I have gotten to the point where Lady Chatterley meets her lover, the gamekeeper. And I am starting to feel cheated. This story, which started out with such promise, is turning out to be just another romance novel. Perhaps more sophisticated than the "bodice-rippers" put out by Harlequin et. al., but clearly in their company. If it weren't for Lawrence's otherwise fine writing, I would have put the book down in disgust.
As a rule, I dislike romance novels because they almost invariably involve a woman who doesn't know her own mind and an insufferably arrogant and handsome man who knows he knows what is best for her. She is repulsed by him at first but by the end of the book they are madly in love and having wildly orgasmic sex. Am I not right?
Even "Gone With the Wind" follows this formula. But "Gone With the Wind" had other redeeming factors. And Scarlett and Rhett didn't live happily ever after. He leaves her, and despite the two sequels that have been written, never comes back. This is what I think really happened (or what Margaret Mitchell might have had in mind): he goes west, maybe with Belle Watling, and dies, either of fever or is shot. Scarlett, now free, ends up marrying Ashley because after all she promised Melanie she'd look after him and Beau, and Ashley with his sense of honor will not leave Scarlett alone on the topic. Eventually he wears her down and she has to marry him. Needless to say the marriage isn't happy and she becomes even more of an alcoholic. He dies young, worn out from battling her and dealing with her issues. And the kids get divided up among relatives. End of story.
Back to Lady Chatterley's Lover. When she first meets the gamekeeper (who is seldom referred to by name, though he has one), they can't stand each other. That's when I started getting this uh-uh, been there, done that feeling. Then one day she is down by his hut and he is taking care of the pheasant chicks and hens and she gets all weepy seeing the little chicks because she wants a child and can't have one with her husband being paralyzed and all that. He leads her into the hut, tells her to lie down and starts having sex with her.
Granted, it's very gentle sex, and maybe it's just because I am asexual, but isn't there something missing from this scene? I don't see anywhere where he asks her if it is all right. He just starts right in, assuming it is all right and she goes along with it. Is this how people really interact sexually? Or was there something I am missing? That they really did mutually desire each other and revealed that desire by hidden signals? Signals that are there in the text but are invisible to me?
I got the same feeling when I watched "Brokeback Mountain." All of a sudden these two cowboys start having sex. There's no discussion of feelings, no discussion of attraction, just wham, they're going at it, and we are supposed to believe that they are madly in love.
Maybe that is what my problem is. I didn't know that when the guys came on to me that that was how I was supposed to respond. Just do it, like the ad says. You don't need anything else.
Maybe I am wrong in thinking that love and sex aren't necessarily the same thing and that you can have sex without love and vice versa. Maybe sex is love. Well, if it is, what does that make rape and molestation?
Earlier Lady Chatterley has a brief affair with one of her husband's friends. You might call it friends with benefits. I am not sure what to call this affair. They aren't friends, I would not call them lovers, but they are having benefits. Other than the sex there really isn't much of a relationship between them. So what would you call it?
Well, I shall keep on and see where this affair of the flesh is leading . . .
As a rule, I dislike romance novels because they almost invariably involve a woman who doesn't know her own mind and an insufferably arrogant and handsome man who knows he knows what is best for her. She is repulsed by him at first but by the end of the book they are madly in love and having wildly orgasmic sex. Am I not right?
Even "Gone With the Wind" follows this formula. But "Gone With the Wind" had other redeeming factors. And Scarlett and Rhett didn't live happily ever after. He leaves her, and despite the two sequels that have been written, never comes back. This is what I think really happened (or what Margaret Mitchell might have had in mind): he goes west, maybe with Belle Watling, and dies, either of fever or is shot. Scarlett, now free, ends up marrying Ashley because after all she promised Melanie she'd look after him and Beau, and Ashley with his sense of honor will not leave Scarlett alone on the topic. Eventually he wears her down and she has to marry him. Needless to say the marriage isn't happy and she becomes even more of an alcoholic. He dies young, worn out from battling her and dealing with her issues. And the kids get divided up among relatives. End of story.
Back to Lady Chatterley's Lover. When she first meets the gamekeeper (who is seldom referred to by name, though he has one), they can't stand each other. That's when I started getting this uh-uh, been there, done that feeling. Then one day she is down by his hut and he is taking care of the pheasant chicks and hens and she gets all weepy seeing the little chicks because she wants a child and can't have one with her husband being paralyzed and all that. He leads her into the hut, tells her to lie down and starts having sex with her.
Granted, it's very gentle sex, and maybe it's just because I am asexual, but isn't there something missing from this scene? I don't see anywhere where he asks her if it is all right. He just starts right in, assuming it is all right and she goes along with it. Is this how people really interact sexually? Or was there something I am missing? That they really did mutually desire each other and revealed that desire by hidden signals? Signals that are there in the text but are invisible to me?
I got the same feeling when I watched "Brokeback Mountain." All of a sudden these two cowboys start having sex. There's no discussion of feelings, no discussion of attraction, just wham, they're going at it, and we are supposed to believe that they are madly in love.
Maybe that is what my problem is. I didn't know that when the guys came on to me that that was how I was supposed to respond. Just do it, like the ad says. You don't need anything else.
Maybe I am wrong in thinking that love and sex aren't necessarily the same thing and that you can have sex without love and vice versa. Maybe sex is love. Well, if it is, what does that make rape and molestation?
Earlier Lady Chatterley has a brief affair with one of her husband's friends. You might call it friends with benefits. I am not sure what to call this affair. They aren't friends, I would not call them lovers, but they are having benefits. Other than the sex there really isn't much of a relationship between them. So what would you call it?
Well, I shall keep on and see where this affair of the flesh is leading . . .
