the french lieutenant’s woman

día 48

«Tragedy» we call her.

We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about the mind of that woman.

I am the french lieutenant’s whore.

When I was studying anthropology, (I should note that this was en extremely brief moment which, nonetheless, seemed neverending to me at the time), I avoided my duties as a student, i.e. actually reading for my classes, and, instead, «cheated» with John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Instead of reading the dreadfully boring introductory texts on archaeology, I read the story of a Victorian paleontologist fascinated by a doomed woman.

As in many Spanish Golden Age plays, the french lieutenant’s woman has lost her honor, she made the mistake of falling with the wrong man. The story is told from the perspective of Charles Smithson, the man who is obsessed with Sarah Woodruff, the Woman.

Today I came home, from a weekend in the south of Chile, and turned on TCM, «The French Lieutenant’s Woman», with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, in a screenplay adaptation by Harold Pinter and directed by Karel Reisz, music by Carl Davis. The novel is great and the movie is pretty damn good as well.

A mistake in judgement, believing a lie, doing the wrong thing when it feels right, sleeping with a whore and, then, realizing she’s a virgin, loving a man and, later, finding out he’s married and it was all a big joke. It’s always too late once you realize it. All part of love’s cruelties.