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Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “It seems that John Fowles has always been on the edgier side of writing both in plot and style. I admire his attenpts to expand the reader's minds by using historical backgrounds as a allegories for thought. He did this very successfully in The French Lieutentant's Woman, and again here in A...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It3 of 3 members found this review helpful “Fowles was a wonderful writer, but this is not one of his best. I haven't read this since it was first published, but at the time I was heartily disappointed - not in the journey, but in the destination. Perhaps someday I'll give it another chance.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“dorin d said: 4 stars
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Shelf wrote this review Monday, January 30, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
In this novel the narrator is killing the role of a reader. one doesn´t know what it´s reading but is trying to catch the catch.”
“As much as I loved both The Magus and The Collector, I found myself sadly unable to get into this, and stopped reading it about 50 pages in. ”
Mike Pelletier wrote this review Thursday, January 5, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Quite unusual story that takes place in the 17th century and is mostly told in depositions taken by one of the minor characters. Has slight science fiction undertones but is a good look at the sociio-politico situation of the times through Fowles' particular eyes/narration. Relevant in a funny way to America today.”
Ken J wrote this review Saturday, February 6, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Fascinerende, gedurfde, experimentele roman met science fiction-achtige trekken. ”
GertJan K wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“in this novel the narrator is killing the role of a reader. one doesn´t know what it´s reading but is trying to catch the catch.”
dorin d wrote this review Monday, November 2, 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The story begins with a narrator's description of five characters on horseback in the West Country in April. The party is composed of a Mr. Brown and his nephew, a deaf-mute servant named Dick, a woman called Louise, and a bodyguard named Sergeant Farthing. Their journey began in London and has taken them into Devon, where the nephew is to meet his beloved for an elopement---or so they tell the staff at the Black Hart, an inn near Exmoor. When the narration becomes dialogue, relationships seem different. The uncle Is subordinate to the nephew, who is referred to as Lacy, not Brown. The woman seems unperturbed when Dick unbuttons his breeches and stands near her with an exposed erection. She does plead for an explanation, however, when the nephew--whom she refers to as "my lord" and who calls her Fanny--chastises her for having worn a bouquet of violets beneath her nose as they traveled that day.
Wendy wrote this review Friday, April 10, 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
After 50 pages of this narration, whose dialogue is from the 18th century but whose narrator is from the late 20th, a facsimile page with no immediately evident connection appears, part of the "Historical Chronicle" from The Gentleman's Magazine, for April 1736, when the fictional story has been taking place. The next page is fictional but purports to be an item from The Western Gazette reporting the discovery of a corpse in the woods near Exmoor, hanging from a tree, with a bouquet of violets growing from its mouth.
The next 10 pages are in a different, dramatic mode, an interrogation of the Black Hart's innkeeper, Thomas Puddicombe, with the questions and answers marked by Qs and A's, and the whole transcript signed by one Henry Ayscough. After two more interviews and two more excerpts from The Gentleman's Magazine, Ayscough's role becomes clearer with a letter to his employer, addressed as "Your Grace," who is evidently the father of the young lord in the party of travelers. Ayscough is confident that the so-called nephew is indeed "his Lordship," this unidentified duke's younger son, but Ayscough cannot imagine what he was doing in this part of the country or why he brought the extra companions, besides his now-deceased servant.
The next section is narrated, in which Ayscough intimidates the actor Francis Lacy into admitting that he was indeed hired by a man he knew was only pretending to be "Mr. Bartholemew," and agreed to pretend to be his "uncle," Mr. Brown, to help him reach the vicinity of his fiancée undetected. Lacy recounts several of their conversations in which Lord ------- revealed an interest in Stonehenge, mathematics, and philosophy. Lacy further reports that Farthing told him that he had once seen the woman in their party entering a London house of prostitution owned by a Mrs. Claiborne, that Dick and "Louise" were having a clandestine sexual relationship as they traveled, and that his lordship had stolen out with Dick and her during the night that they lodged in Amesbury, near Stonehenge--all of which information leads Lacy to suspect that more has been going on than he can now explain to Ayscough. He does point out that he and Farthing separated from the rest of the party on the morning after the night at the Black Hart, so he is unable to account for the disappearances of his lordship and the woman.
The next interview, with Hannah Claiborne, establishes that "Louise" is "Fanny," one of her prize prostitutes, who came to her as Rebecca Hocknell, of a Quaker family in Bristol; her ability to feign religiosity and chastity made her an especially sought-after prostitute, known as "the Quaker maid." Lord -------- had paid Claiborne for Fanny's services for one week, for a party in Oxford he told her, but for a trip abroad he told a friend. His real purpose remains obscure.
Ayscough next interviews Jones, the real name of Farthing, whom his agents have located, and learns that Jones decided to follow the three others after they had parted on the road, He tells Ayscough of having seen them meet a woman dressed in silver trousers near a cave in the woods by Exmoor. Sometime after they all entered the cave, he reports, Dick came running out looking terrified and disappeared into the woods; then Rebecca emerged, naked; his lordship never came out. Jones recounts that he assisted Rebecca in reaching Bideford, from which port he shipped to Wales and she to Bristol, but not before she told him that she had seen witches inside the cave, had been raped by Satan, and had witnessed what appeared to be a mock marriage between his lordship and the younger witch.
Several letters follow, from Ayscough's agents who are searching for Rebecca, who is found in Manchester, married to a blacksmith named John Lee, member of a faction that has broken off from the Quakers. When Ayscough interviews her, Rebecca explains that she has repented her past life and is now a devoted servant of God--as well as a mother-to-be. She tells Ayscough that she lied to Jones about what happened in the cave, first to keep him at a distance, physically, and second because he would not be able to understand what really had happened. First she explains that when they visited Stonehenge at night, she saw a bright, "floating lantern" and observed two men watching them. She then explains that she was told to engage in sexual intercourse with Dick while his lordship watched, and that she accepted Dick's subsequent advances out of pity for him. About the cave, Rebecca explains that inside she saw a large maggot-shaped machine floating in the air, with a door and lights inside. She was taken inside it by a gray-haired woman who had previously been three women of three ages who merged into one. She was shown moving pictures of a green world with large buildings that serve as communal housing, which Rebecca now refers to as "June Eternal." The two men she saw at Stonehenge she recognizes were God the Father and God the Son, and the three women were a female trinity of Christ's daughter, widow, and "Holy Mother Wisdom." Ayscough then interviews one of the leaders of the religious sect and learns that Rebecca's views are largely her own, which she has not revealed to the others, even though they do believe in a female aspect of the Trinity. When he calls Rebecca back, she stands by her bizarre story, claiming that she awoke to find the cave empty and his lordship gone, having left with the spiritual "deities" and left his fallen half--that is, Dick--behind. Before the interview ends, she has apparently seen a vision of his lordship in the room and the narrator has explained that she and Ayscough have radically different ways of seeing the world--hers artistic, female, and right-brain hemispheric, and his scientific, male, and left-brain.
Ayscough does not believe her, and he writes in his last letter to the duke that probably his son killed himself in the cave, having felt more and more vile about not being able to accept the world as it is and himself as impotent. The Stonehenge incident, he concludes, must have been staged. Dick, in despair over his master's suicide, probably imitated his master. The narration concludes in Manchester, where Rebecca has just given birth to a baby girl, whom she names Ann.
Fowles concludes the book in his own voice, with an essay explaining that Ann Lee became the founder of the Shakers. Even though Fowles is, he declares, an atheist, he admires religious dissenters and sees the year 1736 as a convenient marker between the English Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. He observes, too, that sometimes novelists must use far-fetched tropes to convey truths, and that Rebecca represents an emotional enlightenment, a "painful breaking of the seed of the self from the hard soil of an irrational and tradition-bound society."
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1 of 1 members found this review helpful“An interesting book of historical fiction, written almost entirely in the form of Question/Answer; A 17th century lawyer, Henry Ayscough, interrogates various parties in an effort to discover the whereabouts of a missing son of an important and never-named nobleman.
Princepeach wrote this review Monday, March 30, 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
This format by itself kept me pretty glued up until the three-quarters point, where I experienced a one-two punch to my enthusiasm due to the Q/A losing its initial charm combined with the questioning of the most key of key witnesses being quite a bit more drawn out than was entirely necessary.
Despite the downturn in quality towards the end (which I personally do not blame on the sci-fi twist, which seems to be the most common issue people have with the novel) I still found it a worthwhile read, not least because while the focus is directed at Ayscough as he tries to follow tales to discover what is the truth in the story, Fowles at the very end surprises the reader by revealing the truth of the book: that it is essentially a love-letter to an unsuspected historical figure, a revelation which completely changed how I reflected upon the book after finishing it.”
“The way the book is set up makes us think about the nature of reality and how it depends on perceptual bias. Each character has a different experience experiencing the "same" set of happenings.”
muque and shylock tomes wrote this review Sunday, May 18, 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
