During my latest stint of two weeks without a computer (the pedal-driven, twig and raffia monsters I work on have a habit of breaking down regularly), what with the rain coming down incessantly, I had recourse to a number of books in an effort to save my sanity. I read T C Boyles’ The Inner Circle, Norman Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost (big books, both of them) Joe Orton’s Diaries (he was killed by his lover, remember?), Christopher Isherwood’s A Meeting by the River, and on and on. And on, anything to try to save my sanity. These books don’t reflect any pattern; I’m not a planned reader, I read anything I fall over or that people lend me. Being obsessive by nature, I dare not make a reading plan, find it wiser to keep myself open to whatever reading matter comes along.
The last book I read before the snowed tech finally got around to me was The Journals, Volume 1 by John Fowles, another big book, edited by Charles Drazin from the raw material of Fowles’ diaries, over two million words covering the period from 1949, when he was in his final year at Oxford, to 1965, when he’s wrestling with a lucrative offer from Fox Studios for The Magus.
Fowles, c. 1952
These days, Fowles is well known for The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, all of which were made into films, but being unknown as a novelist myself, I found most interesting the period in which he was struggling and unrecognised. I thought other indie writers might enjoy reading a bit about this part of Fowles’ life too, so I’ve included a few lines from The Journals below:
25 August 1956
Halfway revising The Joker — now The Magus. The construction is all right. But [there is] constant slipping down in technique; invasion of cliché. I have to treat each sentence drill-fashion. Is it necessary? Is it succinct? Is it clear? Is it elegant? Has it clichés? It usually has.
10 May 1958
Creation by effort; it is despised. What is admired is the ‘natural’ genius of the ‘born’ artist … myself … I seem to have endless obstacles to overcome — laziness, doubt, slowness, the cliché — so that if I finally achieve anything … it will be in spite of myself; self-taught, self-made. And no aid from the bloody muses.
About his poverty:
4 May 1958
Rent increase; already they take five guineas a week. Now it’s to be six. We shall have to leave. It’s too much to lose each week, even with E [his wife] working as she is now, fulltime …Poverty is now part of me … There is still very little I would (indeed could) do for money; but sometimes the strain rises above the surface of my acceptance. The great black wall to wall … poverty that we have had for the last four or five years; we swing from Friday [his payday as a schoolteacher] to Friday. Like squirrels on the run; it doesn‘t do to think of a branch or Friday giving way.
When he finally makes it with The Collector in 1962, you heave a sigh of relief. Some of the first things he buys are an overcoat and a suit for himself, an outfit for his wife, a secondhand camera, a coffee table and some secondhand chairs. Touching. (Though, upon reflection, you begin to wonder just how Fowles defined poverty when he and his wife were both working fulltime before his breakthrough, and they had no children. But let’s not ruin the story; perhaps the rent they were paying was exceptionally high for the times.)
For any writer out there who is currently struggling and unknown, the journals give a glimpse into the problems of a writer whom we all think of as having made it, and just a taste of his struggles AFTER he’s made it, the terrible script conferences where he tries to hold on to the integrity of his work in the face of Hollywood’s dollar worshipping producers.
The Volume 1 Journals end where he’s bought his place Underhill at Lyme Regis, and has just accepted Twentieth Century Fox’s offer for The Magus of $7,500 for the option, $92,500 on exercise of the option and $10,000 for a treatment. I couldn’t relate to those figures and, as I imagine Volume 2 will be his life after fame has hit him, I don’t think I’ll be taking it on. Still, Vol. 1 is an interesting read for struggling writers, and aficionados of Fowles.
Happy St Patrick’s Day, by the way.
Danielle de Valera 
Yes, the average person out there still thinks the moment you have a book out you’re rich and possibly famous. You and I both know the truth and still we keep plugging away, why? because, while actually putting words down, its such fun, especially when you find that word that phrase that encompasses exactly what you want to say. When that happens, there’s a big smile on my face, I punch the air and quietly, but with conviction, whisper, YESSS! The rest of the time it’s bloody hard work. 🙂
Thanks for the comment, Louise. You’re right: most of the time it’s just hard work, but there are some magical moments.
I’m always conflicted about reading writers’ journals, and usuall wind up not bothering. It’s sort of like interviews — personal details that aren’t particularly interesting (they’re just *people,* after all), how they write their books, also not often that interesting. I guess I’m just too much of a loner to take either comfort or inspiration from other people’s lives.
When I was in my teens, Catana, I was very deranged, All I ever read was English poetry and auto/bios. The poetry was to reassure myself that other people had felt the emotions I was struggling with; the auto/bios was to try to find out how they’d coped. Something in this last must’ve worked: I’m still here. These days, I don’t seek out auto/bios, I just read whatever falls into my hands. Not everything. Just recently I couldn’t come at Isiguru’s A PALE VIEW OF HILLS, though I’d really liked his NOCTURNES.
PS Almost finished rereading ‘Someday ….’, Will send you an email.
Warm wishes.
Funny how things come along when they should. I recently saw a program about The Tempest in which Prospero was said to be a Magus. For some reason I had missed that word in the play. I imagine it is a word related to the word Magi. Anyway, seeing the title in your post prompted me to look it up in everyone’s favourite reference… you know, the W word… where I found a description of a character startlingly similar to one I have in mind for a story. There’s nothing new under the sun.
That’s for sure, Paul. Like Jung said, those weird synchonicities defy any kind of rational explanation. I remember once, way back in ’95, I was planning a scene on a beach in which a character falls over someone’s fishing line in the dark while the fisherman is back in the dunes. l had no idea how to go about it, how could such a thing happen? Next morning, while I was walking on the beach I saw a forked stick stuck deeply into the strand at knee level, with the remains of a fishing line dangling from it. I’d never seen such a thing before while walking the beach, but it was exactly what I needed. Synchronicity.
Thanks for this one Dani. I love Fowles, & was interested to see him working so hard on his cliche pogroms early one: probably why his later prose is so blissfully free of them.
I loved The Magus (both versions), tho as I recall from the v. 2 introduction it was the book that satisfied him least – too adolescent.
I wonder if I’d like it as much now. The notion of immature males getting wised via some Parsifalian quest is still one that attracts me.
Thanks, John, I went over and bought a copy of Propinquity yesterday. At the site, I was stuck again by how good that cover is/was and, (this is fortunate), how suitable it is for an ebook. I’d like to reread the novel and give it a review on Amazon, but I’m snowed somethin’ awful at the moment with copy-editing the Mullum novel I want to put out in November, plus a couple of paid jobs, glory hallelujah.
Oh, thanks for that Dani.
Yes, always loved the cover. And it’s aged well, yes.