The French Lieutenant's Woman

1969, 1981 Signet edition, to tie in with the movie
John Fowles
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Original price $3.50, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
B

This is an interesting follow-up to the other "Woman" title I own from 1969, since there are parallels that never struck me before.  The protagonist is engaged but gets involved with someone who may or may not be a virgin but is definitely an accomplished liar.  In Marian McAlpin's case, farce results, but Charles Smithson has taken on the aptly nicknamed "Tragedy."  Not that we're meant to take Fowles entirely seriously either, since he breaks the fourth wall, and the ceiling, and that window looking out on his new home of Lyme Regis, not far from where Jane Austen pushed Louisa Musgrove down the stairs like Charles Sopkin was watching.

"The French Lieutenant's Woman" has decided to surround herself with mystery, to be treated as a whore when she may be "pure."  It's as if Hester Prynne sewed the A to her clothes just to get the attention.  This book is the true precursor to Easy A!  Well, maybe not.  And no, I haven't seen the Meryl Streep/ Jeremy Irons film, although I've heard of it of course, which is why I got this book years ago.

Despite the claims that the story is filled with romance and/or sex, including, as Saturday Review puts it, "a sexual encounter so explosive that it nearly blows the top of your head off," don't read it for the sex or the romance.  As Fowles notes, the consummation takes less than ninety seconds, and that includes Charles undressing.  Also, you probably won't care whether Charles gets together with Sarah, or works things out with his fiancée.  You might decide that, as with Marian, he might be better off staying single.

The book is more about thought, although it's too playful to be intellectual.  It's about what people think, and what they think they think, and what they think about that.  It is the meanings of love and sex, in various forms, that matter more than the actual connections between people.  In this Fowles seems to be commenting on both the mid-Victorians and his contemporaries.  The book is about the differences a century made.  As such, it's similar to Byatt's Possession, which I'll discuss under 1990. 

This edition contains "8 pages of film scenes."  If I recall correctly, there's a story within a story for the film, or a film within a film.  It doesn't sound particularly faithful to the book, but how could it be?  Anyway, fidelity seems to be a more complicated subject than Charles, or Marian, realises at first.