Book 4 - The French Lieutenant's Woman

When I picked this book from the bookstore, of course I didn't expect the usual Jane Austen rip-off from some wannabe authors. I never heard of this book before but reading it was a challenging experience and I found it to be a very rewarding on different levels. This was my first exposure to John Fowles writing. Contrary to my fascination about the Victorian era, Fowles constructs a Victorian Romance that is about as thick with existential allusions and irony which, in a way, emphasises the narrative.

The narrator knew what women were about and criticized Victorian sensibilities while simultaneously diverting us towards the more pernicious differentiation of post-modernism...errr..sexism. It debunks my notions of the Victorian era, that it was romantic and idyll and I hate the author for that. Yet, I appreciate how it questions me about the values of that era.

The story takes place during the Victorian era and revolves around an English woman named Sarah, a woman who finds herself socially despised because she had an affair with a French military officer. A biologist named Charles encounters her on that infamous pier, he becomes instantly captivated, and soon they had an affair while he was engaged to Ernestina, his well-off and well-bred fiance.

This is a love story and a romantic tragedy at the same time. While reading, I remebered Thomas Hardy's Tess d'Urbervilles, because the story is so exactly like it - broken angel, sexuality, innocence, undying (stupid) love, self-awareness, truth and courage. One notable difference only is that Sarah's motives were never clear to me.

Oh yes, John Fowles is one great author. Artful writing. He can throw together sentences that are just confounding. He overcame the boundaries of writing by crafting a Voctorian novel with an existentialist-modernist rationality and judgement then, puts himself as a character in the novel and actually made two conclusions for the novel. This guy's a show-off. Haha. But well okay, congratualtions, you made one staggering masterwork.