Lady Chatterley finds her lover soon. I am also glad that the cover copy informs me that her lover is a human man, and not the sweet oblivion of Death.
Not because of any malignancy on his part, but because the shell-shock is a parasite that has hollowed him out and now is looking for someone new to eat.
And they're in the coaling country, so the air always smells of sulphur, and the sky is gray with ash, and it always seems to be raining, although that at least is probably not the result of the coal; and Connie has concluded that all there is to life is nothingness, except for money, and even money is important only because you need it to fulfill the bodily necessities of your unfortunate carcass so you can drag it through the grim, gray, rainy days.
All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people...
I'm hoping that Lady Chatterley finds her lover soon. I am also glad that the cover copy informs me that her lover is a human man, and not the sweet oblivion of Death.
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Date: 2016-05-10 03:58 pm (UTC)I like that metaphor of a bruise that only starts to show up days after the initial trauma, and how Lawrence introduces it to describe what's happened to Clifford and then lets it spread (like a bruise) to the post-war world in general.
Clifford is not the most likeable guy in the world, but I still feel bad for him. And I had no idea that electric wheelchairs were already a thing in the 1920s! I love his little wheelchair that chugs along the paths. And I wish his smart-set friends would rein it in a little on lecturing each other about the fundamental importance of the penis when he's sitting right there, come on. :\ But he keeps inviting them, so whatever.
Lawrence's descriptions of winter and weather are pretty great. After that BSC-esque start, he's writing more like the DHL I remember.
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Date: 2016-05-10 04:50 pm (UTC)But I also feel bad for Connie, because clearly Clifford's dragging misery is dragging her down too. And I'm sure the ever-present scent of sulphur in the stormy air doesn't help.
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Date: 2016-05-10 06:19 pm (UTC)I'm a little glad they're drifting apart now, even, because maybe having some time to herself will let her shake off some of that dragging action she's been feeling. They're just a couple of flawed regular people who don't know how to live. DOES ANYONE? Did anyone, ever? Did the war turn the old certainties to fog and dust, or was that just growing up? WHO KNOWS ANYTHING :(
I actually have no idea how this book ends, and am really hoping it goes somewhere at least a little optimistic, but I have no idea. We'll find out!
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Date: 2016-05-11 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-11 12:42 am (UTC)idk if that's where DHL is going, though.
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Date: 2016-05-11 01:29 am (UTC)