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The Journals #2
The Journals: Volume 2: 1966-1990 Volume 1
John Fowles gained international recognition in 1963 with his first published novel, The Collector , but his labor on what may be his greatest literary undertaking, his journals, commenced over a decade earlier. Fowles, whose works include The Maggot , The French Lieutenant's Woman , and The Ebony Tower , is among the most inventive and influential English novelists of the twentieth century. The first volume begins in 1949 with Fowles' final year at Oxford. It reveals his intellectual maturation, chronicling his experiences as a university lecturer in France and as a schoolteacher on the Greek island of Spetsai. Simultaneously candid and eloquent, Fowles' journals also expose the deep connection between his personal and scholarly lives as Fowles struggled to win literary acclaim. From his affair with Elizabeth, the married woman who would become his first wife, to his passion for film, ornithology, travel, and book collecting, the journals present a portrait of a man eager to experience life. The second and final volume opens in 1966, as Fowles, already an international success, navigates his newfound fame and wealth. With absolute honesty, his journals map his inner turmoil over his growing celebrity and his hesitance to take on the role of a public figure. Fowles recounts his move from London to a secluded house on England's Dorset coast, where discontented with society's voracious materialism he led an increasingly isolated life. Great works in their own right, Fowles' journals elucidate the private thoughts that gave rise to some of the greatest writing of our time.
464 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 14, 2011
I was a long time getting to this book. I read the first volume of The Journals 3 years ago. The earlier volume was more interesting. The younger Fowles was adventurous, eager to set out for the relative remoteness of a teaching stint on the Greek island of Spetsai, eager for the experience. He was an enthusiastic observer of everything he came into contact with and eager to learn from all he experienced. And he was intelligent enough to interpret everything in ways to feed his ambition as a novelist. The mystique of romance fit well with the intriguing atmosphere of Spetsai. It was there he met Elizabeth Christy, the wife of a teaching colleague, and they began the affair eventually resulting in their marriage and long life together.
As the 2d volume opens, Fowles his found success as a novelist. Not only do readers like his The Collector and The Magus, Hollywood likes them, too. Some good novels follow: The French Lieutenant's Woman is a triumphant bestseller, and Daniel Martin an even stronger novel. And others after that, though eventually Fowles ceases to write fiction at all. But those are icebergs sticking up from the surface of a vast tedium. Overall, this 2d volume isn't the same savory meal as the first. Once you move away from the experiences inspiring The Magus and away from the romance with Elizabeth, there's not much reported here beyond the monotony of the everyday he and Elizabeth lived. Or not much Fowles chooses to let us in on. The life John Fowles describes is a little bland. Entries here report the little he tells about the writing of The French Lieutenant's Woman and the negotiations for rights to the film. Unfortunately those events are followed by one of the unexplained blank spots in the Journals when he apparently tired of his daily record. When he picks his journal back up 3 years later the film is in postproduction.
He does occasionally write about interesting people he meets. He rubbed shoulders with Meryl Streep and Jermy Irons during the filming of The French Lieutenant's Woman. He's uncomplimentary about Michael Caine's work in the film made of The Magus. He met and liked William Golding and writes impressions of Salman Rushdie, whom he met soon after the beginning of the fatwa. Fay Weldon and Joyce Carol Oates and others have cameos. But such entries are separated by a lot of humdrum reporting. He doesn't have much to say about his work or about writing in general. He wrote about personal events which have little meaning for us. He wasn't deeply philosophical, doesn't have great lessons for us. Or at least he doesn't let us in on them. And he doesn't make naked reveals about John Fowles, the man, either. He was kinda stuffy, upright, guarded, a little cranky and irritable. He frequently wrote, as he aged, about what he perceived as the shallowness of western culture. He makes passing curmudgeonly comments about much of what he sees. He criticizes his family, reports on arguments with Elizabeth. It all wears thin after a while because The Journals is thin.
As the 2d volume opens, Fowles his found success as a novelist. Not only do readers like his The Collector and The Magus, Hollywood likes them, too. Some good novels follow: The French Lieutenant's Woman is a triumphant bestseller, and Daniel Martin an even stronger novel. And others after that, though eventually Fowles ceases to write fiction at all. But those are icebergs sticking up from the surface of a vast tedium. Overall, this 2d volume isn't the same savory meal as the first. Once you move away from the experiences inspiring The Magus and away from the romance with Elizabeth, there's not much reported here beyond the monotony of the everyday he and Elizabeth lived. Or not much Fowles chooses to let us in on. The life John Fowles describes is a little bland. Entries here report the little he tells about the writing of The French Lieutenant's Woman and the negotiations for rights to the film. Unfortunately those events are followed by one of the unexplained blank spots in the Journals when he apparently tired of his daily record. When he picks his journal back up 3 years later the film is in postproduction.
He does occasionally write about interesting people he meets. He rubbed shoulders with Meryl Streep and Jermy Irons during the filming of The French Lieutenant's Woman. He's uncomplimentary about Michael Caine's work in the film made of The Magus. He met and liked William Golding and writes impressions of Salman Rushdie, whom he met soon after the beginning of the fatwa. Fay Weldon and Joyce Carol Oates and others have cameos. But such entries are separated by a lot of humdrum reporting. He doesn't have much to say about his work or about writing in general. He wrote about personal events which have little meaning for us. He wasn't deeply philosophical, doesn't have great lessons for us. Or at least he doesn't let us in on them. And he doesn't make naked reveals about John Fowles, the man, either. He was kinda stuffy, upright, guarded, a little cranky and irritable. He frequently wrote, as he aged, about what he perceived as the shallowness of western culture. He makes passing curmudgeonly comments about much of what he sees. He criticizes his family, reports on arguments with Elizabeth. It all wears thin after a while because The Journals is thin.
June 9, 2016
I couldn't find an electronic edition of the first volume, and I probably won't be reading it after having read the second. It's very interesting, because it gives you a really deep insight into the mind of a writer whom I still consider one of the greatest English authors of the 20th century. But one outgrows Fowles, and his diary gives you a clear idea why: he has an undeniable ceiling. This is especially noticeable as the diarist grows older (perhaps the stroke was a watershed event): he grumbles more and more, he is increasingly dissatisfied with modern life (though he has always been), he complains about overpopulation and how it will spell the doom of civilization and nature (we haven't heard this mantra for a while, have we? it's migrants now, or Islam, or global warming, or something else). He is at home in the nature, in a very 19th-century Victorian kind of way, which is endlessly endearing; but this harping about the ills of 'our times' is tiresome. Also, the diary ends with the death of his much-harrassed wife, Eliz, but I understand Fowles married a second time? I wonder how it was, especially with his prostate problems and all.
The description of the literary world, the trials and tribulations of movie adaptations (the disastrous Magus, the slightly more auspicious French Lieutenant's Woman), the fast-changing world of international travel, the slow-changing worlds of London and NHS — all that is endlessly interesting. My impression that an intellectual Englishman must live in a world that closely resembles hell — first cemented after reading Daniel Martin — was amply confirmed. But this is evidence from the same source, which, of course, taints it.
The description of the literary world, the trials and tribulations of movie adaptations (the disastrous Magus, the slightly more auspicious French Lieutenant's Woman), the fast-changing world of international travel, the slow-changing worlds of London and NHS — all that is endlessly interesting. My impression that an intellectual Englishman must live in a world that closely resembles hell — first cemented after reading Daniel Martin — was amply confirmed. But this is evidence from the same source, which, of course, taints it.
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August 9, 2016Being haunted by the ending
February 10, 2026
Very affecting. Very engaging. More than a little depressing. Just a bit too honest and real to make it an enjoyable read. I felt his pains too convincingly. It’s hard to imagine that he would live fifteen more years after the end of this journal.
November 30, 2020
John and his wife complain and fight about everything. Miserable people.
August 28, 2012
‘She hates the country, she hates the house, she hates me, she hates my life as a writer and, of course, she hates herself into the bargain.’
John Fowles on his wife Elizabeth, diary entry December 18, 1965.
Craig Brown put this in the Mail the other day which inspired me to dig out the Journals once more, very well written diaries from a great writer who had an interesting life.
Despite seeming unassailable critically and commercially some of his work didn't get published, his wife wasn't always a fan and a lot of his fortune eventually vanished through some tax avoiding scheme which went wrong. (Tax was nineteen shillings in the pound for high earners at one point.) He was refreshingly humble, for a successful guy who had once been head boy of his Public School.
"He also agrees that his second novel to be published, "The Magus" (1966), was not very good. He even goes so far as to call it a failure. "I hadn't the technique. The form is inadequate for the content."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/31...
I particularly enjoyed the one sentence verdict on Martin Amis, (p271) 'voguishly bitter (if not actually sick) Martin Amis, who makes his father seem like a warm hearted humanist by comparison.'
He didn't like the rest of the 83 Granta promising writers, 'waspish' etc but MA was the only one summoned to his study by name. Amis was needlessly nasty about Fowles's work and, despite the glorious soul music of Money, he is unlikely now to achieve anything which speaks to as many high, low and nobrow readers as The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman. He hasn't even come close.
John Fowles on his wife Elizabeth, diary entry December 18, 1965.
Craig Brown put this in the Mail the other day which inspired me to dig out the Journals once more, very well written diaries from a great writer who had an interesting life.
Despite seeming unassailable critically and commercially some of his work didn't get published, his wife wasn't always a fan and a lot of his fortune eventually vanished through some tax avoiding scheme which went wrong. (Tax was nineteen shillings in the pound for high earners at one point.) He was refreshingly humble, for a successful guy who had once been head boy of his Public School.
"He also agrees that his second novel to be published, "The Magus" (1966), was not very good. He even goes so far as to call it a failure. "I hadn't the technique. The form is inadequate for the content."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/31...
I particularly enjoyed the one sentence verdict on Martin Amis, (p271) 'voguishly bitter (if not actually sick) Martin Amis, who makes his father seem like a warm hearted humanist by comparison.'
He didn't like the rest of the 83 Granta promising writers, 'waspish' etc but MA was the only one summoned to his study by name. Amis was needlessly nasty about Fowles's work and, despite the glorious soul music of Money, he is unlikely now to achieve anything which speaks to as many high, low and nobrow readers as The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman. He hasn't even come close.
June 5, 2014
Universul trebuie documentat. Fiecare univers. În ciuda curgerii sau estompării, în ciuda eternității sau efemerității, în ciuda imensității sau nimicniciei Oricum ar fi, oricare-ar fi, merită povestit. Altfel durează exact cât îți poți ține respirația.
Poate „Jurnalele” lui Fowles nu vor intra în istorie. Dar fără îndoială sunt exerciții biologice și intelectuale fascinante. Autorul cunoscutului roman „Magicianul” (1965) realizează un mozaic autobiografic, un exemplu de „carpe diem” adunat și revizuit deseori între 1949 și 1990. Cu o franchețe uimitoare, o sinceritate episodic șocantă și o curgere fină a evoluției, există momente în care te plesnește realitatea de după paginile cărții.
Jurnalul II, 1965 – 1990
Personalitatea lui începe să cucerească și să domine („Îmi petrec o mulțime de timp doar stând și ascultând mesajele venind din lumea încă nescrisă.”). Viața începe să capete nuanțe sociale și politice din ce în ce mai pronunțate („Îmi otrăvesc trupul, așa cum blestemata televiziune otrăvește societatea: cu autorizație. ”). Ușoara depresie („Ziua mea de naștere, o non-zi”). Aparența apropierii și realitatea depărtării („Doar uneori, în pat, când o simt că doarme lângă mine, îmi mai găsesc tihnă - o oarecare senzație de intimitate. În seara asta a spus că nu mai poate trăi împreună cu mine”).Continuarea recenziei o găsești aici http://www.bookblog.ro/recenzie/inspi...
Poate „Jurnalele” lui Fowles nu vor intra în istorie. Dar fără îndoială sunt exerciții biologice și intelectuale fascinante. Autorul cunoscutului roman „Magicianul” (1965) realizează un mozaic autobiografic, un exemplu de „carpe diem” adunat și revizuit deseori între 1949 și 1990. Cu o franchețe uimitoare, o sinceritate episodic șocantă și o curgere fină a evoluției, există momente în care te plesnește realitatea de după paginile cărții.
Jurnalul II, 1965 – 1990
Personalitatea lui începe să cucerească și să domine („Îmi petrec o mulțime de timp doar stând și ascultând mesajele venind din lumea încă nescrisă.”). Viața începe să capete nuanțe sociale și politice din ce în ce mai pronunțate („Îmi otrăvesc trupul, așa cum blestemata televiziune otrăvește societatea: cu autorizație. ”). Ușoara depresie („Ziua mea de naștere, o non-zi”). Aparența apropierii și realitatea depărtării („Doar uneori, în pat, când o simt că doarme lângă mine, îmi mai găsesc tihnă - o oarecare senzație de intimitate. În seara asta a spus că nu mai poate trăi împreună cu mine”).Continuarea recenziei o găsești aici http://www.bookblog.ro/recenzie/inspi...
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June 30, 2014Fowles, îndrăgostit mai mult de Franța și Grecia decât de Anglia, țara lui natală – Nu suport mediocritatea și uniformitatea, adaptabilitatea universală – care există aici (Anglia) -. Fowles, temător să trimită la edituri primele manuscrise – Toate cărțile mele implică o dezvăluire a propriului meu sine. Dacă această dezvăluire ar avea succes nu m-ar deranja. Dar dacă nu, atunci rușinea ar fi cumva dublă -. Fowles, ars de fantezii sexuale – cea cu fata ținută prizonieră la subsol devenind sursă pentru romanul “Colecționarul” -. Fowles, depresiv. Fowles, uluit de propria lui complexitate. Fowles, iubăreț, distant, pasional, impotent, plictisit de lume. Fowles, călătorind, predând engleza, calculând bani, grădinărind.
Sunt câteva din sutele de detalii interesante ce alcătuiesc “Jurnale”, o carte ca un roman – nu-i de mirare, atâta timp cât însuși scriitorul a considerat jurnalul său ca fiind un “ultim roman” -, fascinantă prin sinceritatea, uneori crudă, dar mai ales prin felul lui Fowles de a scrie – nu, nu scrie ca și cum ar vorbi, scrie pur și simplu: uneori în cuvinte care aduc a poezie, alteori în propoziții scurte, enunțiative, ca în piesele de teatru, și, de cele mai multe ori, în fraze inteligent construite, pline de metafore, umor, cuvinte simple dar și sofisticate, judecăți de valoare pertinente. (continuarea cronicii: http://www.bookaholic.ro/jurnale-de-j...)
Sunt câteva din sutele de detalii interesante ce alcătuiesc “Jurnale”, o carte ca un roman – nu-i de mirare, atâta timp cât însuși scriitorul a considerat jurnalul său ca fiind un “ultim roman” -, fascinantă prin sinceritatea, uneori crudă, dar mai ales prin felul lui Fowles de a scrie – nu, nu scrie ca și cum ar vorbi, scrie pur și simplu: uneori în cuvinte care aduc a poezie, alteori în propoziții scurte, enunțiative, ca în piesele de teatru, și, de cele mai multe ori, în fraze inteligent construite, pline de metafore, umor, cuvinte simple dar și sofisticate, judecăți de valoare pertinente. (continuarea cronicii: http://www.bookaholic.ro/jurnale-de-j...)
December 1, 2013
A painfully honest diary, which leaves this Fowles fan very ambivallent about the author.
The level of self-absorbtion, the taxonomic approach to people according to their race, and some very unpleasant comments about gays, does not help endear him to the reader. Yet there are some real insights here, where we are allowed to hear the author's inner voice with very little filtering out - as critical of himself as of others.
The end passages, where his wife is very ill, are deeply moving.
The inclusion of some acerbic annotations from his wife add an fascinating extra dimention to the narrative.
The level of self-absorbtion, the taxonomic approach to people according to their race, and some very unpleasant comments about gays, does not help endear him to the reader. Yet there are some real insights here, where we are allowed to hear the author's inner voice with very little filtering out - as critical of himself as of others.
The end passages, where his wife is very ill, are deeply moving.
The inclusion of some acerbic annotations from his wife add an fascinating extra dimention to the narrative.
December 12, 2011
While I could never live up to this wonderful prose, makes me want to start a journal. Fowles is a virtuoso with the English language.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews