Customer Reviews

The Ebony Tower (Signet)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're looking for the easy bedtime read John Fowles short fiction collection may not be what you are searching for. If you're looking for thought provoking contemporary fiction by a master this is for you. No one ever said a Fowles book would be easy and The Ebony Tower is no exception. The premise is five interlocking short stories all in a way centered around a medieval myth (which the author provides in brillent translation). Each story attempts not only to address its immediate subject but entire concepts and reflections on life and art as well. The stories force one to look at more than the daily lives of the characters but to see deeper(a sort of removing of the various layers that make up individual events of these peoples lives). While the individual plots may seem somewhat foriegn to first time readers if you stick it out to the end you'll come away with a new outlook on the world, art, history and the conflicts between the generations.Add in Mr. Fowles lush word pictures and you can't go wrong.

Rereading this collection recently, it struck me that John Fowles is to novels what Ridley Scott is to films. Both craft consistently slick, well-put-together work which quite often doesn't stand up to much intellectual scrutiny. Thus, Ridley Scott made "Alien" and "Blade Runner", which looked and were great, but also "1492" and "Gladiator", which merely looked great but were quite vacant. Similarly, Fowles wrote The Collector and The Magus, but (unfortunately for his reputation) he also wrote Daniel Martin and The Aristos.

The Ebony Tower works best if you think of it as a series of commercials - movie trailers, almost - for the rest of his work. That's not what it was meant to be, but that's how it works. Some of it's good, some of it's dull, but it's always at least well-constructed and workmanlike.

So there's the usual bit of thought, the usual bit of female nudity (well, quite a lot, actually), the usual rumination on the human condition, and the usual episode featuring a bearded middle-aged writer whose alluring intellect very young women find so attractive they overlook his bandy white legs and paunch and leap enthusiastically into his bed. If you've read his Daniel Martin, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you actually *are* a bearded middle-aged writer with said bandy white legs and paunch, you won't.

You'll like this if you're the kind of person who collects both classic movies *and* their original theatre trailers. But you'd never sit down and watch just the trailers, right? And that was how I felt about this collection. If I wanted a dose of Fowles, I'd go straight for his two classics.

I do like Fowles's novels, but I agree with the Amsterdam reader, this is a chance to get a distilled version of his charm: all the pleasure of his intelligent plotting and dialogue, without the excesses a novel will allow. I love the way the various stories resonate with each other in obvious and subtle ways--in that, it reminded me of Julian Barnes's _The History of the World in 10 and a 1/2 Chapters_ (another short story collection I loved).

Its kind of self-damning to review this book, given the authors view of those who do such things, but nonetheless there is so much insight to be gained about being alive, human communication, and the "systems" we are only vaguely aware of being trapped in, that I felt there should be some sort of attestation here for those who have not read it.

Fowles' works have haunted me since I first discovered (by Hazard perhaps) The Magus when I was 16. This summer I had time to read The Ebony Tower on vacation and was once again encaptured, seduced, entranced, and hypnotized throughout each short story and the novella. He is a sorcerer that blends reality with fantasy so effortlessly, that tantalizes the reader as much as his protagonists who often find themselves in moments of powerlessness yet ironically at the same time moments of oozing egoism and shameless selfishness like David in the novella (The Ebony Tower).

For me the high point in this collection was Poor Koko which communicated similar themes as The Magus and The Collector. It explores the dualities of creation and destruction, pain and pleasure and also delves into the purpose of writing for the writer. Fowles' honesty breeds wisedom; his instrospection catalyses truths.

Lyrical, literary perfection.

5/5 Stars...An ocean of violent truths.

John Fowles is the Magus of modern literature. A sorceror who conjurs us away from our everyday existence with masterful descriptive narrative and uncommon depth of thought and ideas; a wise man bearing gifts to the world of average writing. Fowles is at his peak with The Ebony Tower. The best fiction ever written. I was lucky to find this first edition printing in fine shape with jacket intact through Amazon.

I love it when famous authors have an off day. It gives us unpublished writers hope. I mean, if this kind of crap can get published, then surely we stand a good chance.

Eliduc is a sweet translation of a mediaeval morality tale. Okay.

The other four strike me as having started out as novels, then Fowles ran out of steam when he realised that the premise couldn't bear the weight of a full-length treatment. In computer terms, it's as if these stories were in the recycle bin but Fowles didn't want to kill his "children" so he did some cosmetic work to try and rescue them from oblivion.

Dialogue: appalling. Punctuation: enough commas semis and colons to stock three books.

I liked The Collector. The Magus is fascinating. You'd imagine that a writer of Fowles's ability and renown would want to bury this book where nobody could ever read it.

In Fowles' short stories I tend to find none of the excesses and all of the good things that I enjoy about his novels. Definitely worth reading, particularly if you have an interest in painting.

Four novella slices for sandwich
A French tale added to make it rich
Bodies tease and elude
Minds show up in the nude
There's one boring piece, won't tell you which

Four novella slices for sandwich
A French tale added to make it rich
Bodies tease and elude
Minds show up in the nude
There's one boring piece, won't tell you which