John fowles

_{(b. 1926)}

The English literature of the l960-70s had a marked tendency for the revival of interest in the classical traditi­ ons. Readers, scholars and writers turned to the novels by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and other

19th century authors.

Characteristic of this tendency is the fiction of John Fowles who masterfully experiments with traditional liter­ ary forms. As he himself says, his ambition is to write a book in every imaginable genre. His works arc very diverse in form and contents- from an imitation of a me­ dieval romance (Eliduc, 1974) to an intricate psychological allegory (Mantissa, 1982) Fowles believes that the tradi­ tional purposes of the novel to entertain, to satirize, to describe new moods, to record life- are still alive and that the duty of all art is to improve society at large.

John Fowles was born in the town of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. Since 1950, on graduating from Oxford where he studied French language and literature, he worked as a teacher Frence, Greece and England. In 1963 he gave up teilching to devote himself to writing fiction. His first novels- The Collector (1963), The Magus (1966), The French Lieutenant's Woman ( 1969)- won him interna­ tional recognition.

The collector

The novel tells of Frederick Clegg, a young man, an orphan, a collector of butterflies, who falls in love with Mirilnda, a beautiful art student. He happens to win a

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large sum of money at pools and, having bought a secluded country house, kidnaps Miranda and locks her in the cellar. He changes his name from Frederick to Ferdinand to match hers (Ferdinand and Miranda are the names of two young lovers from Shakespeare's romantic play The Tempest). But Miranda calls him Caliban after the ugly monster from the same play

Frederick buys her expensive presents and tries to indulge her every whim but he fails to understand both her nature and her thoughts. He keeps breaking his promises to set Miranda free. All her attempts to escape or, at least, to wrench pity or human affection from him, fail. Frederick keeps Miranda to enjoy her beauty as he enjoys his but­ terflies. Finally Miranda catches a cold and dies of pneumonia. Frederick, though at first grieved by the loss, starts looking for another girl, a new specimen for his collection.

Once, before her death freed her. Miranda told her jailer

a fairy story in the hope of making a breakthrough to his heart. The story moved Frederick yet it did not make him change his attitude to Miranda.

Once upon a time there was a very ugly monster who captured a princess and put her in a dungeon in his castle. Every evening he made her sit with him and ordered her to say to him, "You are very handsome, my lord" And every evening she said, "You are very ugly, you monster" And then the monster looked very hurl and sad and stared at the floor So

one evening the princess said, "If you do this thing and that thing you

might be handsome", but the monster said, "I can't, I can't" Every evening it was the same. He asked her to lie, and she wouldn't. So the princess began to think that he really enjoyed being a monster and very ugly. Then one day she saw he was crying when she'd tell him, for the fiftieth lime, that he was ugly. So she said, "You can become very hand­ some if you do just one thing. Will you do it?" Yes, he said, at least, he would try to do it. So she said, then set me free. And he set her free. And suddenly, he wasn't ugly any more, he was a prince who had been bewitched. And he followed the princess out of the castle. And they both lived happily ever afterwards.

In the novel The Collector Fowles investigates the roots of brutality and selfishness that the world of today is overcome with. He finds them, in the first place, in the social inequality. It were the miseries that Frederick had to live through in his childhood, lack of culture and, caused by these, a sorf of inferiority complex, that turned Frederick

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into the monstrous hard-hearted egoist he was.

The novel consists of two parts. The first part is

Clegg's narration while the other one presents

Miranda's diary. Both parts coincide in actual events but

reveal a wide gap between the psychology and outlook of the two characters.

Of Fowles' other novels the most remarkable so far is The French Lieutenant's Woman. The novel is set in the England of the late 1860s and gives a very detailed picture

of the life of the period. It is built round a love triangle involving Charles Smithson, a not very rich aristocrat his fiancee Ernestina Freeman, the daughter of a pro­ sperous merchant, and a young girl, half-servant, half­ companion, Sarah Woodruff, that Charles falls in love with.

Fowles gives his novel three endings. According to the first one Charles gives up Sarah, marries Ernestina and becomes her father's companion. Yet the novel proceeds as

it so happens that this turn of events occurs only in Char­ les' mind. In reality he breaks off his angagement with Ernestina and goes in search of Sarah who has disap­

peared leaving him no address. Two years later he finds her in the house of a famous painter and poet and his sister. There comes a happy reunion of the two lovers and their one-year-old daughter Yet the final chapter of the novel offers still another version. Sarah Woodruff rejects Smithson's proposal because she values her freedom and independence more than the joys of family life. Smithson is left alone facing the unknown.

The novel is full of literary allusions: the readers can easily trace elements of the I 9th century novels in its plot

and in the first two endings, and the characters resemble the personages of Bronte's, Dickens' Thackeray's, Hardy's books. Yet the novel is neither a historical one, though it is richly furnished with the 19th century docu­ mentary material, nor a mere imitation or parody of the classics. As critics say, it is a I 9th century novel written with the 20th century knowledge of the complexity of hu­ man soul. One of the proofs of it is the untraditional "open end" of the novel.

Fowles' other novels so far are The EbonlJ Tower (1974), Daniel M{utin (1977), Mantissa (1982), A.· Maggot ( 1985) The theme that runs through most of his works is the creative process and the psychology of an artist or a writer Fowles stresses the idea that an artist, if he breaks up his

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links with reality, will sooner or later find himself in iso­

lation, in "the ebony tower"

The narrative skill, the diversity of form and rich im­ agery secured Fowles a prominent place among the pres­ ent-day English writers. Readers in the Russian-speaking countries are familiar with his works through the transla­ tions of the novels The Ebony Tower, The French Lieuten­ ant's Woman, Daniel Martin and the stories Poor Koko and The Enigma.

I. What reasons brought about the appearance o[ the philosophical novel? 2. What ideas were the authors of the English philosophical novel influenced by? 3. What was William Golding's aim in writing the novel Lord of the Flies? 4. What theme did Iris Murdoch touch on in the novel

The Red and the Green5. What are, according to Fowles, the purposes

of the novel' 6. What problem does Fowles investigate in his novel

The Collector?

THE SATIRICAL NOVEL

Satire may be defined as a literary manner and a liter­ ary composition, the essence of both is an attack on human vices with the aim of doing away with them. It may vary in scope- dealing with a shortcoming in one person or presenting a picture of an entire society overcome with various vices. Satire may also vary in tone- grotesque, irony, sarcasm are but a few tools of a satirical work. An English critic once said that the satirist is a man who is sensitive to what is and what should be. He may not always show what should be, but he always gives a detailed picture of what is and what needs changing

The satirical novel has a long-standing tradition in English literature. Swift's allegorical Gulliver's Travels and Fielding's Tom Jones laid the foundations of the genre in the 18th century Since then the English novel­ ists- Smollet, Thackeray, Wells and others- have mas-

1.erfully attacked the evils of the society and exposed the

wrongs and follies of their contemporaries. Hypocrisy, greediness, arrogance, snobbery, narrow-mindedness, phi­ listinisrn- these vices are most often ridiculed by them.

One of the most prominent satirists of the 20th century was Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966). The idea that runs through all his works, starting with the first novel Decline and Fall (1928), is that the vicious ₁ and <Jbsurd world is alien to man and his integrity. His Handful of Dust ( 1934),

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one of the 20th century best novels, is both funny and horrifying. The name of the main character Tony Last is symbolic. He is an aristocrat, no longer rich, but just, sincere, and somewhat naive. He is proud of the ancient family mansion the maintenance of which demands a lot of monev His beautiful wife Brenda, a selfish and shallow woma·n. does not care either about Tom or the house. In despair Tony Last joins an expedition to Brazil and almost dies of fever there. He is saved by a planter who, although illiterate, is fond of Dickens. Mr. Todd makes Tony read Dickens' novels out loud and detains him until he dies and becomes a'handful of dust' In Tony's estate back in England, a monument to him is erected by the mother of Brenda's lover The novel is a biting satire on a hypoc­ ritical and corrupt society.

Waugh's trilogy The Sword of Honour consisting of

Men at Arms ( 1952), Officers and Gentlemen ( 1955), Uncon­ ditional Surrender ( 1961) deals with World War II. It does not, however, describe the horrors of war but exposes the

absurdity of the British army and political life. The story centres round Guy Crouchback who through his innocence and nobleness gets into a number of ridiculous situations.

Waugh's satire is sombre and at times cynical, his

main devices are grotesque and sarcasm. Yet the writer was not a cynic, he was sensitive to life's absurdities and felt pity for people suffering from them.

The 50s saw the works of several young satirists. Mu­ riel Srark was undoubtedly, one of the most talented among them