The novel is set in south-western England and the shadow of Thomas Hardy lies on it, in setting and tone as well as the chapter epigraphs and Sarah Woodruff’s resemblance to Tess Durbeyfield. Fowles is ambitious having taken a certain segment of the English Victorian era as his subject, he delves into it very deeply. Oh, gosh, I’m kind of liking this metaphor, because the tenderloin is notably flavorless and contains none of the bones and connective tissue - which can be seen as the non-romantic part of The French Lieutenant’s Woman. It’s true that a romance novel could be filleted out of Fowles’ book, but it would bear the same relationship to the full novel that a beef tenderloin does to a cow. He’s a very intrusive narrator, writing himself into the action in several places, halting the narration to discourse on the nouveau roman of Barthes and Robbe-Grillet, declaring himself incapable of entering the thoughts of his female protagonist Sarah Woodruff. In fact he seems dead set on subverting the popular novel he could be creating. Despite the trappings of historical romance, John Fowleshas no interest in creating an escapist tale. Well, those were the days I find it hard to imagine that a balky, challenging piece of fiction like this could become widely popular today. Meryl Streep with Pre-Raphaelite hair as Sarah Woodruff
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