Lady Chatterley's Lover

"Of course, this book was also the object of censoring attention, culminating in a couple of trials (one in the States and one in Britain). But it’s also itself about the violation of norms – in this case, the violation of the marriage contract and the norm of monogamous living. Lawrence wrote about the difference between literature and pornography, and, curiously enough, in defending Lady Chatterley in 1928/9 against the charge that it was pornographic, he himself said that he was in favour of censoring pornography. Pornography ‘does dirt on sex, does dirt on life,’ he said, and he would be in favour of censoring it, suppressing it; but his work was not pornographic. So Lawrence allows the possibility of censorship, but not if it is misapplied or misdirected at his own work. The complicity of the author with the principle of censorship is interesting in the case of Lawrence and Chatterley."

"Yes, the Lady Chatterley trial was a turning point for freedom of expression around sexuality. There’s the famous line by Philip Larkin: “Sexual intercourse began in 1963, between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP.” So I like Lady Chatterley’s Lover for symbolic reasons. It was a reflection of the sexual revolution in which I grew up. But it’s also a very, very passionate book. It was one of the first big works of literature to describe sexuality fully, very arousingly, and also to celebrate sexuality between classes. Because there was a whole lot of other social change at that time, particularly in Europe. We were moving from a very structured, hierarchical society to a much more equal society. Having sex up and down the classes was very new and very revolutionary. So it’s a beautiful book to read—the love between them is brilliant—but it’s also legally and sociologically a very important book. Psychologically, I think the most important thing in the book is that, for the first time perhaps, we’re seeing people being encouraged to be more whole and more sane and more healthy by acknowledging their sexual side, not just their mind. The whole theme of the book is that you don’t just live through the mind, you live through the body, and the whole person. It’s a holistic sex book, if you like."