jflower 's review for:

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

4.0

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I loved the way this book was set in the Victorian era, but the writer gave present-day perspective on all the goings-on as they were happening. It gave a much more complete understanding of the story because you weren’t left to surmise, for instance what the social implications might be for a characters’ actions. It also gave a lot of insight to what characters’ views on religion, philosophy, sciences, etc. might be based on available and popular research and ideas from the era. The movie apparently got a lot of Oscar attention, but I found the way they dealt with the present-day perspective to be much less effective. I’d recommend the book.