The Trouble with Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover has probably got to be the strangest comfort reading, yet about every couple of years here I am reading it again. I also have a very strange relationship with Lawrence, unlike other authors he both impresses me and irritates in equal measure, and I am drawn to this book and to it's forerunner. I don't entirely know why I should feel like this about the book and the author. Lawrence write with such expressive lyricism, his descriptions of the landscape is beautiful, and I agree wholly with his sentiments that men and women should feel open to experiencing true sexuality. I think the trouble I have is that Constance and Mellors are quite questionable characters. I am not sure that Lawrence manages to convey a lasting relationship between equals and his attitude to sexuality doesn't encompass homosexuality or even the sexuality of any relationship that doesn't involve running naked in the woods worshipping the eternal phallus. I am more drawn to the pastoral romance of The First Lady Chatterley than the brutally philosophical novel it ended up being. That might seem a odd thing to say about it, but I think it is quite nihilistic at times in the way that it portrays the end of the Chatterley family and that of the mining village.
Yet I am still drawn to it and keep reading.
This year I've also read The Virgin and the Gypsy, which was also quite questionable, but has got me to thinking about reading more Lawrence as the only other thing I've read are his short stories. So hopefully, I will get started on that soon. I am getting nowhere with the Proust right now, with the new job I just haven't had the brain power. I haven't forgotten it completely though.