2012 Classics Challenge Completed

I joined by to November's Autumns's 2012 Classics Challenge late last year. Here's my original post - the goal was to read seven classics, only three of which could be re-reads. My list was:

Great Expectations
Sons and Lovers
The Master and Margarita
The Grapes of Wrath
Madame Bovary
The Happy Prince
Anna Karenina

I didn't get around to reading The Grapes of Wrath - it's still sitting here waiting. But in the process of the year, I also made a commitment to the Classics Club to read 50 classics by May 2017.
   As well as those read above, I also read the following classics this year:

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
Rebecca
The Great Gatsby
Lady Chatterley's Lover

Here are my posts in response to the prompts posted by November's Autumn:

September Prompt
July Prompt
June Prompt
April Prompt
March Prompt
February Prompt
January Prompt

This challenge was very enjoyable, so thank-you to November's Autumn for hosting it and thinking up a prompt each month to keep us engaged. Looking back over the year as been a good activity, because although the year seems to have flown, a lot has been packed into it, and I've read a lot. It feels like a long time ago that I read some of these novels. Lots more classics reading to come ...

June Prompt - A Classics Challenge

As part of the Classics Challenge, this month the prompt is to create a visual tour of a particular location in the classic. I read Lady Chatterley's Lover, and have decided to try to create a visual tour of the little lover's shack.

Lady Chatterley runs through the English woods to her anticipated liaison.

The small hut in the forest where they make love amongst blankets on the floor.

The little stove in the hut where they warm their naked bodies.

The pheasant hens and chicks that the game keeper tends near the hut.

The forget-me-not flowers that they weave in each other's pubic hair.

This was one of the most liberating novels I've ever read, and also one of the most vivid. Although the writing was sparse enough that a lot was left to my imagination, it was still vivid.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

As part of my commitment to read more classics, I read Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Having read Sons and Lovers by Lawrence earlier this year, I was really looking forward to the prose and character development that I had enjoyed so much in Sons and Lovers. I had no idea what to expect when I picked this book up, which is usually the case when I read something - I don't do much research before hand. I was a bit shocked, I must admit, but this was one of the best books I have ever read.

After I had finished reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, I did a bit of research. I didn't know the controversy that surrounded the publishing of this novel. I hindsight, though, I can see why some stuffy people got their nickers in a knot over this book.
   Lawrence wrote it in the 1920s, which shows how progressive he was. It was only printed privately in Italy, until it was finally published openly in the UK in the 1960s. Penguin Publishing was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, but the verdict was "not guilty". Australian banned the book, and as recently as 2009, the Australia Post refused to sell the book in its store or outlets!
   This novel is not smut or obscene, despite some of the uses of the "f-work" and the "c-word". There are very descriptive sex scenes, but overall the book is about intimacy. It was extremely progressive for Lawrence to have been writing about the female orgasim or about menopause. It is the character development and emotion in this novel that saves it. You take the journey that Lady Chatterley takes during her affair. The ending is also magnificently done - it leaves you to meet your own expectations of 'happily ever after'.
   As well as the sex, there is a lot of exploration about the decline of the social fabric of society - about what industrialism is turning the working class into, and also about the lowering of the upper class. It is very much about the class system, and Lady Chatterley's battle against it and struggle to accept her position. It touches on the dissatisfaction of the lower and middle classes, the strikes, and has references to socialism and anarchism.
   I think my own self awareness and sexuality has benefitted from reading this book - I think we should all live with awareness in the moment, and appreciation for what we have, rather than just pretending to live.