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Liked It4 of 4 members found this review helpful “Written in 1969, by the light of bras burning across the West and as the last sexual mores of the past were being consigned to the dust bin, Fowles illuminates the Sexual Revolution with an ingeniously post-modern backward glance at the Victorian social novel. It’s smart, passionate, romantic,...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“A lot to learn from this book about the Victorian era. Though this book was a good one, in some parts the narrator's “voice” was too "loud".”
Mirela wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The story of a love triangle, set in 1867 England, is a more realistic view of Victorian life than most Victorian romances. The book is unique in the first-person voice of the author peppered throughout the story, filling us in on historically and culturally interesting tidbits, as well as contributing his own thoughts and opinions on what is happening in the story. The hypocrisy of the Victorian elite is interesting. This book would appeal to fans of Thomas Hardy.”
Jocelyn B wrote this review Tuesday, November 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Riveting, I kept reading 'til the wee hours of the morning.”
Thistle Steel wrote this review Tuesday, November 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The book is about a gentleman named Charles Smithson who is engaged to Ernestina Freeman. They were planning on getting married until Charles is introduced to Tragedy aka Sarah Woodruff who is left behind by a French Lieutenant who promised to come back for her and didn't. Charles becomes obsessed with Sarah soon learns that she never had anything with the French Lieutenant. He then breaks his engagement with Ernestina and tries to find Sarah who has disappeared.”
Inna O wrote this review Monday, November 16 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“no words”
dorin d wrote this review Monday, November 2 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A great character study of a man with an uncontrollable passion.”
Rob M wrote this review Thursday, September 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Great story! The narrator gets all his assumptions shattered in the Fowlesian manner.”
Eileen M wrote this review Saturday, August 15 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“excellent book.”
Lesli E wrote this review Monday, July 27 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This one surprised me. Loved the story within the footnotes.”
Peggy H wrote this review Saturday, July 25 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Sometime in the mid-1970s, when I was home from school (and looking for something new to read), I picked up a paperback in my parents’ library. The red-orange cover, the graphic of a woman lost in thought, the title The French Lieutenant’s Woman, all intriguing. I was riveted. Drawn quickly into the story and the storytelling, engaged on an emotional and psychological level, finding in the words, the story an echo of almost primal origin. A connection that no other novel had ever approximated, even as Fowles, the novelist, kept reminding me this was fiction.
bruce p wrote this review Tuesday, July 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Some months, maybe even a year afterwards, my Dad and I went to a bookstore in Coconut Grove, Florida that sold ‘used’ books exclusively. It was the first trip I’d made to a ‘used books’ store, and in it I found a handsome, hardcover copy of The French Lieutenant’s Woman. My memory of the event is not particularly vivid. As with so many experiences, it is lost to the corners of time, a dust mote. But what I do remember is the flood of sensations set in motion as I studied this slightly worn copy of the hardcover edition: the mood of the dust jacket, its enigmatic beauty, so much greater an honor to the qualities of the novel. (If one can attribute causality to a single event, with that purchase, I became a book collector.)
After completion of undergraduate studies, I traveled for three months to Europe. It was the autumn of 1979 and this was something of a last fling before I embarked upon the ‘rest of my life.’ During my time in England, I traveled to Lyme Regis, the setting for this novel, spent a largely rain-swept week with my journal and camera. I walked along the Cobb and in Ware Commons. The time alone was peaceful and contemplative. And yet, in keeping with the more muted tones of the novel, the visit was colored by a saddened almost inexplicable sense of loss. I drew down into myself, my journal, conscious and self-conscious, Adam thrust out of the Garden.
Of course, through the passage of time (and with the disappearance of untold leisure hours), that sense of 'separation' has stilled to a soft echo. Now, nearing thirty years later, there are all the commitments of work and family, the pursuits, distractions and fulfillments of life. But there remains the ‘memory’ and in the memory the shrine we erect to preserve it.”
