Posted Sep 17, 2011, 9:24 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Wiltshire, England
Posts: 1,938
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XXXIV - DH Lawrence
” Then she quivered as she felt his hand groping softly, yet with queer thwarted clumsiness, among her clothing. Yet the hand knew, too, how to unclothe her where it wanted. He drew down the thin silk sheath, slowly, carefully, right down and over her feet. Then with a quiver of exquisite pleasure he touched the warm soft body, and touched her navel for a moment in a kiss. And he had to come in to her at once, to enter the peace on earth of her soft, quiescent body. It was the moment of pure peace for him, the entry into the body of the woman.”
Hardly very racy by today’s standards, but between 1928 and 1960 it was enough to get Lady Chatterley’s Lover banned. In the trial that ended the ban, the prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones famously asked the jury, “Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?".
Apparently it was. The public lapped it up – when the book finally went on sale a queue of 400 people lined Charring Cross Road outside Foyles bookshop. Recalling a trip to a motorway service station, the 6th Earl of Craven seethed:
“there, at every serving counter, sat a snigger of youths. Every one had a copy of the book held up to his face with one hand, while he forked nourishment into his open mouth with the other. They held the seeds of suggestive lust, which was expressed quite blatantly by glance and remark...”
So, in return for being muzzled by the censor for three decades, DH Lawrence makes it into our prodigal band.
Last edited by Bedhead; Feb 5, 2012 at 7:03 PM.
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