John Fowles (1926-2005) is my favorite English novelist. He is considered a forefather of British postmodernism, which is kind of over my head, but his beautifully stylized writing and proclivity for multiple endings certainly are not.
Among Fowles’ terrific novels are “The Collector� (1963), “The Aristos� (1964), “The Magus� (1965), “The French Lieutenant’s Woman� (1969) and “Daniel Martin� (1977).
At nearly 700 pages, “Daniel Martinâ€? is a bear of a book and critics do not consider it among his best, which is rubbish. In fact, I think it may be his most fully realized work – it is, after all, autobiographical in many respects — and his use of language is wonderful.
Herewith a quote:
“Dan was deeply asleep when the knocks came on the door. He called, or groaned, from where he lay. There was an obscure mutter, footsteps went away. A cold first light came through the shutters. For a few moments, still half-asleep, he had completely forgotten where he was; he lay trying to conform the room to his bedroom at Thorncombe, in a familiar maze between sequence-despising dream and coherent reality. Then he was aware that he was not wearing pyjamas. He remembered. Yet for a few moments more he continued lying as he was, knowing he had only to turn, to reach back a hand. Something in whatever he had dreamed seemed to have washed his mind free of anxiety; in that shared stillness, silence, dawn, he would always regain her. He reached back a hand. But it met bedclothes, not the smooth, warm, female skin it expected. He turned sharply on an elbow, fully awake now. There was no one there.�