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John Fowles - early postmodernist, or literary wanksta?

03:13 / 26.01.06

I read The French Lieutenant's Woman in three days. It was awesome. I knew going in what the book was about and yet I was still puzzled and confuddled over its little riddles and tricks. I enjoyed Fowles' narrator slash Fowles himself. I like the forcefulness of the narrator and paradoxically, the unease and apprehension of the narrator.

I read The Magus and I didn't like it. It was literary masturbation for me. Every scene seemed so contrived, in that I could instantly tell Fowles' intent (not contrived in the thematic sense, that's another discussion). Here is the related Barbe-topic and discussion, in which I complain of the boringness of The Magus.

On the other hand, I am 200 pages into A Maggot and I am Loving it. What an incredible piece of literary trickery. The plot goes like this: five people go to an inn in 18th century England, four leave - the fifth being hung from tree. The narrative goes like this: interviews with witnesses, participants, suspects as the "truth" is revealed.

SPOILER

The maggot of the title refers to numerous things: a larva, an obsession, a fucking spaceship that takes people to the future. What? Yeah that's right. Now go read it.

END SPOILERS

A Maggot reads like an epistolary novel but feels like a metafictional detective story. I strongly recommend it.

But this leads me to my question: I thought the Magus was awful but its themes and tricks were the same as his other novels. In one case, I loved it, in the case of the Magus, I hated it. What's the deal? Where is the line between prose-perfection, a stylist genius and Pan-like trickery and the more annoying po-mo masturbation?

18:15 / 26.01.06

i read "the magus" and "french..." i enjoyed them both, but the latter much, much more. it was one of my first forays into post modern tweaking.

funny, heard on npr this morning a bit about a new movie based on some post modern novel written a couple of centuries ago, some british lit. name escapes me. the idea was that movies based on highly narrative, meditative books sometimes do better than 1-to-1 adaptations.

anyway, i agree somewhat on "the magus". i know there are two versions of the book, he revised it a few laters after its first publication. i'd hate to have read the first one. i didnt feel the main character was very sympathetic, which is a tragedy for the reader, particularly when a book is that long. i also thought he should have wrapped it up more quickly. the pretense doesnt hold, i dont think.

also, its length and its detail lent itself, for me, to start trying to figure it out too early on. that might have contributed to my losing my suspension of disbelief. obviously the whole thing is a game the whole time, the specifics of which uncover themselves later, but it's still always just a game, so the underlying deception doesnt work on the same level as with "french..."

just my thoughts. i'm a big fan of the way kundera does his thing, too, btw. just enough narrative trickery, but still focusing on the story.

All Acting Regiment

04:23 / 27.01.06

That film sounds like A Cock and Bull Story, based on the book Tristram Shandy.

11:38 / 27.01.06

that was it!

00:20 / 01.02.06

Just finished A Maggot. Incredible. Spoilers abound in this post, people.

So the maggot of the title refers, among other things, to a hovering robot that helps the chrononauts of the future in their quest to create Ann Lee, a member of the Shakers. She was chosen by the society as "Mother in spiritual things" and called herself "Ann, the Word," which is made into a pun in the final sentence of the novel.

Some members of the future come to 18th century England and impregnate a barren whore with two things: a literal baby, and a "maggot" --> piety and religious conviction. By giving the whore the baby and the maggot, the whore is on the path to give the baby the same maggot, which is of religion. So the maggot is also a meme.

Awesome. Everybody go read it.

11:56 / 26.06.06

I have to say, I'm enjoying The Magus an awful lot. I find it interesting that you say that you found the protagonist rather unlikable considering that I identify with him a disturbingly large amount (though that could be mere self-indulgence on my part).

It also appeals to me in that it apes the style (even subsconsciously) of Camus in L'Etranger; I've something of a fetish for disassociated characters with no real ethical motivations or convictions. Maybe that illustrates something of a moral weakness on my part.

11:59 / 26.06.06

By the by, I also own French Lieutenant's Woman, but I have yet to read it because I am lazy and sporadic at this literatteur business.

05:13 / 27.06.06

In an essay in the collection, The Ebony Tower, Fowles discusses the origins of The Magus and the specific inspirations and references within. I recommend picking up the collection; there's a fabulous short story about painting that makes it worth the price.

All Acting Regiment

02:59 / 28.06.06

There's already a thread on this somewhere, started maybe by me, so I'm not sure if I've already asked this, but, d'you reckon the narrator of The Magus = satire on James Bond/Dashing Young Men everywhere?