Desk Notes No.22
Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Chanel's Fashion Manifesto
Dear friends,
Wishing you all a happy new year, I hope your January has been kind. After the chaos and energy of Christmas, January is a strange month: quieter, more spacious, and often a little bit bleak. I find myself taking stock, making plans for the year ahead. I’ve been thinking a lot about this newsletter and where I would like to take it in the future. Much has happened since I first began and, in the next few weeks, you might notice some changes including the name of the site. It was always my hope to share more essays and experimental writing with you, so keep an eye on your inboxes for more on this in the next few weeks.
Of course I’ll keep sharing my thoughts on books, exhibitions, and films in these Desk Notes each month too. At the start of the year, I always make a loose list of the books I’d like to read. As time passes, new books are added and I’m inevitably carried away by mood. Last year it was Virginia Woolf who took me by surprise. No other prose compared. I plan to finish reading her novels over the course of 2024. I would also like to return to more writing by Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire and Laughter in the Dark), to try Chekov’s short stories, and read Ibsen’s plays.
After taking on Clarissa in 2023, my big read this year will be George Eliot’s 800 page epic Middlemarch. I think it was professor John Sutherland who said the novel is best experienced as it was first serialised by Eliot in the 1870s — read in its original eight ‘half volumes,’ one published every two months. Reading this way takes sixteen months and I wonder if I will be able to pace myself, or whether I will feel compelled to consume it all at once.
Other things I’m looking forward to this year are the Sargent and Fashion exhibition at Tate and Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream at the National Portrait Gallery. The Courtauld in London also has some wonderful shows opening later this year including Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art and Monet and London: Views of the Thames. But first, the grand re-opening of Birmingham’s Gas Hall space this February with Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement. Perfect!
Do let me know in the comments what you’re looking forward to this year too.
Print — Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, first published in 1928
Places — Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 10 March 2024
Print
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, first published privately in 1928
My Uncle passed away recently after a difficult period with dementia. One of the last times we talked, we spoke about Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Along with many people across the country, and particularly in our North Nottinghamshire town, John read the novel in the wake of its obscenity trial in 1960 when it sold over three million copies. Our family’s home towns, Huthwaite and Teversall, are name-dropped in the novel, although their descriptions bare closer resemblance to nearby Chesterfield and Eastwood where Lawrence himself lived.
I read my first Lawrence stories last year and was moved by his realistic accounts of our mining communities. In Odour of Chrysanthamums he vividly describes the impact of an industrial accident from the perspective of the miner’s female dependents. Yet local feelings about Lawrence seemed to be mixed, and I had often heard him described as, “not a great writer.” I wonder if many of these feelings stem from the first hundred pages of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the least refined part of his most famous novel. As Lawrence makes sweeping generalisations about women; gathers men in rooms to share elaborate theories about sex; and recycles phrases over again, Iris Murdoch’s verdict reverberated in my mind:
“An eminently silly book by a great man.”
Then something shifted. The novel no longer felt quite so frivolous. As Lady Chatterley embarks on her notorious affair with the working class gamekeeper, Mellors, Lawrence begins showing rather than telling. The subtle dynamics of power emerge from the dialogue between the characters; from what is said and, perhaps more importantly, what is not.
The novel’s industrial backdrop, its context of rampant capitalism, its unflattering descriptions of the “masses,” begin to take on greater resonance, bringing the central relationships into sharp relief. Lady Chatterley’s pit-owning husband, Clifford, spouts privilege and prejudice, putting “industry before the individual,” treating the working class as little more than cogs in his machine. In this cold-hearted climate, Lady Chatterley’s extramarital sex becomes thematically tied with tenderness.
“And [Mellors] realised as he went in to her that this was the thing he had to do, to come into tender touch, without losing his pride or his dignity or his integrity as a man. After all, if she had money and means, and he had none, he should be too proud and honourable to hold back his tenderness from her on that account. ‘I stand for the touch of bodily awareness between human beings,’ he said to himself, ‘and the touch of tenderness. And she is my mate. And it is a battle against money, and the machine, and the insentient ideal monkeyishness of the world. And she will stand behind me there. Thank God I’ve got a woman! Thank God I have got a woman who is with me, and tender and aware of me. Thank God she’s not a bully, nor a fool. Thank God she’s a tender, aware woman.’ And as his seed sprang in her, his soul sprang towards her too, in the creative act that is far more than procreative.”
Their affair comes to stand for kindness, care and compassion in human relationships; everything that should resonate with us post #MeToo.
In the days before picking up Lady Chatterley, I read Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure — a late Victorian novel exploring the sordid nature of marriage contracts which, in the absence of love, effectively exchanged sex for money, security and social position. Jude and his lover Sue loathe what marriage stands for but are harassed and ostracised for their decision to live together lovingly, unwed and ‘in sin’. In many ways Lawrence pushes against the same Victorian attitudes — attitudes that continued to pollute human relationships long into the twentieth century. In his A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence writes:
“All this talk of young girls and virginity like a blank white sheet on which nothing is written, is pure nonsense. A young girl, and a young boy is a tormented tangle, a seething confusion of sexual feelings and sexual thoughts which only the years disentangle.”
Only by talking openly about sex did Lawrence believe we could move beyond this. Lady Chatterley’s Lover plays out as challenge to its likely censors; an argument for free speech. Reading it today much of its language feels jarring, unnecessary, even silly. And yet perhaps necessary to our freedoms today.
Places
Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 10 March 2024
Such a familiar brand today, it’s easy to forget Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was born in the nineteenth century. So luxurious, that it’s hard to believe her life began very differently from those she would dress. Gabrielle Chanel was born to impoverished, nomadic parents in 1883, her father selling clothes and lingerie on the streets of market towns. After her mother died when Gabrielle was just eleven, she was sent to a covent orphanage. It was here that she learned to sew.
This wonderful exhibition at the V&A traces her design career from its first days in 1916 to her final collection in 1971. Chanel made clothes that were comfortable to wear, challenging the restrictive, corseted silhouette. The early collections from the 1920s and 30s are striking in their simplicity and lightness. Finding new uses in blouses and dresses for lingerie fabrics like silk jersey, it’s clear Chanel’s clothes felt gentle and luxurious on the skin; that they moved with grace and elegance. Sophisticated and restrained, her early summer dresses exude glamour and romance. Nothing showy, just simple lines and delicate details — romantic bows, simple pockets, scalloped edges. She paired dresses and coats with matching linings; understated prints on ethereal fabrics.
There are rooms exploring her invention of the ‘little black dress,’ her film work, branding, perfumery and accessories. The costume jewellery is jaw dropping — large gold collars inspired by the Roman and Persian empires, botanical necklaces with acorn details, jewelled belts. Another astonishing room celebrates the famous Chanel suit, wall to wall wool and tweed. In seventy years their essence hasn’t changed. The longevity of her designs can be seen in the 2.55 handbag launched in 1955 and still on sale today, and in the iconic No.5 bottle.
The V&A make some effort to explore Gabriel Chanel’s activities during the second World War, which have cast a recent shadow over her achievements — something of keen interest to visitors who poured over the official documents and letters on display, creating a bottle neck in the exhibition. The focus, however, remained on Gabrielle Chanel’s elusive personality and dynamism. On her decision to return to fashion after the war she quipped, “One night at dinner Christian Dior said a woman could never be a great couturier.” That her fashion manifesto is still going strong is the most superb riposte.
Wishing you all a wonderful 2024. I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to this year.
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This month’s featured image is ‘A gardener holding a potted plant’ from ‘The Child's Coloured Gift Book’ courtesy of the British Library (shelfmark: 12807.ff.15). Banners are courtesy of the Internet Book Archive.
I caught myself myself thinking about the Netflix adaptation of Lady Chatterley as I read your review. The way I see it (not having read the book) 'class clash' is definitely there, and there is tenderness between Lady Chetterley and Mellors. Sexual freedom, however, stands out the most for me. I wonder how the fact of this latest adaptation being directed by a woman compares to other adaptations directed by men and even to the book.
This was an especially fun newsletter to read. I so enjoyed reading about the Chanel exhibit. I'm very sorry about your uncle's passing. It must be bittersweet to think back on the lovely bookish conversations you had together. I hope your auntie is doing well.