Re: JCO: John Fowles on JCO

“Of the many excellent writers in England today, four strike me as especially exciting because they are struggling to express, in widely differing bodies of work, our crucial contemporary problem: how to get into the future, how to emerge from a condition of confusion, despair, nihilism, how to create values that will allow man to evolve into a higher form of man. While their contemporaries in England and, sadly, all to frequently in America, are content to joke about the past or the future, in works of art that are often technically brilliant but morally quite played-out, John Fowles, Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble, and Colin Wilson are consciously attempting to imagine a new image for man, a new Self-Image freed of ambiguity, irony, and the self-conscious narrowness of the imagination we have inherited from 19th-century Romanticism.”  JCO 1974

Randy

On Nov 12, 2005, at 10:39 AM, Gary Couzens wrote:

Following John Fowles's death earlier this week, the Guardian has today published some extracts from his journals, Volume 2 of which is due to be published in January.

On 27 July 1972, he met JCO...

"Tom Maschler said 'God help you' when we told him she was coming and we had expected some imperious, devouring wordwoman; instead we got someone painfully diffident and over-conscious of the literary pecking-order (I rank higher, it seems). I have tried but cannot read her books - they are so long and screwed up to too high a pitch. Curious that such a frail, shy creature should be so different in her art. I rather like her."

Gary 

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JCO: John Fowles on JCO

Following John Fowles's death earlier this week, the Guardian has today
published some extracts from his journals, Volume 2 of which is due to be
published in January.

On 27 July 1972, he met JCO...

"Tom Maschler said 'God help you' when we told him she was coming and we had
expected some imperious, devouring wordwoman; instead we got someone
painfully diffident and over-conscious of the literary pecking-order (I rank
higher, it seems). I have tried but cannot read her books - they are so long
and screwed up to too high a pitch. Curious that such a frail, shy creature
should be so different in her art. I rather like her."

Gary

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Re: JCO: falls/mom

Hi,

Just for the record and communication purposes, MM's heroine is named Nikki Eaton; her mother, Gwen;, sister Clair Chisolm, married to Rob.  Nikki's "lover" is Wally Szalla; his problematic wife, Isabel; their rebellious son, Troy.  Detective is Ross Strabane, the "murderer" Ward W. Lynch. 

 

Hope the names help us to communicate.

 

Bob

Re: JCO: falls/mom

Hi, RFoley. I hope you got to use Freaky Green Eyes in your class. It's a
great young person's book. It's theme of the difficulties of doing the "right
thing" is something young folks need to understand. That no one necessarily
pats one on the back for being brave and assertive. In fact, doing the right
think may make one's life much harder than it would have been if one had simply
shut up and remained passive.
Nikki, yes. That's the name. Thank you. I liked that charcter: she is
neither one of JCO's spectacularly troubled heroines, nor an accomplished upper
middle class professional type character. She is somewhere in the gray
middle, where I live.
Cyrano

In a message dated 11/8/2005 1:47:52 AM Eastern Standard Time,
RFoley7292@aol.com writes:

<< Not to intrude, but I've had two occasions to listen to Joyce discuss her
most recent work in person. From her comments, sincerely and thoughtfully
delivered, as always, I can't buy into parody. She views the work as
deeply and
intensely personal. (The book is, as we know, dedicated to her own late
mother.) Says she seriously entertained the idea of publishing it under
yet
another pseudonym. She thought it might have appeal only to her female
fans,
though that feeling was almost immediately disproven. As a male, I found
her
notion strangely disquieting, especially since I find myself deeply
connected to
the experience and feelings that Nikki Eaton undergoes. I remember being
in
the living room with my mother when she had an infarction and I believed,
at
the time, that she had abruptly passed on (not true, then.) Joyce's
descriptions of Nikki discovering Gwen's body in the garage brought
everything
flooding back as though it were yesterday.

I'm about halfway through a first reading and I find the book gripping on a
personal level.

It seems not to have the epic, mythological quality we associate with some
of Joyce's most important works - e.g. Blonde, the recent The Falls. If
there
is an attempt on JCO's part to create that level, I think it not too
successful, but as a personal "fictionalized" recording of experience and
feeling,
it succeeds brilliantly (for me). Curiously, the last book I read of
Joyce's
was Freaky Green Eyes (which I'm considering using in my classroom) and
there
are some wonderful parallels to be drawn between Franky and Nikki in the
wake (no pun) of their mothers' deaths.

More to come when I finish the book in a day or so.

>>
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Re: JCO: falls/mom

Hi, Christa. Not a parody. But there are lots of characters in it
remniscent of other JCO fiction. In my opinion, she has a reperatory company of
"types." The detective was like the cop in Rape a Love Story. The Mom like the
mother in We Were the Mulvaneys. The heroine MM -- would someone please give me
her name? My friend hasn't returned my copy yet! -- seemed like a new kind of
character for JCO, the independent professional newsjournalist who is a bit
foolish in her personal life. I enjoyed that new wrinkle.
Cyrano

In a message dated 11/8/2005 12:01:12 AM Eastern Standard Time,
NotEnoughKittens@aol.com writes:

<< Yes, I'm a bit bewildered by Missing Mom. I thought it read like a
parody
of JCO's work----perhaps it was supposed to be tongue in cheek? There is
no
one as good at presenting the female psyche under pressure as Oates
is----but
none of the main character's actions or emotions rang true for me.

Christa >>
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Re: JCO: falls/mom

Hi, Pat. I've been out of town. Glad to be back to discussion. I found MM
a very 70s type novel -- as far as Mom's character.
As soon as I saw the crossed-out home phone number on the detective's
card, I knew he and the journalist heroine were going to hook up. Unlike the
heroine's married boyfriend, the detective was the kind of guy who would follow
thru with his divorce, not keep everybody hanging. The detective did not
really engage me as a character, but the heroine's process of exploring Mom's past
was the most interesting part of the novel. As in a classic detective novel
-- or a folk tale or Indian legend -- her search prompted her to speak with a
lot of unpromising, unusual people and find out clues she had never dreamed
might pan out. Her talk with the prudish aunt in the mansion was the most
memorable part of the book to me. She had to hang in with the elderly aunt's
off-putting attitudes long enough to get the crucial info.
MM isn't among my fav. JCO books, but it was good to read, if a tad long.
But that's not unusual with JCO.
Cyrano

In a message dated 11/7/2005 8:49:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rousep001@hawaii.rr.com writes:

<< On the other hand, having just finished Missing Mom I thought
it was hysterical to read at times, the stereotypes from the 50's
culture were drawn out and drawn out some more, but the book as a whole
was just this side of boring. There were the good girl/ bad girl
sisters, bread ad nauseum, the chorus of relatives, the revelations from
the past, identity issues with Mom, the rituals, give me a break! Maybe
it was meant to be tongue in cheek. Who had a real personality? Who
wasn't predictable? The cat? How about anyone else ringing in on this
novel? Pat Rouse
>>
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