Review - The French Lieutenant's Woman

[wilderthan]

I didn't expect to like this very much. A post-modern take on the Victorian novel? Victorian novels are awkward enough, sometimes, without adding post-modernism -- and besides, I'm not a fan of post-modernism. All that stuff about alienating the reader annoys me; why would I read something to be alienated from it? Fiction, for me, tends to go firmly in the escapism category, not the "making me think" category.

But John Fowles wasn't too heavy-handed about it. I didn't find it a chore to read, and it didn't take me very long at all. It's a kind of modern comment on Victorian sensibilities. The main characters are interesting enough. Mostly Sarah, since she's mostly kept an enigma.

The fact that it has the author as a character would mostly annoy me (see also: Money by Martin Amis), but actually, the intervention isn't all that annoying or alienating. The multiple endings are interesting, and even though I don't really like that device, I appreciate the point it makes about storytelling.

I'd probably have much more clever things to say about this if I waited until I started studying it, but... honest first reactions.