Sarah's review
The French Lieutenant's Woman
by John Fowles
Sarah's review
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Sarah's review
rating:
This very intriguing post-modern Victorian story left me pleasantly puzzled. I might need to reread the last few chapters again! The author plays with the notion of what it means to be an author and a character in a novel. He even messes with the definition of the novel itself! He inserts himself as the authorial voice, but also a character, and, from time to time, his characters make decisions he didn't make for them. The male lead character, Charles, is endlessly analyzed and his deepest emotions considered and reconsidered with each new turn of the plot. Though this is a little contrived, it makes him seem like a real person, because he is just as befuddled as the rest of us as he seeks to understand himself and his place in the world. The female lead, Sarah, is the opposite - we have only her actions described to us and the only things we know about her feelings are what she chooses to speak. The author offers her complete internal "privacy," which means that you n...more
