Time for another “Sunday Book Shuffle”! Don’t know what the Sunday Book Shuffle is? Find out here!
Shuffled Song: The One That Got Away by the Civil Wars
“I never meant to get us in this deep
I never meant for this to mean a thing
Oh, I wish you were the one
Wish you were the one that got away
I got caught up by the chase
And you got high on every little game
I wish you were the one
Wish you were the one that got away
Oh, if I could go back in time
When you only held me in my mind
Just a longing gone without a trace
Oh, I wish I’d never ever seen your face
I wish you were the one
Wish you were the one that got away”
Book: The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
Why This Pairing:
Just to be clear, this book would be rated PG for any of you who have your heads in the gutter (I mean, I totally thought this was going to have a little something-something when I first heard the title in high school).
Anyway, I thought The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The One That Got Away went perfectly with each other because, depending on how you view certain characters – and which of the three alternate endings you choose to believe – there seemed to always be an element of “well, if I hadn’t met this person, then I wouldn’t be in this circumstance”. I think the best example of this would be Sarah Woodruff, the french lieutenant’s woman, who is basically the definition of a “disgraced woman” of the coastal town of Lyme Regis after she was left behind by a French ship’s officer who later got married. (Again, depending on the ending you find out how much of the small town’s gossip is actually true.)
However, despite being named after Sarah, The French Lieutenant’s Woman is more so looked at from Charles Smithson’s, a gentleman in line of receiving inheritance from his old uncle, point of view. Charles is engaged to another woman and yet…his mind is filled with desire and visions of Sarah…
Depending on which ending you choose to believe, changes slightly who this song could represent. However, the beautifully haunting sounds of the Civil Wars – so sad that they’re no longer making music together – seem to go perfectly with Sarah’s haunting past and Charles’s growing obsession with the object of his desires known as the French Lieutenant’s Woman…
You work that smize young Meryl Streep!
So yeah! That’s this month’s Sunday Book Shuffle! Let me know what book you think of when you hear/read the lyrics of The One That Got Away by the Civil Wars.
Sit and Be Still 