Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin (Baroness) von Richthofen, the original Lady Chatterley it says in the blurb, but this woman is so much more than an aristocrat stuck in a stifling marriage attracted to some one of the 'lower classes;. Frieda Weekley, nee von Richthofen the daughter of a Bavarian down on his luck, gambling count, married to a much older English professor was an intelligent, attractive and vivacious woman. This book is the fictional biography of the woman who inspired, edited, coped with and married the maverick author DH Lawrence, for him she left her husband and her children. The harsh laws of adultery at the time meaning no woman could see or look after her children if she had left her husband. She had no rights at all. The driving pain in the book is the loss of her children. She comes out of the novel as an interesting, spiky, sensual, well rounded woman. This book took pains to separate the woman from the more famous husband, to write her as an individual, precocious, indecisive and interesting. The Germany of the early 20th Century was so interesting, the many different ideas and philosophy being developed, free love and the embryonic psychiatry were well described.
This book generated an excellent discussion over zoom. We all enjoyed it even if some of us had reservations about the writing.
Words used to describe it:
Marks out of 10: between 6 -8
Next book
Ok, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea
by Patrick Freyne
Next meeting
2 December on Zoom (again)
unless lock down really has ended, but that's unlikely.
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