You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Really enjoyed it. It started off well and ended really well. Took a fair bit of concentration and had to reread passages more than once because I wasn't used to high level of English after having only read books like The Hunger Games and silly teenage vampire-romance books recently.
I loved the story and the mocking style in which this book was written, though not what I was expecting at all (didn't know anything about this book before I picked it up). Well worth the read.
I loved the story and the mocking style in which this book was written, though not what I was expecting at all (didn't know anything about this book before I picked it up). Well worth the read.
I started listening to the audiobook having forgotten I had already read it a few years back. Still enjoyed the story, the interesting characters and the thoughts it provoked around the themes of feminism, Marxism, the British class system and gender issues.
So I finally got around to reading The French Lieutenant's Woman. I won this book as part of Robert's blogoversary give away almost two years ago back in August of 2012. And all I have to say is shame on me for waiting this long to read it. Not only am I ashamed because it was such a wonderful book, but I am ashamed because it inspired one of my favorite posts of 101 Books of all time: 101 Books Guide to Carrying an Embarrassing Book in Public.
I'd love to say that Fowles' mentioning of Jane Austen didn't sway me, but of course it did a little, but overall that was minuscule compared to the mastery Fowles showed in this novel and he mentioned Austen and her works MULTIPLE times! But it wasn't this that made the book so great, it was the omniscient unidentified narrator and the breaking of the fourth wall (I guess it's called that in reading as well).
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
I'd love to say that Fowles' mentioning of Jane Austen didn't sway me, but of course it did a little, but overall that was minuscule compared to the mastery Fowles showed in this novel and he mentioned Austen and her works MULTIPLE times! But it wasn't this that made the book so great, it was the omniscient unidentified narrator and the breaking of the fourth wall (I guess it's called that in reading as well).
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
2014:
This is one of my favorite movies, and since the book is usually better, I keep thinking I should love this. And I keep trying to read it, and I keep bogging down. Maybe someday I will make it through...
2020:
Ta da! I finally read this. I hadn't tried in many years, that "keep trying"line is sort of a lie. I'm sure what had put me off for so long was the fact that it's a faux Victorian and I didn't recognize that, just thought it was written strangely. Well it sort of is with its omniscient point of view. Often quite tongue-in-cheek . Hard to know how I would have felt about this without having seen the movie so many times, its a fairly faithful adaptation, much of the dialogue is lifted intact. Oddball enough to be sort of a love it or hate it sort of thing. I wouldn't call it a page turner (although, again, I knew what was going to happen, perhaps if I hadn't it might have been) but I enjoyed it.
This is one of my favorite movies, and since the book is usually better, I keep thinking I should love this. And I keep trying to read it, and I keep bogging down. Maybe someday I will make it through...
2020:
Ta da! I finally read this. I hadn't tried in many years, that "keep trying"line is sort of a lie. I'm sure what had put me off for so long was the fact that it's a faux Victorian and I didn't recognize that, just thought it was written strangely. Well it sort of is with its omniscient point of view. Often quite tongue-in-cheek . Hard to know how I would have felt about this without having seen the movie so many times, its a fairly faithful adaptation, much of the dialogue is lifted intact. Oddball enough to be sort of a love it or hate it sort of thing. I wouldn't call it a page turner (although, again, I knew what was going to happen, perhaps if I hadn't it might have been) but I enjoyed it.
mysterious
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had a memory of reading and enjoying this novel many years ago, perhaps in my teens, but discovered that I remembered very little about it.
I was expecting a straightforward historical novel, a story set entirely in a very different time from when it was it was written. Actually this is a very 20th century novel, with a 1960s author-narrator telling a story set in 1867. He continually interrupts his story to comment on and discuss his characters, their actions, attitudes and values, and those of the Victorian society they live in.
Charles is an educated gentleman, preparing to meet social expectations of a man of his class, planning to marry Ernestina, daughter of a wealthy businessman. He becomes curious about Sarah, a servant and former governess with a mysterious but probably scandalous back story, nicknamed "the French lieutenant's woman", and a habit of walking along the cliffs in Lyme Regis, looking out to sea.
I am quite intrigued that Fowles claimed to be a feminist and that it was debated as a feminist novel. There is a lot for feminists to discuss here but all female characters (and nearly all characters) are seen through the eyes of the author-narrator whose story is in turn filtered through the view of his gentleman protagonist Charles.
The novel is packed with Victorian cultural and literary references, including Charles Darwin (whose theories of evolution were considered quite shocking in his time), Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, Matthew Arnold and Gabriel Dante Rossetti.
This is not quite the Victorian love story that I expected, but something enjoyably odd and thought provoking, with many digressions and rabbit holes, including alternative storylines presented by the narrator.
A film was made of this novel in 1981, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, and my Vintage Classics copy includes the writer's afterword on the difficulties of adaptation.
I was expecting a straightforward historical novel, a story set entirely in a very different time from when it was it was written. Actually this is a very 20th century novel, with a 1960s author-narrator telling a story set in 1867. He continually interrupts his story to comment on and discuss his characters, their actions, attitudes and values, and those of the Victorian society they live in.
Charles is an educated gentleman, preparing to meet social expectations of a man of his class, planning to marry Ernestina, daughter of a wealthy businessman. He becomes curious about Sarah, a servant and former governess with a mysterious but probably scandalous back story, nicknamed "the French lieutenant's woman", and a habit of walking along the cliffs in Lyme Regis, looking out to sea.
I am quite intrigued that Fowles claimed to be a feminist and that it was debated as a feminist novel. There is a lot for feminists to discuss here but all female characters (and nearly all characters) are seen through the eyes of the author-narrator whose story is in turn filtered through the view of his gentleman protagonist Charles.
The novel is packed with Victorian cultural and literary references, including Charles Darwin (whose theories of evolution were considered quite shocking in his time), Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, Matthew Arnold and Gabriel Dante Rossetti.
This is not quite the Victorian love story that I expected, but something enjoyably odd and thought provoking, with many digressions and rabbit holes, including alternative storylines presented by the narrator.
A film was made of this novel in 1981, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, and my Vintage Classics copy includes the writer's afterword on the difficulties of adaptation.
I'm glad that I read The Collector first, because if I had read this one first I wouldn't read any book by John Fowles. I didn't completely dislike it, it was just too dry for me. There was a decent story in there between all the dryness. It was also interesting that the narrator of the story was the author himself. He would have chapters where he would talk about where the story could go and the decisions he made while writing. He even wrote himself into the story. It was ok.
"I said earlier that we are all poets, though not many of us write poetry; and so we are all novelists, that is, we have a habit of writing fictional futures for ourselves, although perhaps today we incline more to put ourselves into film."
How did I miss this classic for so long? Beautiful language; I had to sit with my iPad open to dictionary.com while reading. Many twisting plot lines, clever interweaving of the author’s own persona into the narrative.