What am I missing?

[Rob_Royale]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.



Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

 

[Bazzle]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.

View attachment 2331799

Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

It was erotic for its time?

 

[ElectricBlue]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.

Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

You need to view it with an awareness of mainstream cinema in 1981, which is before the multiplicity of porn; also an awareness of D.H.Lawrence, who first published the book in 1928.

It's a completely different class based dynamic, a completely foreign society compared to 2024. Both the novel and the various movie adaptations are products of their era.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.

Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

Yeah, no, you're not the only one. I watched it after I, too, had heard how iconic it is. But, in the end, had to just chalk it up as not being old enough to share the impression. I mean, if someone tells me to watch Jurassic Park because it's "required watching for fans of monster movies" or something, I'd still see why. The comparison between how they achieved those effects back then and the way they do it today gets people to think. It influences their creative process.

But Chatterly's Lover? Apart from surely being controversial when the book came out (a hundred years ago), and surely being controversial when the movie came out (almost half a century ago), I don't see how it is relevant today.

 

[samhasstories]

I mean, if someone tells me to watch Jurassic Park because it's "required watching for fans of monster movies" or something, I'd still see why.

Whew. You had me nervous for a second, unsure of where that sentence was leading. Thought I might have to get out my Fightin' Hat.

But yeah, few movies are really timeless. The ones that aren't can still be interesting in their own right, but often as much for what they can show you about the era they came from as what they might present as fresh and interesting in today's lights.

 

[gunhilltrain]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.



Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

It spends on how you define "erotic." That's been debated on here many times. It often shows up in a "porn" versus "erotica" discussion, which I think are mostly pointless.

But true, there are people who think that erotic only means "sexually arousing" and thus "happy." Every story is different. I don't have many tragic stories, but I have some where the participants are eventually disappointed. Often that means a break-up at the end. I'd call that realistic, because that's how most relationships end in the era we are living in now.

I just had somebody say that my story posted yesterday isn't erotic. Apparently, sex in the cab of truck doesn't do it for him.

 

[NotWise]

I read the book, but I haven't seen the movie. I should give it a try.

The book told a naughty story, but it wasn't pornographic. It the movie stayed anywhere close to the book then it wouldn't be porn in the modern context.

That's true of a lot of the "Golden Age" porn flicks. They're more about setting context (the story) then they are about the sex itself. A lot of them aren't especially pornographic.

 

[intim8]

Apart from surely being controversial when the book came out (a hundred years ago), and surely being controversial when the movie came out (almost half a century ago), I don't see how it is relevant today.

At mimimum, it is relevant because, as a writer, it pays to understand something about historical context. Even if you don't write historical stories. Vestiges of those old norms, mores, and manners still persist to this day. Even ancient influences still persist.

Not in total, but influences from them, little pieces of them divorced from the whole and from the original reasons for them. Some people pay them more attention than others; some people still pine for them. Some people have parents or grandparents that held them and are an influence.

Which means some characters in stories, even in a contemporary setting, can have those influences.

And tracing how these evolve is interesting and can color a story. The 50s were informed by the aftermath of the war; the 60s were a pendum swing away from the 50s; the 70s were the new mores of the 60s taken to extremes for better and a lot for worse; the 80s were a pendumum swing back from the excesses of the 70s; the 90s were a holdover from that with tech added, etc etc...

 

[KeithD]

It was erotic for its time?

Yes, and it was in written form--the descriptions were highly erotic for the time. Bringing in movies is irrelevant to the impact at the time of the book.

 

[gunhilltrain]

At mimimum, it is relevant because, as a writer, it pays to understand something about historical context. Even if you don't write historical stories. Vestiges of those old norms, mores, and manners still persist to this day. Even ancient influences still persist.

Not in total, but influences from them, little pieces of them divorced from the whole and from the original reasons for them. Some people pay them more attention than others; some people still pine for them. Some people have parents or grandparents that held them and are an influence.

Which means some characters in stories, even in a contemporary setting, can have those influences.

And tracing how these evolve is interesting and can color a story. The 50s were informed by the aftermath of the war; the 60s were a pendum swing away from the 50s; the 70s were the new mores of the 60s taken to extremes for better and a lot for worse; the 80s were a pendumum swing back from the excesses of the 70s; the 90s were a holdover from that with tech added, etc etc...

That's why it's difficult to write stories set in the past. I think I've only gone back to 1949 on Lit. On another site, I went back to 1912, but I mostly winged it on that one. I wouldn't attempt anything before the 20th Century.

You mentioned the 1950's. So what informed the 1850's? Probably the debate about admitting new states as "free" or "slave." But good luck in having that in a Lit story. Margaret Mitchell almost got it in Gone With The Wind, but she was born in 1900 when many people still had first-hand memories of the Civil War.

 

[intim8]

So what informed the 1850's? Probably the debate about admitting new states as "free" or "slave." But good luck in having that in a Lit story.

You don't reference it directly to have a character influenced by it. You can just show how the influences are manifest.

My point was that having some kind of feel for history can add richness to a story even absent direct references. Just knowing the different ways people have thought, as well as the things that stay the same, can prompt an idea for a character trait.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Some things to keep in mind. First, this is a century-old book, written at a time when censorship was very real and society much less open-minded. For the day, it was solid erotica.

The second point is that Britain was very class-conscious 100 yrs ago. The very idea of the wife of a nobleman having sex with a working man - and enjoying it! - was outrageous. (Well, at least to those who had a say.) One English peer was asked if he’d let his wife read it. He replied that he would, but would not permit his gamekeeper to.

 

[AG31]

On a whim last night I watched the 1981 version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I've heard that is sort of required watching/reading for fans of erotica. So I gave it a shot.

View attachment 2331799

Am I alone in the feeling of being disappointed in the story as a whole? It didn't feel erotic though there was plenty of skin. It felt tragic. It was rather predictable and in the end, I just felt awful for everyone involved. Not a good experience. What does everyone else see in it that I'm missing? It's been adapted over and over through the years and I'm not seeing the draw.

I re-read it last year, having read it the first time shortly after it became available. You really need to put your head into the early 20th century to appreciate what Lawrence was up to. It's more social commentary than erotica. But it was startling at the time.

 

[AG31]

But true, there are people who think that erotic only means "sexually arousing" and thus "happy."

???? Have you not heard of dark erotica? Dark BDSM????

 

[EmilyMiller]

What am I missing?​

I’ve not seen the movie. And I’ve not read the book, the premise of which is essentially pleb has hot sex with landed gentry. I put that kink in the same bucket as BBC, basically anachronistic and aren’t we better than this?

But I have read other Lawrence, notably Sons and Lovers (gotta be an I/T story, right?) and Women in Love (Lesbian?) I think that the sensuous elements are more around transgressing norms prevalent at the time, than anything much to do with a 2020s sensibility.

Emily

 

[MillieDynamite]

Lady Chatterly's Lover is a literary work, and as such, must be good literature and not distasteful and bawdy porn. You're looking at it all wrong. You must appreciate it for the time in which it was written. You cannot expect it to be like a relatively contemporary work by Anonymous Laura Middleton, HER BROTHER AND HER LOVER!

 

[dadadadiox]

It scored a 1.42 rating in Loving Wives.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

It scored a 1.42 rating in Loving Wives.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I find it hard to believe the average LW reader even knows what classic litature is, much less what is or isn't good.

It scored a 1.42 rating in Loving Wives.

 

[gunhilltrain]

???? Have you not heard of dark erotica? Dark BDSM????

I don't think that way, but some of the readers here obviously do.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The book became notorious from the obscenity trial, which epitomised the changes in class structures post the Wars - "is this a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" caused laughter in court, where the concept of having servants had mostly died out (and equally, of being the servants!).

From 1928 when it was first published, until the trial in 1960, it wasn't legally available in the UK. One had to buy it in Paris.

It's a fairly tedious book by modern standards - bored Lady C has affair with the gamekeeper Mellors. That's it. He's not even Not Quite Our Class, Dear but totally working class! Shock! Scandal!

The films are generally better but basically come down to whether you like the actor playing Mellors when he gets his kit off. (See also Pride & Prejudice and Mr Darcy getting shirtless.)

The transcript of the trial has been made into a book and TV series, and is much more interesting.

 

[ChasBozwell30]

It was shocking for its time (very) but the story is as much a tragedy as a love story. Lawrence always wrote deeply conflicted and layered characters. I doubt any of the films have really caught that from the book. They try, and just end up with sombre porn...

 

[Rob_Royale]

I thank everyone for their input. It's no surprise that things are lost between the book and the film. Maybe the important things.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've read the book and was impressed by his daring to cover the subject. But of course, it isn't about sex; it's about the consequences (or that's what I think I remember).

 

[Zootonius]

Lady Chatterly's Lover pretty much epitomized the line Banned in Boston.