The old guard is truly passing and we are really now in the eight day of the week
I get that sense more and more. I think of some older authors still living and dread the day of their passing. Is there anyone under 50 who has any real stature?
I’ve never read anything by Fowles. I’ll add it to my list.
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Posted by Kylark on 11/09 at 05:37 PM
http://digi-stream.blogspot.com/2005/11/rip-john-fowles.html
Posted by Youssef El-Deeb on 11/09 at 05:55 PM
The Magus, what an amazing book. Have lived in greece and read the book while living on a tiny island, I read the last pages with the full moon and a howling wind, I was terrified. Sad to think I will never be able to read it for the first time again.
Posted by on 12/31 at 01:53 AM
John Fowles: 1926 - 2005
One of my favourite authors and the writer of my #1 book The Magus died at the weekend after a long illness.
Although, for reasons I cannot personally fathom (possibly because he did not play the ‘fame’ game but perhaps more to do with the elitism of UK critics), Fowles was not rated amongst the foremost novelists of the twentieth century, at least in Britain, he nevertheless wrote several books that have transcended literature and had enormous transformative effects on people’s lives.
He will be sorely missed by me and many others I know - I have been waiting in vain for the ‘lost’ novels to be published and I suppose they never will now. The old guard is truly passing and we are really now in the eight day of the week. We shall not see his like again and the others of his type are also fewer by the day.
Some tributes and related stuff:
Guardian Obituary
Herald
New York Times
BBC Tribute
Fowles website