Synopses & Reviews
The second and concluding volume of John Fowless eloquent, revelatory journals, the first of which was widely greeted as a literary landmark (“The book is gripping, and one cant help feeling that Fowles was writingwith a dogged passion, and almost inadvertentlywhat may come to be seen as one of the very best of his works”
Literary Review). Commencing in 1966, after the author had already achieved international renown with the publications of
The Collector and
The Magus, these journals chart the rewards and struggles of Fowless continuing career and the inner life of the often-reluctant celebrity.
Bravely forthright and honest, Fowles writes in his journals about the attention and wealth that accrued to him with each new bookamong them The French Lieutenants Woman in 1969 (a film version of which was released to international acclaim in 1981), The Ebony Tower in 1974, Daniel Martin in 1977, A Maggot in 1985and about his deep ambivalence toward his growing fame. He chronicles his move from London to a remote house on Englands Dorset coast near the town of Lyme Regis, the increasingly isolated life he cultivated there, his disenchantment with what he saw as an unrelenting materialism at the center of contemporary society, and his unwillingness to adopt a public persona for his readers and fans. He describes the strains that grew between him and his wife, Elizabeth, and tells about the challengesillness, depression, lossof the passing years. But he describes, as well, the pleasure he found in his ten-year post as curator of the small Lyme Regis historical museum, and the great solace he took in gardening, in books, and in his impassioned study of the flora, fauna, and fossils of the countryside around his home.
Fiercely candid, and as ardent, gripping, and beautifully written as his novels, Fowless journals illuminate the complex life and mind of one of the most important writers of our time.
Synopsis
Journal and diary excerpts range from the author's student days at Oxford in the late 1940s and chronicle such experiences as teaching on the Greek island of Spetsai and his love affair with the married woman who would become his wife.
Synopsis
The second in a multi-volume series of journals and diary excerpts picks up in 1966, after the author had achieved international acclaim for The Collector and The Magus, as he examines the rewards and struggles of his literary career, his ambivalent attitude toward his growing fame, his disenchantment with a materialistic society, and marital tensions.
About the Author
John Fowles was born in 1926 and died in November of 2005.
Charles Drazin is an editor and writer whose previous books include In Search of the Third Man and Korda: Britains Only Movie Mogul.