Blog the First

Well here I am with a blog... Advance apologies for my lack of eloquence and occasionally inability to say exactly what I'm trying to, as well as occasional pretentiousness... (and over-uses of ellipses!). I'm also aware that sometimes I sound as though I'm writing an essay; hopefully this will change and become more informal as I become more used to casually discussing literature.

So here as I write my first blog I'm thinking about John Fowles' 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (1969) which I have just finished reading. It's an intruiging book, and I enjoyed reading it, largely because it made me think. A brief outline of the story: It is 1867. Young gentleman Charles is staying in Lyme, as is his fiancee Ernestina Freeman (daughter of a rich tradesman of humble origin). During their stay they encounter Sarah Woodruff and learn the story of her relationship with 'The French Lieutenant' of the title. To tell any more would be to give away the story, which itself contains both passion and madness. The great interest, however, is in the way Fowles presents the story - or at least the way his narrator presents the story.

Fowles assumes the paradoxical role of an all-seeing, all-understanding and all-knowing yet twentieth century narrator, yet who admits 'This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. If I have pretended until now to know my characters' minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing in... a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God.' (Fowles' narrator, whether it is himself he is portraying or not, is a fully-convinced atheist and his references to the after-life are humorous and slightly mocking) And indeed, this narrator flits frequently back and forth from "such and such happened was then usual but now we see it like this...", discussing the both the Victorian and modern ages as a whole, and telling us things about the future of the characters far before they happen. Occasionally this gives the effect of the narrator judging the period quite harshly, although his main concern is the issue of freedom during the Victorian era.

Following from this supposed admission that he does not understand his own characters, the narrator believes: "We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live." This theory, along with the constant reference to and musing upon freedom drives the novel to its startling double-ending, which is evidently meant to free us as it frees the characters. My reaction, however, was possibly like that of many readers: frustration, impatience and confusion. In yet another paradox this is the exact view which Fowles' narrator would mock us as Victorian for taking, in our wish to have everything sanitised and cut and dried.

I think to really understand all the implications of what Fowles (or his narrator) is suggesting in this novel will require further reading at a later date (possibly after some study of literary theory and cricitism when I might be able to place tentative labels to some of these concepts!), as the interest for me lies here in these theories and ideas rather than in the characters - although those of Sarah and Charles are particularly interesting.

Do not read this book if: you want a light, easy read without any philsophising.
Do read if: ideas and the Victorian era interest you
Books it reminds me of: Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990) (which I recently read and really enjoyed, maybe I'll blog on it some time); Human Traces, Sebastian Faulkes (2005)
Other info: It was made into a film in 1981, screenplay by Harold Pinter and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons (I might try and hunt it out!)

Your thoughts on this book are more than welcome :)