Talk:John Fowles/Archive 1

Archive 1

Misattributed Woody Allen quote

...when Woody Allen was later asked whether he would make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he would do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus."[11]

IN THE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON THE FILM "THE MAGUS," THIS QUOTE IS ATTRIBUTED TO PETER SELLERS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8070:A2B3:AC00:3090:CD33:97FF:81D1 (talk) 13:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

"Forefather of postmodernsim"?

Who are those critics who consider Fowles a forefather of British postmodernism? kurochka 11:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It looks like there is a satisfactory link, now: Salami, Mahmoud (1992), John Fowles's Fiction and the Poetics of Postmodernism, Associated University Presses, ISBN 083863446x

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 04:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read any Fowles for a long while, but my impression was of a fairly conventional novelist. The ending of The French Lieutenant's Woman seemed just a clever trick. Surely readers have also been aware that authors make choices about endings; and endings have been changed before, including that of King Lear in the 18th century. Fowles certainly didn't seem to me highly experimental or postmodern -- not even a real modernist! Just compare him with Beckett. Rwood128 (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

If he's influenced by Camus and Sartre, wouldn't that make him an existentialist or nihilist? 173.79.249.88 (talk) 19:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Biographies of Fowles request

Would it be appropriate to include in this article a list of books about Fowles? Literary criticism and the like. 150.203.2.85 22:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't he a socialist? communist perhaps? I'm reading his dump book about "the Whore" and I wonder...

I can't find any reference to his being a communist, but his works suggest that he was, at heart, a socialist - but politics does not seem to uniquely inform his writing - the technique is dominant. I find it bizarre that in the 1980s he was all-pervasive in bookshops, but now, he is hard to find, despite his perceived importance to the development of "the novel" 89.240.85.190 (talk) 21:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I remember him once saying that democratic socialism was the only system he could ever believe in. Can't place the source, though. 109.157.20.61 (talk) 18:14, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Author photo

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Copyright problem

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Disjointed, badly organized

I don't know about anyone else,but my first impression upon reading this, in the first couple of paragraphs was "What? Who . . .?" and found I had to keep going back in the narrative to see who was who and what was going on.

It just seems poorly organized and Frankenstinian in its writing style, as if four different people were writing one sentence after another's. Just my impression.

To wit: almost a complete non-sequitur, coming (and going) seemingly out of nowhere:"The work of Richard Jefferies and his character Bevis were Fowles's favourite books as a child." Is that the defining event of his entire childhood? That's it -- nothing more is said. Bizarre.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonbo0422 (talk • contribs) 02:15, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree - abysmal article. Examples: "many critics now consider him on the cusp between modernism and postmodernism" links to one critic writing in 1992 - hardly a recent or consensus view (and for me, completely wrong); Woody Allen's joke about a film given more space than Fowles's last three novels on a page actually about Fowles; his teaching career given almost as much space as his "literary career" as though of nearly equal interest... Scrap the whole thing and start again from scratch is my advice. 86.155.90.246 (talk) 09:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)