Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I took a fantasy trip to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northern-most city in England. Heather reviewed Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall a Great British Bake-off style show. Tina is enjoying the nonfiction book In Shetland by Tom Morton.
I'll not hear a word spoken against them. This is a love story.
-Mrs. Bolton
That quote is why I wanted to review Lady Chatterley's Lover, the 2022 film starring Emma Corrin (Diana in The Crown), ahead of Valentine's Day.
Of course, D.H. Lawrence's 1928 novel was most well-known for being "banned in Boston."
Many years after Lawrence's death, in 1960, Lady Chatterley's Lover was the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK. Penguin Books published a version with no redactions or edits to take out offending words. Penguin won the case and immediately sold three million copies of the book.
The attorney for the defense argued that Lawrence believed that relationships had suffered in modern society and that we needed to reinvigorate those relationships - "the greatest of which was the relationship between a man and a woman in love, in which there was no shame and nothing wrong, nothing unclean, nothing which anybody was not entitled to discuss."
This was my first exposure to the story - I haven't read the book or seen a film or TV version. I really liked how the story worked through issues of classism and female empowerment.
Lady Chatterley's Lover definitely has more nudity than used to be allowed in an R-rated movie. I wasn't shocked.
The older I get the more I realize that I was not served well by the prudishness of my youth. I was undereducated about sexuality in ways that did real damage and could have done a lot worse if it weren't for some good luck. There's nothing in this story that I wouldn't prefer that a 17-year-old learn from this film or book than from internet porn or fumbling with peers.
The Wikipedia article says that this was filmed at Brynkinalt Hall and the grounds of that estate in Chirk, Wales. The front of the house is definitely recognizable from the film.
The scenery in Lady Chatterley's Lover is just gorgeous with rolling flowery meadows, a sparkling stream, and enchanting woods.
We watched this streaming on Netflix.
What will you be watching for Valentine's Day?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
