Virginia Woolf, who was easily condescending (she even despised Dickens and his “very banal style”), did not hold DH Lawrence in high esteem. When this son of a miner, pure produces working classbegan to be talked about in 1913, it was fashionable among posh people to throw rotten tomatoes at him. People make fun of his Derbyshire accent. Although she recognizes qualities in her novel Lovers and sonsWoolf judges that there is “something wrong” with Lawrence. That’s to say ? According to her, he is obsessed with sex, probably because of his modest origins; moreover, it does not fit into any literary tradition. In a word, he’s a redneck – and a most embarrassing one.
James Joyce joined in this chorus of nonsense a few years later, declaring that Lawrence wrote “really, really badly.” Note that, not being the type to allow himself to be insulted, the touchy Lawrence found Molly Bloom’s monologue at the end ofUlysses : “This novel exhausted me. Typically the book of a schoolmaster who only has filth and other rubbish in mind; sometimes good, however, but much too cerebral.” This is partly because ofUlysses (published in 1922) that Lawrence began writing Lady Chatterley’s Lover (published for the first time independently in 1928). Almost a century later, we are still talking about this masterpiece, which was adapted by Netflix two years ago and has just entered the Pléiade.
We ask the person responsible for this new edition, Marc Porée, to retrace for us the different phases of Lawrence’s posterity: “He experienced a peak of popularity in the 1960s, thirty years after his death. Following the resounding trial brought by the public authorities for ‘obscenity’, more than 2 million copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. But, paradoxically, the liberation of morals, bringing the liberation of women, led to a violent rejection of Lawrence on the part of the first feminists… Murderous as well as excessive, Kate Millett’s essay, Sexual Politics (1970), earned him canceled before time. It is only since the 2000s that he has experienced the beginnings of a comeback in the media and cultural sphere, where he was hardly in the odor of holiness. Against these fluctuations we must contrast the constancy with which academics, and especially the contributors to the Cambridge Edition of his works, work to ensure Lawrence’s writings the status of ‘classics’ which they certainly deserve. That said, he is no longer studied much at university, as if his status as a former literary outcast has ceased to exert among young people the power of attraction attributed to sulfur and the forbidden…”
Lawrence and the new generation
Died young, at 44 (like Stevenson or Fitzgerald), Lawrence is the author of an abundant work (novels, poems and letters), of which we often only remember Lady Chatterley’s Lover and its sexual scenes of unprecedented accuracy. We ask Marc Porée what their originality is: “In his way of approaching female pleasure, Lawrence was neither the first nor the last. Irene’s Assthe erotic story written by Louis Aragon, also appeared in 1928. But Aragon was French, whereas one would perhaps not expect an English writer to be so explicit in the evocation of desire and of enjoyment – as if we were wrong, because that amounted to ignoring the important place taken by sex and sexuality in the British imagination and literature… If we can criticize Lawrence for many things, starting with his frenzied phallocentrism , little ‘in keeping’ with the times, we must recognize his equally fierce desire to put himself in tune with the pleasure experienced (or not) by his female characters, which is largely absent from a good part of the books written by men.”
Who better than Catherine Millet to add her two cents here? The author of the bestseller The Sex Life of Catherine M. had also signed an essay entitled Love Lawrence. She returns to L’Express on this late love at first sight: “I have long had prejudices towards Lawrence. The story of the aristocrat who secretly meets his gamekeeper in the forest appeared gently old-fashioned in the ‘after May 68. So I read Lawrence late, but that’s good, because I undoubtedly had immediate access to more complete and much better translations than if I had read him earlier. I know of no fairer, more simply expressed description of the female orgasm than that which Lawrence gives precisely when Lady Chatterley finally achieves it. I always thought that he must have previously quite ‘cooked’ his wife and hers. friends. But there was also her own sensitivity. Anaïs Nin spoke of ‘androgynous writing’. What remains revolutionary in Lawrence is her absolute freedom and that of her heroines, all of whom embrace their sexuality. , bold, far from the suspicious, cautious feminism of today…”
Between Kate Millet and Catherine Millet, we see, there is a world of difference. What about the younger generation? Incredibly, while we thought we would find her a Lawrence fanatic, Emma Becker admits to not having read Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This name continues to make people dream and inspire. A year ago, within the Editis group, the Chatterley publishing house was created by Sarah Rigaud and Julie Cartier. The latter is justified as follows: “We chose Chatterley because this name represents a monument of literature, a book with assumed eroticism, which speaks of the feelings and pleasure of a woman. This is consistent with what we wish to do with Chatterley the brand was not registered elsewhere, we did it for the occasion. This did not pose a legal problem, it is a family name, we did not. did not use the term ‘Lady Chatterley’.” Let us point out that Chatterley is a house specializing in romance, sometimes with taste (in their catalog, we recommend Despite the thorns of the Corolle sisters, who bring together Downton Abbey and gay literature). Is this magical Chatterley name a reference for the ever-growing romance audience? Julie Cartier unfortunately puts a damper on our enthusiasm: “Today, among our young readers, the name of Chatterley is barely known; and that of DH Lawrence, totally unknown. Only those who have seen the film on Netflix vaguely say link. We are often forced to explain the name of our house. On the other hand, after 40/50 years, yes, everyone knows what it is.
We won’t betray any secrets when we write that this kitsch Netflix adaptation, with Emma Corrin as the heroine, mainly caused yawns. No film can capture the sensuality and analytical finesse of the novel. We envy those who, like Emma Becker, have never opened it before. Lawrence had written his masterpiece three times, it can be reread indefinitely. For the record, let us recall that, in 1985, to commemorate the centenary of his birth, a plaque was placed in his memory in Westminster Abbey – which is not lacking in irony for this writer with a sulphurous reputation. Its publication in La Pléiade grants him definitive absolution. Virginia Woolf and James Joyce would be wise to reconsider their judgments.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover and other novels, by DH Lawrence. La Pléiade/Gallimard, 1,344 p., €69.
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