The French Lieutenant's Woman review

[alobear]

It all started so well.

After reading a friend's very enthusiastic review of The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, I put it on my BookMooch wishlist and it duly turned up a few weeks later.  I happened to finish my current book at lunchtime that very day, so The French Lieutenant's Woman shot to the top of the reading pile by default.

Initially, I thought it was excellent.  Set in 1867, but written in 1969, the tone and style were very Victorian, yet it was most definitely an exploration of the second half of the 19th century from a 20th century viewpoint.  There were lots of interesting discussions of science and Darwinism, and a great deal of commentary on the author's opinion of the Victorians.  It was certainly very different to any other book I've read that was set or written in the period.

In the first hundred pages, I noted down several excellent quotes - some for their humour and others for their beauty or insight.

"In his second year [at Cambridge] he had drifted into a bad set and ended up, one foggy night in London, in carnal possession of a naked girl."

I just love the phrasing of this, though the suggestion of such behaviour being shocking is rather at odds with Fowles' later discussion of the huge number of brothels in London at the time, as well as his description of the high class men frequenting them.

"You will see that Charles set his sights high.  Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence."

This is a great line, and very true of more than one person I know, certainly not excluding myself.

At one point, Charles sends his manservant to take flowers to his invalid fiancee - "for which light duty, he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for Communism)."  See what I mean about the funny?

"[The Renaissance] was the green end of one of civilisation's harshest winters."  And the beauty?

However, as the novel went on, the focus started to shift away from the plot and the characters and much more onto the commentary.  With his direct addressing of the reader and analysis of his characters, it seemed clear that Fowles was emulating Trollope, but he did not have Trollope's light touch, and it started to feel as if he was breaking the fourth wall with rather too heavy a hammer.  His obvservations on the reasons for writing and the autonomy of fictional characters were insightful and very familiar to me, but I don't think they belonged *in* the novel.  It made it impossible to lose oneself in the story or relate to the characters as real people, despite Fowles' protestations exactly to the contrary.

An annoying habit of switching to the present tense for no apparent reason also crept in towards the middle of the book.

It started to feel more like a sociology text than a novel, as if the plot and characters were created entirely to support the conclusions Fowles wanted to draw about Victorian society, rather than to provide a proper story, which seems an odd way to go about things.  Surely, in order to back up an argument about the Victorian mindset, you would need to reference historical documents and works of the period, not a story you made up yourself.

Also, despite his attempt to use his characters to demonstrate things about their society, Fowles didn't actually explain their motives or actions in any way successfully.  He had Sarah "explain herself" to Charles, but she said he would never understand because he was not a woman.  This raised the question of why she insisted on telling him her history in the first place, and also rather undermined Fowles' credibility as a male writer trying to portray a believeable female character.

When Sarah (an apparently fallen woman) and Charles (a gentleman engaged to another) finally kissed in the woods, Fowles declared, "The moment overcame the age."  This came across as incredibly condescending and very pompous - he seemed to be trying to show that passion could override convention, but the whole thing somehow struck me as distasteful.  I found the whole story strangely dispassionate, perhpas because the characters' fictionality was emphasised too much for me to be able to relate to them emotionally.  I also felt that the author was making them do things that were out of character in order to serve his own ends, which felt very false.

Overall, Sarah came across as self-destructive and weak, subordinating her own personality to that of whatever man happened to be around at the time, even if she knew associating with him was a mistake.  According to her revelations at the end, however, this was not necessarily the case as the events she described to Charles in the woods did not apparently take place as she related them.  However, this just made her motives even more inexplicable and I finished the book with no clear idea of what she had been trying to achieve at any point during the story.  I'm really not sure what the reader is supposed to think of her at all.

Still, some bits of the writing were funny throughout.  At one point, Charles sends a telegram, using full sentences and formal language.  Fowles follows the text of the telegram with the comment - "In those days only the uncouth Yankees descended to telegraph-ese."  This made me think of the way I always use full sentences in text messages, which made me laugh.

Towards the end, there are two chapters that apparently wrap up all the plot threads and describe the fates of all the main characters in a very abrupt, albeit very funny, manner.  This was incredibly jarring and quite bizarre, and the subsequent revelation that they were "all a dream" exacerbated the problem rather than mitigating it.  The whole section was entirely out of keeping wih the tone of the rest of the novel and I thought it an overly clever conceit that really didn't work.

I have to admit I lost patience after that and just skimmed the last hundred pages in order to find out what happened.  I found the ending both appalling and inexplicable (perhaps I would have understood it better if I'd read it properly, but I'm really not sure of that), and was heartily glad I hadn't spent any more time on it.

It was such a shame after such a promising beginning - but I think I'll stick to Trollope!

Comments

[cholten99.livejournal.com]

*shocked*

Spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes... Who are you and what have you done with my wife...?

[coldjwplay.livejournal.com]

I didn't like to mention it... I kind of assumed she was high when she wrote it.

[alobear.livejournal.com]

I hate you both! :-b

[prunesquallormd.livejournal.com]

It's ok. Nakes is totes a word :p

[pollyannagoth.livejournal.com]

>"You will see that Charles set his sights high. Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence."

I read this book in my teens, and remember very little about it beyond picking that quote out for much the same reason as yours...

[prunesquallormd.livejournal.com]

I picked this up years ago and got about half-way through. I never really understood why I didn't finish it, as I absolutely loved it at first. I think maybe it was for the same reasons that you give and I just didn't really think about it as clearly. All I know is I was really enjoying it and then, for some reason, I wasn't.
A shame really, after such an excellent start.