Customer Reviews

Daniel Martin (Signet)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have never understod why this book didn't seem to catch on. I think it is possibly his best book. The beginning is beautiful, but my advice is to skim thru the first chapter--then get on to the rest of the book. When you have finished--go back and re-read the beginning...because it IS remarkable and beautiful. I almost think he should have just somehow started in with the story this time--and ended with his poetic begining.It felt autobiographical and it touched me.

In this brilliant masterpiece, John Fowles has captured pure human emotion together with the essense and meaning of human relationships and put them into words with stunning clarity and effectiveness.

Fowles proves himself here a true genius, for both delving into the obscure depths of human existence as well as for his unique ability to describe what he finds there.

He rightfully deserves the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature that he has been nominated for.

Although I count The Magus as an intriguing, favorite book from the past, I considered Daniel Martin to be equally well written. Though most different in style and content from The Magus, I would rate Daniel paired with Magus, as being the best of Fowles. The plot is compelling, the descriptions of place so fine you may later think you've been there. Not as complex nor finely written as in the Robertson Davies trilogy, but a great read for any time of year! If you like Davies, John Irving, P.Reverte', Palliser, you may well enjoy this novel, though it is less complex than much of the aforementioned authors' works.

John Fowles is one of the best novelists in English in the 20th century; among my favorites, he ranks second only to Joyce. Daniel Martin seems to me his best, most fully realized novel. The novel carries us over the course of the eponymous character's life, concentrating on his later years. Fowles linguistic richness is incomparable. The first chapter is a model idyl. The shifting point of view takes a little getting used to, but he derives enough narrative force from the device that it's worth the effort. A definite five-star read.

This is one of the great 20th Century English novels. The descriptions of the countryside and customs left me breathless and feeling the heat of the sun and the glimmer of the grass. Fowles gives me hope that literature has not died.

An extra-ordinary novel of ideas and simple humanity. Fowles explores complex questions of identity, culture, politics, love and change. As with all his work, his erudition is breathtaking, his writing simple yet dazzling. The story hooks you, the ideas will keep you thinking for a long time.

I fell in love with the Magus. It is my favorite read of all time. Looking at Fowles' book list I thought I would have years of reading pleasure at his hands. Then I read A Maggot and was horribly disappointed. Daniel Martin does not disappoint! This book was wonderfully textured. Fowles shows his psychological prowess in describing the un-named underbelly of modern existence. And unlike the Magus, this book actually has an ending.

This is something of a remembered review because it's been a few years since my last reading of Daniel Martin. Between my first and second reading there must have been at least 15 years. I expect I shall read it again. The reason I'm writing this now is that it's become apparent that to continue to live in marital bliss, I have to admit that there is a limit to how many bookcases one man should fill. I came across it when making room for my new books. Nevertheless, the next time I read it, it will probably be available on Kindle.

This is a masterwork of storytelling of isolation and silences. You can almost see the action unfolding at times. The styles change. Sometimes there is a first-person narrative, other times it's in the third person.

The silences are ubiquitous: in parked cars, first-class train compartments, between people. Its power is in what is not said in the empty spaces between Fowles's isolated characters. He writes of using silence like sabers. The book portrays a breakdown of shared values. Nell's professional jealousy and a slow erosion of shared vocabulary create distance between her and Jane. Daniel has cut himself off from the world he knows and is culturally isolated in Hollywood. He is bewildered by the world he finds himself in. Sex, as he sees it, is as an American topic for endless comment. He questions the "need to assess and analyze what is really a perfectly sufficient language in itself."

This is a work that operates on multiple levels. Locations change from Hollywood, to Oxford, the Nile. Time shifts. In the cool and undemonstrative class-ridden Oxford of mid-twentieth century, Anthony and Jane have a marriage of minds. But Fowles later contrasts this dried-up academic life with the two working-class sisters who are fully alive. Jane responds to crisis with withdrawal into a private world, shutting down parts of herself. The book is replete with symbols. It's a book that gets better with time.

I re-read this book with trepidation. When I read it in my 30s, I pronounced it "the best novel of the 20th century." How would I react now? It's still better than Fowles French Lieutenant's Woman. It's not quite great but it is an excellent time warp back to the 1970s with the heaviness and seriousness of everything in life. The intrinsic love story makes more sense now that I am as middle-aged as Daniel Martin. On the other hand, I have less patience with what, I am sure, first dazzled me: the philosophic conversations and the esoteric arguments. But Fowles can write; his description of morning on the Nile is so vivid, I feel I have sailed from Luxor to Aswan. It is also Fowles' damnation of Hollywood as well as a continuation of the Brits vs. Yanks arguments. After 30 years, are Americans still hopeful? In the era of Obama, yes, again. Are Brits still depressed by loss of empire? Racial tensions have increased and economic woes have returned. I would now rate One Hundred Years of Solitude as "the best novel of the past century" but Daniel Martin would place in the top seventy-five.

Fowles, as ever, takes us through an incredible range of human emotion and exposes the facade of all that is not real. Slowly he peels the layers off the outer shell until the subject is left bare, small and humbled by their own understanding of self. John Fowles continues to pose the question of the human condition and his capacity for storytelling, his mastery of words and his vivid creation of characters who live with you, inside you and are probably a part of you is rivalled by no other.