“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Fowles

Oh wow…what a great book. It wasn’t just the story. The story was just good, the author’s little tricks are what really made the book so wonderful. The way he wove history in and related it to his own time was fascinating. The book was set in the 1880’s and written in 1969. The way he started to go in a predictable way and then made it feel like he abruptly re-wrote it. And then…putting himself in the story. It was captivating.

I had some many great quotes underlined. Here are just a couple of my favorites.

“Thus it had come about that she had read far more fiction, and far more poetry, those two sanctuaries of the lonely, than most of her kind. They served as a substitute for experience.”

“There is only one good definition of God; the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist.”

“His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place.”

Here’s one that is even more relevant today. “Yet this distance, all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio, television, cheap travel and the rest, was not wholly bad. People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual.”

“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”

“Fiction usually pretends to conform to the reality; the writer puts the conflicting wants in the ring and then describes the fight – but in fact fixes the fight, letting that want he himself favors win.”

There were so many more. I loved every minute of this book.

13.67 hours