The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles · 1969
A postmodern Victorian romance that offers the reader two endings and asks which love story we prefer: the conventional resolution or the truer, harder one. Fowles interrogates the genre conventions of romance while writing, paradoxically, a genuinely romantic novel. The mystery of Sarah Woodruff is the mystery of love itself.
The case against
Fowles interrupts his own Victorian novel to remind you he is writing it, lectures on Darwin and dress fashions, then hands over alternate endings as if grading were your job. Clever, undeniably; also smug. Sarah stays an enigma because Fowles needs her to stay one, mystery as a design choice, the woman as locked exhibit.
Romance · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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