Finished: The French Lieutenant's Woman (Fowles). A pretty good book at times, but basically the story of an engaged young man who cheats on his fiance, leaves her for another woman, who then rejects him...ruining his life. Of course, it's set in Victorian England, the 1860's, as the author pounds into the reader's head with several jolting asides that break from the story, and break the 4th dimension, or whatever you call it, and speak to the reader about theories of the time...and how he may or may not take the characters down certain paths. I can't say that I liked that part of the book atall. Anyway, The French Lieutenant's Woman is the story of Charles, a 32 year old English "gentleman" who is betrothed to the 21 year old, beautiful, rich, only child, Ernestina. They appear to have a witty, loving relationship and both look forward to the marriage until...duh duh duhhhhh...they come across the woman known to the town as "Tragedy", i.e., The French Lieutenant's woman. She stands cloaked in black, looking tragically out to sea at the edge of the Cobb, a huge, curved seawall in Lyme that juts out into the bay. Charles is instantly mesmerized by her, and seeks to find out about her. Her name is Sarah and, as the doctor puts it, she's been diagnosed with melancholia. She's been known to wander here, there and everywhere by herself, looking as if she's doing penance for some transgression. The story is that she is not of their same class, but of the lower class, but has an education. She lived with her father and one day three French sailors were washed ashore near her town after their ship crashed. She nursed the French Lieutenant back to health and they fell in love. She broke all social and ethical rules and followed him to the port town where he would sail from after he was healthy and they had an affair before he returned to France. He promised to return for her, but never did. Hence, she is always looking out to sea for him in her state of melancholia. I like that word. :-)

The true story ends up being much more sordid. Charles encounters her one day while he's out on a walk collecting artifacts (he's a paleontologist), and again, he is moved by her. Knowing it would be improper to be seen alone, the encounter is awkward...especially since he finds her sleeping on a small ridge overlooking a dangerous cliff. She begs him to return one of the next few days and she will explain the true story of her past. He does. She basically tells the same story we have heard, except she utters that famous line that is the only thing I remember from Meryl Streep in the movie...."I was the French Lieutenant's whore!" She says that she indeed followed the Lieutenant to the port town, but realized she didn't truly love him, but still "gave herself to him". She also tells Charles how she has since had a letter in which the Lieutenant told her he had married. She walks her lonely paths in constant shame and has sentenced herself to an unhappy life. She knows she's got Charles very interested, though. She pulls all his strings and he meets her again one day and they kiss! He is furious with himself and vows to forget her. He loves Ernestina, but on more of a superficial level. She's not at all a deep person as he perceives Sarah to be.

The bottom lines is...Sarah manipulates Charles into such a compromising position that he completely loses sight of his love for Ernestina. Of course, he didn't have a very determined sense of morality if he could be so easily manipulated! He insists that Sarah leave town and go to Exeter before the town strings her up for her unseemly behavior. She does appear to love Charles, so she goes. He doesn't even want to know where she is, but she sends him a letter with just her address written on it. She knows he'll come. Then he can't help himself and he stops there after a trip back home. He finds her and they have a passionate moment. As the author so eloquently puts, it takes him 90 seconds to rip her clothes off and ejaculate into her, lol. This is after, of course, they have a few moments of talking and longing looks back and forth. It is then when Charles discovers the horror of blood on his shirt. He realizes that she was a virgin!! She made the whole story about sleeping with the French Lieutenant up! She did fall for him, but he didn't fall for her. She did follow him to the little port town, but he didn't see her as she watched him leave with another woman. She made the whole story up to manipulate Charles into feeling sympathy for her and  loving her. Charles is dumbfounded and leaves. He had declared his love for her, and now this. He gets to his hotel and rethinks things. He writes her a letter and says he should have taken her in his arms and said "who cares!? I love you". He sends her a brooch and says that if his manservant, Sam, doesn't return with the brooch that he'll know she kept it. He'll take that as a sign that she loves him too and he'll go to break off his engagement and be back the next day. Sam, who realizes that his own future rides on Charles and Ernestina actually getting married, never delivers the letter. Charles doesn't know this. When the brooch is not returned (since she never got it), Charles goes the next day and completely humiliates himself and Ernestina by breaking off their engagement. Ernestina is devastated, and her father beside himself.

Charles feels bad, but he feels even worse when he gets back to the hotel where Sarah was staying and she's gone! She left no word...only that she'd taken a train to London. She never knew that Charles was coming back for her and assumed he went on to marry Ernestina. Charles searches high and low in London for Sarah to no avail. And, to cement his humiliation and low-lifedness, Ernestina's father makes Charles sign a declaration, as was done in the Victorian days apparently, stating that he entered into the contract of engagement and then broke it by having an illicit relationship. He can never call himself a gentleman again.

Charles spends several months, with detectives and all, searching for Sarah. He finally gives up hope and goes abroad for over a year. Two years after all the fateful events, Sam, who has married his fellow servant, Mary, sees Sarah going into a house in London. Sam, of course, no longer works for Charles since he betrayed him. Sam had also betrayed Charles by becoming a first hand witness of his affair for Ernestina's father. Anyway...for some reason, Sam has a minor spark of consciousness and sends an anonymous letter to Charles' solicitor with Sarah's new address. Charles, meanwhile, has been in America exploring around for a few months. Upon receiving his solicitor's telegram, Charles immediately sails back to London and goes to see Sarah. She's happier than he has seen her before. Here the author gets really weird...he gives two different endings. He has Sarah living in a mini-commune with some famous artist of the time and his sister. She's happy because she's his assistant. Charles begs her to marry him, but she refuses. She wants to maintain her independence. As a matter of fact, she'd seen his pleas in the newspapers looking for her, and ignored them. He accuses her of never loving him and ruining his life on purpose. In ending number one, she stops him and tells him there's someone she wants him to meet. It ends up, she's got a baby daughter that is his! She needed to know for sure he loved her before she let him know. They look like they'll live happily ever after. In the second ending, he gives his furious speech and storms out and she doesn't stop him. He goes to the river and some small kernel of survival grows in him and he knows he'll continue on with his life. Kind of a weird ending, but it is what it is.

In all, the book is just a very sad tale of this man who throws away everything for the grass on the other side of the fence, only to find out it's not greener at all, but a pretty psycho weed if you ask me. The writing was good, but as I said, I didn't enjoy the asides where he broke the stride of the novel to pontificate on other things. Here is the passage with the infamous "whore" line. :-)

    "Mr. Smithson, what I beg you to understand is not that I did this shameful thing, but why I did it. Why I sacrificed a woman's most precious possession for the transient gratification of a man I did not love." She raised her hands to her cheeks. "I did it so that I should never be the same again. I did it so that people should point at me, should say, there walks the French Lieutenant's Whore---oh yes, let the word be said. So that they should know I have suffered, and suffer, as others suffer in every town and village in this land. I could not marry that man. So I married shame."