John Fowles: biography, personal life, books, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

John Fowles is a famous British postmodern writer. He is famous for his novels The Magician, The Collector and The French Lieutenant's Mistress. He worked in the genre of realism with a slight allowance for fantastic elements, constantly maintaining a high intellectual standard. Questions about the sincerity of human relationships and the nature of reality are of great importance in Fowles' work. In addition to novels, Fowles wrote short stories, short stories, essays, and poems. The Magus rightfully ranks among the 100 most read English novels.

Fowles had a unique style and sense of style, skillfully woven accurate historical facts, deep psychologism and sincerity of the characters' spiritual quests into the fictitious fabric of the work.

Childhood

The biography of John Fowles does not contain those mind-blowing turns that the heroes of his novels experienced. But some interesting events caused by the problem of existential choice were in his fate.

Fowles was born on March 311926 in the small town of Lee-on-Sea, located at the mouth of the Thames, not far from London. His father, Robert Fowles, is a hereditary cigar dealer. This was a man whose whole life was determined by the First World War, which passed like a furious plow through Europe and changed the fate of all unwitting witnesses of this catastrophe. In his diaries, John Fowles, remembering this man, said that he could build himself a shelter from any materials that came to hand. His ability to survive and adapt was amazing. The future writer also inherited this ability.

During his school years, while Fowles studied at the prestigious Bedford School, he could boast of brilliant academic performance, success in sports and social work. He was the head of the school committee and was responsible for general discipline. He had to walk a fine line between accountability to management and his own sense of justice. Even then, in his youth, he considered his activities in the school committee as a kind of mask that hides and protects him from reality. At that time, the qualities so necessary in the future work of Fowles the writer were formed and improved.

Military career

Immediately after high school, John graduated from the naval courses and went to the camp in Dartmoor, where he trained specialists in sabotage groups. Fowles liked the new business so much that he decided to connect his future life with military service. But, after serving two years, in 1947, he, on the advice of his new acquaintance Isaac Foote, leaves the military service and enters Oxford University.

Foot, a refined philologist, an expert in the ancient Greek language, a socialist, saw in time an intellectual and humanitarian in Fowles. The latter later recalled in his diary Foote's response to his thoughts about the service - "If you are a fool, then choose a military career, if you are smart, then go study."

Oxford

At Oxford, John Fowles studied French and, having become acquainted with the works of the existentialist philosophers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, questioned some life attitudes and aspirations. This was expressed in a rebellion against social norms and a more serious understanding of one's place in life. He deeply realized all the imperfection of the world and the total loneliness of human existence. Discovered abandonment and existential horror. I realized that the heavy burden of free will deprives a thinking person of happiness, and he did not see any way out of this situation.

All these reflections prompted Fowles to think about the craft of writing. A new unknown path opened before him, and he set off on a long journey through the back streets of his own soul.

Teacher

Following college, from 1950 to 1963, John Fowles taught English and Literature at the French University of Poitiers and at a grammar school on the Greek island of Spetses.

Greece made such a stunning impression on Fowles that it became his second home, as he later noted in his diary. Here, in Greece, he was born as a writer, and here he met his future wife, who at that timetime was married to another literature teacher.

The love triangle did not last long, and in 1956 John Fowles and Elizabeth Christie got married in England. Their marriage lasted as long as 35 years, until the death of Elizabeth. The wife had a great influence on all of Fowles' work, she was a muse and a friend of the writer. Below is a photo of John Fowles with his wife Elizabeth.

Main works

• "The Collector" (1963). After the publication, the novel instantly became a bestseller, and this fact gave the author creative courage and strength. Fowles was able to leave his job and take up writing professionally. In The Collector, he portrays a simple gray man, capable of any crime for the sake of self-affirmation, in order to feel alive.
• "Aristos" (1964). Collection of philosophical reflections in the form of an essay.
• "Magician" (1965). Fowles' first novel written before The Collector. The author's most existential and most mysterious work, which analyzes reality, its concept and its influence on human consciousness.
• "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1969). Pseudo-historical novel in Victorian style. Fowles portrays the relationship of people in the 19th century from the perspective of a modern person who has studied the theories of Carl Jung and lives in a postmodern world.
• "Ebony Tower" (1974). Again, the existential choice of a person between freedom and a quiet automatic life in society.
• "Daniel Martin" (1977). Autobiographical novel, positioned by the author as a free continuationthe story of the hero "Magician" Nicholas Erfe.
• "Mantissa" (1982). A novel about the pains in which a literary work is born.
• Worm (1986). A historical novel set in the 18th century.

In his books, John Fowles tries to understand the relationship between man and society. Looking for answers to questions of determination and free will, love and calculation, life and death.

John Fowles. Reader Feedback

Readers' reviews of Fowles' works can be divided into two groups. The first group, which is not numerous, includes disappointed readers. They complain about some understatement, abstractness of novels. These readers initially do not understand the motives of the characters and their further actions. And, of course, in the final it is difficult for them to comprehend some openness of the ending. Not everything is chewed and said for them. They are not used to such authorial style.

But there are other readers who are grateful. Such are delighted with the concept of novels and open endings. They are used to thinking up the author's plot, thinking about the choice of characters and suggesting new, unknown even to Fowles, denouement. These readers love to feel a sense of ownership of the novel.

Screenings

Cinema rarely responds to Fowles' work, which is understandable. The main action of the novels takes place in the minds of the characters, in their inner world. Memories, reflection, dreams, introspection, confession - these are the main characters in Fowles' works. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to convey all the nuances and subtleties in the language of cinema.the most difficult to understand the writer's prose, but some directors still try.

Not counting low-budget shorts, there are only four films based on John Fowles books:

• The Collector by William Wyler 1965
• Guy Greene's 1968 Magus. In this film, Fowles played a small role as a ship's captain.
• The French Lieutenant's Woman by Karel Reisz 1981
• Ebony Tower by Robert Knights 1984

The Hermit

After a stroke in 1988, Fowles no longer wrote large works, his he alth was greatly shaken. In 1990, his beloved wife Elizabeth died unexpectedly from cancer, and this was another strong blow. Fowles finally retired to his home in the small seaside town of Lyme Regis. He did not meet with the public and journalists, did not give interviews at all, did not receive guests. John Fowles was not interested in reviews, comments and discussions on the topics of his novels. He even experienced dissatisfaction when he was asked to explain something in the actions of the heroes. His work was limited to writing essays, photography and publishing diaries in which he described in detail his whole life.

In 1998 he remarried Sarah Smith and lived with her until his death. On November 5, 2005, John left this world. The cause of his death is heart failure.