閱讀約翰·福爾斯 John Fowles在小说之家的作品!!! | |||
约翰·福尔斯他的《收藏傢》抨擊了獵取和收集生物標本的行徑，認為這些收藏傢們破壞了美。
福爾斯孩提時就酷愛大自然，喜歡離群索居獨自遊嬉。這一習慣保持到他成年之後。二戰時他應徵入伍，在皇傢海軍陸戰隊服役兩年，任中尉。在此期間他被送往愛丁堡大學進修，進修期滿時正巧二戰結束，因此他並未領略戰爭的驚心動魄。戰後福爾斯進入牛津大學學習法國和德語文學，對法國語言文學的研究對他後來的文學創作有深遠的影響。
福爾斯很崇敬法國的存在主義作傢艾伯特·加繆和讓-保爾·薩特。他就讀於牛津大學時， 談論存在主義已經成為哲學界和文學界的時尚，這兩位法國作傢也在歐洲大陸有許多追隨者。
獲得牛津的文學士學位後，福爾斯動身前往法國，後來又去希臘的一所中學教英語。希臘的自然風光和異國情調使福爾斯着迷，並驅使他從事文學創作。在希臘的斯佩德西島上度過的這兩年對他後來的生活和創作都有啓蒙和决定性的作用，他的《師》就是這一影響的産物。
福爾斯是一位業餘博物學家，崇尚博愛和個人自由。他醉心於英國、法國、希臘的自然景色和文化。博愛和追求個人自由的思想使他強烈地憎恨老闆、領袖、統治者和組織者，對用絶對權力控製別人的人和事他都深惡痛絶，並因此而創作了《收藏傢》的故事。在《法國中尉的女人》中，他則刻畫了神秘、對自由的嚮往等思想行為。
福爾斯是當代英國文壇的一個勇於創新的作傢，二戰後，歐美文壇新潮迭起，而英國文壇則反其道而行之。一股復古的、崇尚十八、十九世紀英國作傢的作品的潮流在四、五十年代涌起。這是在批判後現代主義之後，嚮另外一個極端的傾斜。多數評論傢對此頗多非議，認為這種風氣保守、狹隘，缺乏新意。
福爾斯是六十年代英國作傢逐漸擺脫傳統的束縛的突出一例。有的評論傢稱他為“後現代主義作傢”，他的小說是“後現代小說”。後現代主義的一個特點在《法國中尉的女人》中有明確的表現：它明確地告訴讀者：小說純屬虛構，衹是一種文字遊戲或幻象，邀請讀者步入這個虛構世界。而《法國中尉的女人》用十分貼切的維多利亞時代的語言、對話、文體再現了這一時代，復製了這一時代的小說。在此同時，他也公開聲明，這部小說是抄襲，是說謊。
作為一個存在主義者，福爾斯在他的作品中宣揚人在一個荒誕、醜惡、冷酷的現實世界中為獲取存在和自由而陷入的焦急不安、彷徨和痛苦。他對自由和獨立的追求在作品中表現得極其鮮明。《收藏傢》中的米蘭達因失去自由而死去，《法國中尉的女人》中，薩拉為了保持自由和獨立而拒絶了查爾斯的求婚。同時，該書中的神秘色彩十分濃重，薩拉的不可測的神秘貫穿了整本書，而作者創作《法國中尉的女人》的緣由是：他曾經看見一個女人孤零零地站在空蕩蕩的碼頭盡頭，眺望着大海。這個形象浮在他的心頭，拂之不去。這個形象是神秘的，又帶着浪漫，這是一個維多利亞式的女人，她站得遠遠的背對着作者，因此福爾斯覺得她是一個被英國維多利亞社會所遺棄的人，一個維多利亞時代的譴責者。此時，福爾斯正在創作另一部小說，而這個女人的形象不斷地襲上作者的心頭，他終於不得不放下手頭的工作，開始《法國中尉的女人》的創作。
福爾斯的作品是二戰後的英國小說中異軍突起的傑作，他使得當時對英國小說的保守和虛偽性頗多微詞的評論傢們颳目相嚮。
Birth and family
Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. Robert Fowles came from a family of middle-class merchants of London. Robert's father Reginald was a partner of the firm Allen & Wright, a tobacco importer. Robert's mother died when he was 6 years old. At age 26, after receiving legal training, Robert enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company and spent three years in the trenches of Flanders during World War I leaving him with memories that he had for the rest of his life. Robert's brother Jack died in the war, leaving a widow and three children. During 1920, the year Robert was demobilized, his father Reginald died. Robert became responsible for five young half-siblings and the children of his brother, and though he had hoped to practice law, the obligation of raising an extended family forced him into the family trade of tobacco importing.
Gladys Richards belonged to an Essex family originally from London as well. The Richards family moved to Westcliff-on-Sea during 1918, as Spanish Flu swept through Europe, for Essex was said to have a healthy climate. Robert met Gladys Richards at a tennis club in Westcliff-on-Sea during 1924. Though she was ten years younger, and he in bad health from the war, they were married a year later on 18 June 1925. Nine months and two weeks later Gladys gave birth to John Robert Fowles.
Early life and education
New College, Oxford, where Fowles attended university.
Fowles spent his childhood attended by his mother and by his cousin Peggy Fowles, 18 years old at the time of his birth, who was his nursemaid and close companion for ten years. Fowles attended Alleyn Court Preparatory School. The work of Richard Jefferies and his character Bevis were Fowles's favorite books as a child. He was an only child until he was 16 years old.
During 1939, Fowles won a position at Bedford School, a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War. Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. He became Head Boy and was also an athletic standout: a member of the rugby-football third team, the Fives first team and captain of the cricket team, for which he was bowler.
After leaving Bedford School during 1944, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at Edinburgh University. Fowles was prepared to receive a commission in the Royal Marines. He completed his training on 8 May 1945 — VE Day. Fowles was assigned instead to Okehampton Camp in the countryside near Devon for two years.
During 1947, after completing his military service, Fowles entered New College, Oxford, where he studied both French and German, although he stopped studying German and concentrated on French for his BA. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Upon leaving the marines he wrote, "I ... began to hate what I was becoming in life—- a British Establishment young hopeful. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist."
It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing, like Fowles', was motivated from a feeling that the world was wrong.
Teaching career
Fowles spent his early adult life as a teacher. His first year after Oxford was spent at the University of Poitiers. At the end of the year, he received two offers: one from the French department at Winchester, the other "from a ratty school in Greece," Fowles said, "Of course, I went against all the dictates of common sense and took the Greek job."
During 1951, Fowles became an English master at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on the Peloponnesian island of Spetsai, a critical part of Fowles's life, as the island would be where he met his future wife Elizabeth Christy, née Whitton, (d. 1990) wife of fellow teacher Roy Christy, and would later serve as the setting of his novel The Magus. Fowles was happy in Greece, especially outside of the school. He wrote poems that he later published, and became close to his fellow exiles. But during 1953 Fowles and the other masters at the school were all dismissed for trying to institute reforms, and Fowles returned to England.
On the island of Spetsai, Fowles had grown fond of Elizabeth Christy, who was married to one of the other teachers. Christy's marriage was already ending because of the relationship with Fowles, and though they returned to England at the same time, they were no longer in each other's company. It was during this period that Fowles began drafting The Magus. His separation from Elizabeth did not last long. On 2 April 1954 they were married and Fowles became stepfather to Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, Anna. After his marriage, Fowles taught English as a foreign language to students from other countries for nearly ten years at St. Godric's College, an all-girls in Hampstead, London.
Literary career
During late 1960, though he had already drafted The Magus, Fowles began working on The Collector. He finished his first draft in a month, but spent more than a year making revisions before showing it to his agent. Michael S. Howard, the publisher at Jonathan Cape was enthusiastic about the manuscript. The book was published during 1963 and when the paperback rights were sold in the spring of that year it was "probably the highest price that had hitherto been paid for a first novel," according to Howard. The success of his novel meant that Fowles was able to stop teaching and devote himself full-time to a literary career. The Collector was also optioned and became a film in 1965.
Against the counsel of his publisher, Fowles insisted that his second book published be The Aristos, a non-fiction collection of philosophy. Afterward, he set about collating all the drafts he had written of what would become his most studied work, The Magus (1965), based in part on his experiences in Greece.
During 1965 Fowles left London, moving to a farm, Underhill, in Dorset, where the isolated farm house became the model for "The Dairy" in the book Fowles was then writing, The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). The farm was too remote, "total solitude gets a bit monotonous," Fowles remarked, and during 1968 he and his wife moved to Lyme Regis in Dorset, where he lived in Belmont House, also used as a setting for parts of The French Lieutenant's Woman. In the same year, he adapted The Magus for cinema.
The film version of The Magus (1968) was generally considered awful; when Woody Allen was asked whether he'd make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he'd do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus." The French Lieutenant's Woman was made into a film during 1981 with a screenplay by the British playwright Harold Pinter (subsequently a Nobel laureate in Literature) and was nominated for an Oscar.
Fowles lived the rest of his life in Lyme Regis. His works The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1981), and A Maggot (1985) were all written from Belmont House. Fowles became a member of the Lyme Regis community, serving as the curator of the Lyme Regis Museum from 1979–1988, retiring from the museum after having a mild stroke. Fowles was involved occasionally in politics in Lyme Regis, and occasionally wrote letters to the editor advocating preservation. Despite this involvement, Fowles was generally considered reclusive. In 1998, he was quoted in the New York Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation."
Fowles, with his second wife Sarah by his side, died in Axminster Hospital, 5 miles from Lyme Regis on 5 November 2005.
Major works
Many critics now consider his work on the cusp between modernism and postmodernism.