|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Incredible innings
The reclusive author died last week at his home overlooking the sea in Lyme Regis in Dorset, which he shared with his second wife. He had been ill for several years following a stroke in 1988 and later developed heart problems. Announcing his death, his publisher, Dan Franklin, of Jonathan Cape, said he had been "incredibly important" in shaking up the literary world in the 1960s and 70s. "When The French Lieutenant’s Woman came out it was a bombshell because it had this incredible double ending. It was the first example of postmodern playfulness anyone had seen, and opened up new possibilities. People forget how dull the world was before he came along," said Mr Franklin. But even though his writing career spanned 40 years—touching on such diverse genres as fantasy, science fiction and historical drama—his voice was always distinctive and unstintingly intellectual. And while his books, particularly the first three of his seven novels, proved successful and financially rewarding, his legacy has proved somewhat uncertain. John Carey, former Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Booker Prize Chairman, said he had been at his best when he kept it simple. "He wanted to be the standard bearer for post-modernism and despised conventionality and thought of himself as a writer who was breaking new ground. He may have tried to do that too hard. But The Collector, which is not very experimental in its techniques, is perhaps his best work. "The French Lieutenant’s Woman, its screenplay adapted by Harold Pinter, was made into the five-time Oscar-nominated 1981 film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. Set in his beloved Lyme Regis, where in later life Fowles concentrated on his twin passions of gardening and ornithology as well as completing his one-million-word memoirs, the book was hailed for its finale, which offered the reader two alternative conclusions. — The Independent |
John
