JOHN FOWLES: The Collector

From BBC News, London:

Writer John Fowles dies aged 79

John Fowles was one of Britain's most respected authors
The French Lieutenant's Woman author John Fowles has died aged 79.
Fowles died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset on Saturday after battling a long illness, his publisher said.

Born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, Fowles' writing career spanned more than 40 years and also included works such as The Magus and The Collector.

The French Lieutenant's Woman, which became an Oscar-nominated film in 1981 starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, remains his arguably most famous work.

The novel was first published in 1969.

He said he was not keen on meeting his readers

It was seen as a new kind of writing, a historical novel, with layers of truth, fantasy and self-awareness.

The French Lieutenant's Woman has been described as a pastiche of a historical romance, juxtaposing Victorian characters with the commentary of the author writing in the 1960s.

He was a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1963 after The Collector won critical acclaim and commercial success.

His tale of a butterfly collector who kidnaps a woman in London was made into a film starring Terence Stamp two years later.

Fowles moved to Lyme Regis in 1968, which was also the setting for The French Lieutenant's Woman.

In the same year he adapted his 1966 novel The Magus, a tale of intrigue on a Greek island, for the big screen.

The book, which achieved cult status in the US, was reportedly inspired by his time working in a college on the island of Spetsai.

But the film version featuring Michael Caine was widely regarded as a flop, with Fowles himself describing it as "a disaster all the way down the line".

Virtual recluse

Fowles once remarked he had been trying to escape his upbringing.

"No-one in my family had any literary interests or skills at all," he said.

"I seemed to come from nowhere. When I was a young boy my parents were always laughing at 'the fellow who couldn't draw' - Picasso. Their crassness horrified me."

The author is survived by his second wife, Sarah. His first wife Elizabeth died in 1990.

He was known to be a fiercely private person and stayed as a virtual recluse in his house overlooking the sea.

He gave one of his last interviews to The Guardian in 2003 in which he complained of being "persecuted" by his readers.
"I know I have a reputation as a cantankerous man of letters and I don't try and play it down," he said.

"But I'm not really. I partly propagated it.

"A writer, well-known, more-or-less living on his own, will be persecuted by his readers.

"They want to see you and talk to you. And they don't realise that very often that gets on one's nerves."



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Desiderata is recording this writer's death for the great storytelling he brought to TFLW and TC, the film versions of which left an indelible mark in my more impressionable years. I am also a collector -- of great writings and storytelling in the visual medium. For those who have yet to have read his books, or seen any of the movie adaptations, it's worthwhile this Sundae to skip desiderata.english and instead enjoy the mindscape of the late John Fowles.

As I intimated in a few postings recently, I would go into escapades into mindsville and Hollywood to galvanise this writer's creativity as he embarks on an intense trip to enlist in Scriptville. Catsville is just for bites and short hiatus. Scriptsville is for megabucks -- spiritedestination, remember? Life as is in the country if full of preditable unplesantries, which is an understatement -- poltician-nincompoops, corruption, government wastages as in billion-dollar going down the drai, so what else is new? -- so a getaway into fantasy world is good for thhe soul.

On recall, it took me several viewings of The French Lieutenant's Woman, aided by Meryl Streep's engaging beauty and charismatic beauty, beofre I could graps the depth of Folwles' messages of political and social goings-on.

From "The Collector", Desiderata feels for a man in isolation who can turn "psycho" in his qust to connect, at least with one member of the opposite sex, as a companion to ease a tortured ind and maybe fulfil the natural urges within a physical body besides the answers required on his mental and emotional needs. Butterfly collecting, anyone. I must explore that hobby once again!


It is reported that Fowles had several complete novels that for one reason or another he decided not to publish. Fowles passing on gives me a reminder that writers in many ways are forced to be "reclusive" -- as by their stories, they already had gone very public with thier innermost thoughts and emotions, and it's naturally an inclination to preserve some private territory where one may roam free and enjoy some private moments with SELF.

Dear Readers this Wednesday morn -- pause for a while, do a mental check now: HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THE PERSON named SELF?

A writer's jorney may fill him with great observation of his surroundings, and the outer selves of people he interacts with, and the ever-changing forces of interactions between man and his environment. But what dwells in him at the dead on night, every night?
But it's the private journey of ssssself-discovery that he constantly has to engage himself in -- for while there are joys and beauties within a person, there are also many ghosts and beggars and thieves who haunt his persona. And such visitors always call on him/her at nightfall.

It's a constant quest to self-understanding and renewal of spirit. So he can face this dark world -- like the Malaysian poltical landscape -- he wakes up to which saps his creative energies. He can't afford to have his energies wasted away in such futile and cruel.

The writer must collect fond and good memorie so he can create some nuggets of beauty with a wandering mind, unique ideas perhaps?, Xquisite words maybe?, and some morsel of wisdom. Life's certainties indeed consist of many maybes and perhaps. Mayhaps, if things fail, I'd setle for 'ollywood.