Lady Chatterley's Lover Audiobook By D. H. Lawrence cover art

Lady Chatterley's Lover

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Lady Chatterley's Lover

By: D. H. Lawrence
Narrated by: Samantha Bond
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The story of Lady Chatterley and her love for her husband's gamekeeper outraged the sensibilities of Edwardian England. Lawrence had already been dismissed as a purveyor of the obscene for the attitudes to sex that he had shown in The Rainbow, which had been fiercely suppressed on its publication in 1915. Chatterley, written in several versions around 1928 in Italy in the final part of Lawrence's life, was a deliberate choice on the author's part to address sex head on, describe the act and its pleasures in detail and put forward his belief that mankind had lost touch with its pagan and natural roots, its link to the earth and therefore its strength.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned from publication in Britain until 1960, when the radical new publishing house Penguin Books brought out a paperback edition and was immediately taken to court for obscenity. The trial that followed became one of the marking posts for the '60s' 'revolution', with arguments for the beauty of Lawrence's descriptions of love and sex finally conquering the prudish sensibilities that Lawrence so despised and leading to a landmark legal ruling in Penguin's favour. For all the campaigning and crusading that has accompanied Lady Chatterley's Lover, it remains in essence a beautiful description of a true and lasting passion.

Public Domain (P)2007 Silksoundbooks Limited Classics

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Beautiful Storytelling • Exquisite Love Scenes • Captivating Narration • Progressive Social Commentary • Timeless Relevance
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If you could sum up Lady Chatterley's Lover in three words, what would they be?

Classic Erotica doubled in intensity by Samatha Bonds seductive voice. Listen with someone you love.

Samantha makes Lady Chatterley come alive

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The text definitely has its limitations, even misogynistic in many places. But excellently presented by Samantha Bond. And the writing skills of D H Lawrence make up for any shortcomings in the concepts presented. Overall, enjoyed it very much.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

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What did you like best about Lady Chatterley's Lover? What did you like least?

The thing I liked the most about the book is how Lady Chatterly and Mellors can have honest conversations about how they enjoy all their sexual contact with each other. These encounters lead to them both being honest with their feelings and thoughts, which I feel lead to love between them. They're both so intelligent in their thoughts and feelings that their sexual desires help them to not think negative thoughts.

The thing I liked least about is how stiff EVERYONE was throughout the book. Some characters changed their uppity attitudes but not all; their attitudes didn't change as much as I would have liked. I guess this was they way things were in the United Kingdom at the time this book takes place. It could also be a statement D.H. Lawrence was trying to make on the upper society.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

If I were to change anything about this story it would have been all the lecturing the characters did. Sir Clifford Chatterly lectured his friends, Lady Chatterly, and Mrs. Bolton to boredom that everytime he started talking I just wanted him to get it over it. Lady Chatterly lectured herself during her sexual encounters which drove me crazy. Her self-lectures are so annoying sometimes that even though we were supposed to feel sorry for her and root for her. It made me like her less.

Have you listened to any of Samantha Bond’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't listen to any audiobooks where Samantha Bond narrated but it will not be my last. Her reading of "Lady Chatterly's Lover is the best version I have heard from all the samples Audible has.

Did Lady Chatterley's Lover inspire you to do anything?

"Lady Chatterly's Lover" made me want to make sure I never gave way to self-imposed solitude. Both Lady Chatterly and Mellors imposed solitude on themselves both mentally and physically from everyone, but when they meet they start realizing that their lives are so dull compared to when the other is around. I want to be open to being around other people because they bring me a happiness that I cannot get in being by myself.

Any additional comments?

I started reading the print version of this book but couldn't finish it. [Blame Sir Clifford and his friends lecturing so much.] This audiobook version was the perfect way to read this book; I wish I would have download it instead of reading the print version.

The Only Way I Could Finish This Story

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The narrator of this classic did an outstanding job. She had a nuanced rendering of subtle differences in the different classes of English accents and Scottish brogues. The priggishness of the upper classes and the musicality of the earthy Common folk, danced in a tapestry of Delicious words and images.

This story is a treasure, and this reading does it perfect Justice.

Well said!

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Samantha Bond does an amazing job giving bringing each character alive with their distinct voices

fantastic reading of a deep book

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First, a warning: if you want to read it for the "dirty" parts, you will probably be disappointed. I found many of the sex scenes to be unnecessarily crude and not at all erotic and maybe that was Lawrence's point: that ordinary people aren't particularly sexy when it comes to sex. None of the lovers seemed to be particularly creative.

But the most troubling thing I found about the novel was that it seemed extremely ableist. I understand the novel reflects outdated attitudes toward people with disabilities and it is a product of its time, but it is still no less disturbing (or at least it shouldn't be) to a modern audience than racial or ethnic stereotypes. The prevailing attitude throughout seems to be that people with disabilities are not entitled to romantic love if they are not able to engage in "traditional" sexual activity.

What I found most interesting, and perhaps most relevant to contemporary readers, were the characters' discussions of economic theory.

As for the performance, I thought Samantha Bond did well, but there were a few places where you can hear her cough or clear her throat (and it clearly wasn't part of the script) and I wondered why that wasn't edited out in post-production.

Leave it to Lawrence to make sex tedious

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This is an era piece and loved it. Found it to be filled with exquisite story telling.

Enjoyed

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This story is way more than about prurience. It speaks truth about what has come to be. There is much prescience in this story. Lawrence "hit the nail on the head." Look around you. Be aware and truthful. Eyes open all... A terrific story for those of us who can look back and see things differently than when we were kids believing in fictions and lies.

Truth

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I read this book on recommendation and found it moved to slow for me. If historical romance is your genre, you might enjoy.

Not for everyone

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Samantha Bond is a miracle, bringing this highly controversial work to real, sensual life, as Lawrence may have envisaged.

“Lady Chatterley” was his final and most defiantly sensual and subversive novel, banned for decades for allegedly being obscene. Lady Constance "Connie" was a heroine, willing to forego wealth and privilege for her freedom and fulfillment.

Lawrence was a prolific writer from very humble beginnings in the industrial midland of England. He challenged societal, sexual and imperial orthodoxy not just in word but by his own life and deeds, and of course shocked Edwardian England to its core.

He was a very complex, embittered, cynical, realistic, and unpredictable being, leading to the erratic, rambling and sometimes angry riffs and diatribes which occasionally infuse his writing.

In the tradition of Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, George Elliot, and Edith Wharton, -- amongst others, -- Lawrence was passionately concerned about women’s relationships with men in the emerging industrial world, and about their – and men’s -- freedom to be fully sensual and independent beings despite suffocating societal norms.

Lawrence writes with his heart and his working class heritage firmly on his sleeve. He regarded the pursuit of money and the worship of status and materialism as base and worthless. Even the simple pleasure of “enjoying oneself” is a nothing. And yet he loved nature and wrote about it extensively.

Stuffy well born English people of course despised him until his death and beyond, for good reason in their eyes considering where they came from and where they stood and who they were.

Lawrence's Swan Song, Brilliantly Performed

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