Take a photo of a barcode or cover
willdr 's review for:
The French Lieutenant's Woman
by John Fowles
I normally find 'classic' literature challenging, despite my qualifications. If the antiquated prose doesn't lose me, the esoteric language choice will.
After the first 100 pages of The French Lieutenant's Woman, I was hooked until the end. Fowles both deconstructs and portrays a more conflicted, intriguing Victorian Age than the one I'm familiar with. He also deconstructs narrative itself and examines the nature of fiction and the relationship the reader has with the author.
All this while remaining beautiful, readable, and compelling. The story of Charles, Ernestina and Sarah is familiar yet surprising, in how Fowles plays with typical love triangle tropes. The text isn't perfect. A couple of slightly misogynistic asides took me by surprise, but I must stress that those were extremely few and far between, the markers of being written in 1969.
This book made me want to read everything Fowles has ever written, and track down criticism.
After the first 100 pages of The French Lieutenant's Woman, I was hooked until the end. Fowles both deconstructs and portrays a more conflicted, intriguing Victorian Age than the one I'm familiar with. He also deconstructs narrative itself and examines the nature of fiction and the relationship the reader has with the author.
All this while remaining beautiful, readable, and compelling. The story of Charles, Ernestina and Sarah is familiar yet surprising, in how Fowles plays with typical love triangle tropes. The text isn't perfect. A couple of slightly misogynistic asides took me by surprise, but I must stress that those were extremely few and far between, the markers of being written in 1969.
This book made me want to read everything Fowles has ever written, and track down criticism.