As I said when writing about John Thomas and Lady Jane, the previous draft of Lady Chatterley, I had the wrong idea about Lawrence's final book, having read somewhere that it had been written in anger with Dave, somewhat weary of his novels being described as pornography, deciding to give his critics an extended letter to Fiesta as a sort of fuck you. This may even have come from Lawrence's own letters, in which case he was clearly joking. As we all know, the book was subject to charges of obscenity, which - as I now appreciate - says plenty about the mid-twentieth century and not very much about Lady Chatterley's Lover. Where Lawrence made use of medical terminology such as fuck, cunt, shit, and arse, it appears in short agricultural bursts limited to a few moments of conversation, then back to the kind of language of which my wife's aunt would approve for the next three chapters. That said, there's a whole lot of nobbing going on, most of which is described in Lawrence's usual terms, mapped by means of emotions, symbols of the same, plenty of stuff about flowers - notably woven into pubes at one point - but it really isn't about the sex, or at least it's about a whole lot more than just the sex.
All the while he spoke he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hands. And his finger-tips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.
'An' if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman as couldna shit nor piss.'
I've a feeling that may have been the passage (no pun intended) which made everyone angry. I'm sure there's been a bongo magazine called Secret Openings at some point but I doubt it could have been easy to find at your local WHSmith.
Anyway, to get to the point, Lady Chatterley's Lover is more or less the same novel as John Thomas and Lady Jane. The same encounters involve the same people, albeit with minor variations, but the emphasis is much expanded. Lawrence was approaching the end of his life to the point of his existence having become defined almost entirely by its termination. Apparently one grows more carnal and more mortal as one grows older. Only youth has a taste of immortality, as Clifford writes in a letter. Where the previous version was concerned with class, the relationships between men and women, and the law of diminishing social returns - as were most of his novels - Lady Chatterley imagines a world without the author, that which was to come after his passing and how much worse it would be.
They don't like these new fangled mines, such a depth, and all machinery to work them. Some of them simply dreads those iron men, as they call them, those machines for hewing coal, where men always did it before. And they say it's wasteful as well. But what goes in waste is saved in wages, and a lot more. It seems soon there'll be no use for men on the face of the earth, it'll be all machines.
In places, it's the closest Lawrence came to writing science-fiction - which is admittedly not conspicuously close. Brave New World was still four years away, but it seems likely that he'd been discussing some of his concerns with Aldous Huxley.
'I do think sufficient civilisation ought to eliminate a lot of the physical disabilities,' said Clifford. 'All the love-business for example, it might just as well go. I suppose it would if we could breed babies in bottles.'
As with John Thomas and Lady Jane, it's written with a clarity and sense of focus which he seemingly developed during those last five or so years. His arguments are clear without sacrificing the poetry to the kind of pedantic analysis he despised, which is why this novel gets away with doing so much, even breaking new ground for Lawrence; which is why its reputation is so well deserved - here referring to the literary achievement rather than its potential as erotic testimony.
Yet for all its qualities, I still prefer John Thomas and Lady Jane, which is more typical of what Lawrence did, but arguably nails it like no previous book, possibly excepting Sons and Lovers or The Rainbow - neither of which have anything like the concision. Additionally, this retelling closes with a number of letters exchanged between the main characters, which feels a little hurried. Nevertheless, as yet another account of why everything used to be better than it is now - or was in 1928 - it remains difficult to disagree with Lawrence's main objections, and hard to fault his foresight.
For this reason, the gossip was humiliating. And for the same reason, most novels, especially popular ones, are humiliating too. The public responds now only to an appeal to its vices.
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