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Featured Author: John Fowles

Featured Author: John Fowles
From the Archives of The New York Times
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    In This Feature

  • Reviews of John Fowles's Earlier Books
  • Articles About and By John Fowles
    JOHN FOWLES
    REVIEWS OF JOHN FOWLES'S EARLIER BOOKS:
  • 'The Collector' (1963)
    "[I]n loving attention to detail, in the quick snatch of a significant inflection, there is not a page in this first novel which does not prove that its author is a master storyteller. . . [H]e may well turn out to be a leader in the van of those who, after long absence, will revive the fading art of fiction by bringing back to it the plain excitement of suspense."
  • 'The Magus' (1966)
    "[Fowles] plumbs the deeper moral and psychological themes of 'The Collector' with a vengeance but the brittle scaffolding of that novel is now discarded. One wonders if it was ever necessary. At the same time, one pardons it; comparing the two books, the first, brilliant as it was, now seems merely a warm-up for the second, a clearing of the throat, a testing of the muscles."
  • 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (1969)
    "No matter how fast a reader you may be, it's not good for the circulation to sit in one position for the length of time required to read ['The French Lieutenant's Woman']. You'll need something to remind you to stretch your legs every so often. It's that kind of book. It's filled with enchanting mysteries that demand solutions, and the solutions are withheld until the last page."
  • 'The Ebony Tower' (1974)
    "[A]s he has done so often in the past, John Fowles has once again come through with a book that is at once a thoroughly pleasing entertainment and a thoroughly mystifying conundrum -- a book that for my money at least is the most enjoyable piece of fiction to be published so far this season."
  • 'Daniel Martin' (1977)
    "[I]n writing what seems to be an old-fashioned novel of manners, Mr. Fowles has set out pointedly to uninvent the nihilistic novel of the absurd. . . . [I]n its determinedly antidramatic Anglo-Saxon personality, 'Daniel Martin' can sometimes wax extremely tedious."
  • 'The Magus: Revised Edition' (1978)
    "Those who, unlike this reader, were bored or annoyed by the speculation and argumentation in 'Daniel Martin' will not find any more to their tastes the intellectual content of the revised 'Magus.' Yet it is a remarkable tour de force . . ."
  • 'Monumenta Britannica,' by John Aubrey. Edited by John Fowles (1982)
    "[John Aubrey's] greatest work, 'Monumenta Britannica,' long recognized as the foundation of British archeology, existed only in Aubrey's manuscript, pieced together from notes made over 30 years . . . Now it is being published, edited by John Fowles . . ."
  • 'Mantissa' (1982)
    "I think there's a chance that 'Mantissa' will contribute in time to a sensible downward revision of Mr. Fowles's reputation. Its pages are bare of the pleasures that, in his other books, mask the comparative ordinariness of this novelist's performance as thinker . . ."
  • 'A Maggot' (1985)
    "In 'A Maggot' the hypothesis seems to be that readers will tolerate more teasing, and more indeterminacy as to plot and character, than is usually expected of them."

    ARTICLES ABOUT AND BY JOHN FOWLES:

  • John Fowles, Alone But Not Lonely (November 9, 1969)
    In this interview, Fowles fetches a dictionary to come up with the word "hypnopompic," the state between sleeping and waking in which he comes up with most of his ideas.
  • Talk With John Fowles (November 13, 1977)
    Many critics contended that the lead character in "Daniel Martin," a dissatisfied Hollywood screenwriter, was based on Fowles's own frustrating experiences with the film industry. Fowles concedes in this interview that "I don't think I'm hiding so much in this book," but he says that the book is really about "what it is like to be English in the late 20th century."
  • Some Meditations Upon the Enigma That Is Stonehenge, by John Fowles (November 9, 1980)
    Modern scholars are skeptical of all speculations about the purpose of Stonehenge, but John Fowles still puzzles over the meaning of the ancient structure, both to its creators and to its current visitors, mostly tourists.
  • Recycling Books Into Movies, by Vincent Canby (September 27, 1981)
    Canby thinks the second, modern romance in the film version of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" is unnecessary and takes away from the main narrative. But he enjoys Fowles's commentary on novels and movie-making that appears as an introduction to the Harold Pinter screenplay of "The French Lieutenant's Woman."
  • Translating Fowles Into Film (August 30, 1981)
    Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman," in which a modern narrator comments on his Victorian subject matter, proved especially difficult to translate into film. But Fowles, in this interview, expresses approval of the device used in the 1981 movie, which was directed by Karel Reisz with a screenplay written by Harold Pinter.
  • Where John Fowles Ends and Characters of His Novels Begin (October 5, 1982)
    Fowles talks about two divergent aspects of his fiction: his use of postmodern literary tricks and his devotion to character and plot development.

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