ReadALong: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence: Post 1

I am participating in A Literary Odyssey's readalong of Lady Chatterley's Lover. I have never read a book by D.H. Lawrence but I did know that this book was controversional because it was banned when it was first published for its explicit dealings of a sexual nature.

So far we have read the first half of the book (the first ten chapters) and I can see why this book was banned in its time. While the sex scenes are tame by today's standards, the narration includes not only sex scenes but also characters discussing sex and the nature of personal relationships between men and women.

Lady Chatterley's Lover follows two main characters, Clifford and Connie Chatterley. Clifford was injured, shortly after his marriage to Connie, in WWI which left him paralysed from the waist down- creating a sexless marriage for him and Connie when he returned home. For many years, Connie was content to be Clifford's caretaker and asked nothing of him in return. After several years, Connie slowly drifts into a depression from a lack of entertainment and, we assume, sex and intimate relations. Connie takes one lover who is part of Clifford's social circle, but she ends up taking another lover who she feels more deeply about- the caretaker of their estate! A man below her rank!

For a classic novel, I think that it is a fairly easy read and moves along at a nice pace. What I'm not thrilled about are the characters. Through the beginning they all seemed rather distant and cold. It's hard to relate to characters who value their intellect above everything else. Clifford's friends sit around 'intellectualizing' sex by examining relationships between men and women. Their discussions are very frank, which I found a little uncomfortable because it was not stuff I would sit around talking about with group of people. They also downplay the intimacy and importance of marriage and sex:

"I believe that sex is a sort of communication like speech, and should be as free as speech. Let any woman start a sexual conversation with me, and it's natural for me to go to bed with her, to finish it"

"'Marriage might-and would-stultify my mental processes. [...] I'd be ashamed to see a woman walking round with my name-label on her, address and railway station, like a wardrobe trunk' [...] 'It's an amusing idea, Charlies,' said Dukes, 'that sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them. I suppose it's quite true. I suppose we might exchange as an sensations and emotions with women as we do ideas about eh weather and so on. Sex might be a sort of normal physical conversation between a man and a women.'"

Connie's lover, the gardener, is also a distant man who seems to like Connie just for her body-- which I suppose is the opposite of her husband and his friends who just admire her mind. I hope we learn more about him in the second half of the book.

I think one of the main themes in this book is the split nature that humans have created. Connie is split in two by the men around her- she is admired for intellect by her husband and for her body by her lover. Connie struggles with this though because she wants to be one, whole person. I hope she succeeds in integrating herself and regaining her happiness.

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Book Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Synopsis:

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.
With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement



My Review:

I really enjoyed this book. For two main reasons: it's about the love and power of books during hard times and the perspective of the narrator.  I seem to be on a WWII/word lover book spree right now. I recently finished up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Postmistress that had similar messages.

The Book Thief is about a young girl, Liesel, in Germany who witnesses tragedies of the war. She is given up by her mother to a foster family because her mother couldn't afford to feed or care for her. Liesel sees her brother die, helps to harbour a Jew in the basement of her foster family's house, and experiences the bombing of her town. Leisel's story is told, interestingly, through the character Death. Death tells the story about his experiences of carrying souls away when people die during WWII, especially when he is near Liesel and breaks his habit of ignoring alive people so that he can watch her.

Death is an interesting narrator. He often gave away the ending for the characters but it didn't matter, because as he says, "Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound us" (page 243). Here, Death says that we already know what happens in the end of this story, much like we can almost always guess the ending to any story (think of your typical chick-flick movie that just recycles the exact same plot), but it's okay because it is how you get to the ending that makes the story interesting and exciting. Even though Death gave away how the characters survived or died in the war, I wanted to read more because I wanted to know how those characters reached the end of this story. I thought this was a very interesting way to write the story and I'm glad Zusak included the above quote by Death because it put the story into perspective and reminded us that Death already knew everything since he was looking back to tell us about Liesel.

The one thing I didn't like about The Book Thief was some of the formatting. In the beginning of each chapter, Zusak put together a bunch of nouns to say what the next section of the book included. I thought that was a little weird and off-putting. I just wanted to read the story, not pretend I was responsible for getting everything together for the set of a play or something. It was definitely something new and didn't bother me that much, but I could have done without it.

The Book Thief was a beautiful and tragic story that was told in a new way (through Death). I recommend this book because of the story and because it was told in a unique way.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Book Review: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Synopsis:

The conclusion of the saga that began with The Magician's Nephew.

NARNIA...where you must say good-bye...and where the adventure begin again.

The Unicorn says that humans are brought to Narnia when Narnia is stirred and upset. And Narnia is in trouble now: A false Aslan roams the land. Narnia's only hope is that Eustace and Jill, old friends to Narnia, will be able to find the true Aslan and restore peace to the land. Their task is a difficult one because, as the Centaur says, "The stars never lie, but Men and Beasts do." Who is the real Aslan and who is the imposter? (Image and synopsis from goodreads.com)

My Review:

I loved this conclusion to the Chronicles of Narnia!

The theme to this story was definitely the positive aspects of death, i.e.- reaching Heaven and life with God.

The story opens with a talking ape, Shift, and donkey, Puzzle. The ape convinces the donkey to wear a lion skin, which Shift then uses to convince Narnians is actually Aslan returned. Shift pretends to speak for Aslan and makes Narnians work for him.

Tirian, the last King of Narnia, and Jewel, his friend a unicorn, hear of the trouble going on and the appearance of Aslan, so they go forth to learn more. They are both captured by Shift and aren't rescued until Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb show up again from our world to help save Narnia.

The eventually discover that the Aslan figure is an imposter. Adventure and fighting ensues.

Eventually, Eustace, Jill, Tirian, Jewel, Puzzle, and the other believers of Aslan in Narnia cross into the real Narnia since the Narnia they knew was coming to an end. The read Narnia is part of Aslan's world, or Heaven. Jill and Eustace, we are led to believe, also died in their world in a train crash, but everyone is ecstatic to be in Aslan's world with everyone who came before them. Aslan's world is a wonderful place to be.

The Last Battle is definitely a way to teach kids that dying andgoing to Heaven is not scary or terrible. C.S. Lewis, through The Chronicles of Narnia, has created a version of the Christian religion that is easy for kids to understand and love. The adventures of the characters, from both Narnia and our world, are exciting and would keep kid's attentions. I think this conclusion is appropriate and an excellent end of the series.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars



Book Review: The Postmistress by Sarah Blake



Synopsis:

Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.
On the eve of the United State's entrance into World War II in 1940, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: She doesn't deliver a letter. In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the Blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket, a letter Frankie vows to deliver when she returns from Germany and France, where she is to record the stories of war refugees desperately trying to escape.
The residents of Franklin think the war can't touch them- but as Frankie's radio broadcasts air, some know that the war is indeed coming. And when Frankie arrives at their doorstep, the two stories collide in a way no one could have foreseen. The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right. (Image and synopsis from goodreads.com)

My Review:

This book was beautifully written and started out with an intriguing premise. What if the postmistress of a town didn't deliver the mail during a war. What chaos may ensue?  How would people communicate with those overseas?

But after that promising entrance, the book kind of meandered. At first I thought the book would focus on the postmistress of the town in Cape Cod, but we followed a journalist (who was narrating the story) through Europe for most of the plot. When we were in the town with the postmistress, the reader followed two women, the postmistress, Iris, and the young wife of the doctor, Emma. The two women both seemed kind of depressed. I understand why Emma was since her husband was in England treating hurt victims of the war, but Iris just never seemed happy about anything in her life, even when she started seeing a man.

The part that I liked the most was when Frankie Bard, the reporter, traveled to and from Germany collecting voices of refugees on her new recording device. It was during this time that we saw the tragic impact of WWII. Frankie witnessed brutal murders and exiles of Jews from Germany.

I understand that this book was suppose to weave the story of 3 characters, Frankie, Iris, and Emma during WWII and the tragedy that they each face. However, I felt that each story from the characters lacked enough breadth to make their story convincing. I was also disappointed that the story started out with the postmistress supposedly not delivering mail... but she only kept one letter and I don't think that had any impact on the characters. So, why was that how the story was introduced?? This book should have been called the journalist, not the postmistress.

The Postmistress was written beautifully, but the story didn't match up to the writing. What did you think about this book if you read it?

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars