Description: The Book Club meets every 6 weeks to discuss a current book for review. If you like to read and to talk about books this is for you – or you can just listen to what others have to say. Give it a go.
Coordinator: Alan Corkhill
Day: See list below
Time: 9:30 am
Location: Shed
More Information
Book List 2021
D.H. Lawrence, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (1928; 1960) [explores early sexual liberation and its clash with mainstream morality and the law]
Focus Questions
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> 1. What is the nature of Connie Chatterley’s sexual awakening and how does it subvert the norms of ‘civilized‘ British society?
2. Despite the novel‘s notoriety and its subjection to an obscenity trial, is it more than just a ‘dirty’ book?
3. What does the novel say about the struggle of the sexes and female domination/ self-determination/empowerment?
4. How does the novel portray class differences in the 1920s? What changes are afoot?
5. What is Clifford Chatterley‘s blueprint for a new industrialism and how does it clash with Oliver Mellor‘s anti-materialistic view of the world?
6. What environmental issues are raised and what are their effect on the mining community of Tevershall Village and its surrounds?
7. Given that Lawrence was profoundly influenced by German thought, how would you read the novel in terms of Freud’s concept of the libido or Nietzsche’s theory of the will (to power)?
8. The novel is a work of literary modernism. How does this manifest itself in Lawrence’s use of language and narrative technique?
Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” (1932) [critiques inter alia social programming and the value of collective happiness versus the freedom of individualism] JUNE 10
Graham Greene, “Brighton Rock” (1938) [a murder thriller that explores gangland violence and its societal roots]. JULY 22
George Orwell, “Animal Farm” (1945) [a veiled critique of Marxist tenets]. SEPTEMBER 2
Sarah Waters, “Fingersmith” (2000) [a retrospective look at gender and class inequality in the poorhouses, prisons and asylums of Victorian England] OCTOBER 14
Zadie Smith, “White Teeth” (2002) [set in 1970s London, the novel is constructed around two families from very different backgrounds, ethnically and socially] NOVEMBER 25
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Any enquiries: Alan Corkhill Email: a.corkhill127@gmail.com 045 012 7270