From ancient times to the present, there are countless works about love, and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" is one of the top ten love novels in the world, and it is also a work that has influenced the literary world! Its author is the famous British writer John Fowles. He is a strange man, a giant who inherits the past and ushers in the future in postmodern literature. However, when he became famous, he stayed away from flowers and applause, and disappeared from the spotlight of the public on his own initiative. He was called the greatest "literary hermit" of the 20th century. From "The Collector", the "Ancestor of Locked Room Confinement", to "The French Lieutenant's Woman", which shocked countless people's hearts, and then to the spiritual biography "The Witcher", people remember the vivid characters in his works, but I don't know that behind these works, there are actually three romances of his hidden in the snow.
False, first love blossoms into memory
On March 31, 1926, Fowles was born in the small town of Leonsea, Essex, outside London. His father was a businessman and his mother was a housewife.
As a child, Fowles loved freedom, lived in isolation, explored nature, and especially liked small animals.
When he was in junior high school, his teacher often took him on outings, fishing, catching dragonflies, and making specimens. Once, he caught a colorful butterfly and liked it very much, so he put it in a closed glass bottle and held it in front of his eyes when he wanted to watch it.
Unexpectedly, a few hours later, the butterfly suffocated to death. His heart was like being stung by a poisonous spider, with a numb pain. He poured the butterfly out of the bottle carefully, and put it under the sun to dry it. He hoped that the sun would wake it up. Many strange thoughts grew in his little head. How can the butterfly not die?
However, the butterfly failed to wake up and became more and more shriveled, so he had to make a specimen of the butterfly and put it in the pages of the book. On a sunny day, he would open the book under the warm sun, and seeing that the withered butterfly was still alive, he felt that it was not dead, but fell asleep in the book.
From then on, he fell in love with butterfly specimens and collected butterflies in the pages of the book. He whispered to them every day, which was a secret that only they could understand.
In a blink of an eye, Fowles was 18 years old, and he entered the Royal Marines and became a lieutenant. At the end of World War II, he considered staying in the Marine Corps, but in the end he chose Oxford University, where he mainly studied French and French literature. Because he thinks he likes fantasy, maybe literature is more suitable for him.
While in school, he was deeply influenced by French existentialist writers and had a different understanding of literature. But after graduating from Oxford University, he did not engage in literary creation, but worked as an English lecturer at the University of Poitiers in France.
At that time, he was still very young. In his eyes, creation was too far away, and it was far more direct than a stable job. But he never expected that the appearance of the French girl Jeanette suddenly overturned his cognition and pushed him into the door of creation.
The first time I met Genet was in the library.
It was a Sunday morning, and Fowles went to the library to borrow books. There were so many people and there was a long queue. In desperation, Fowles had to join the long queue.
After standing still, he realized that the person in front of him was a young girl, although she couldn't see her face, she was slender, had a pleasant fragrance, and had a long braid.
With such an elegant back, the girl must be very beautiful. Fowles stood behind the girl in silent thought, looking at the back of her head and her braids. Her hair was light and smooth as satin, in braids that fell to her waist. She also seemed to be a little anxious to wait. Sometimes she put her braids on her chest, and sometimes she threw them back behind her head. On the face, it slipped over.
A strange feeling rose from the bottom of Fowles' heart, like a butterfly in childhood, close and sweet. The girl may have realized that the braids flew out of range, turned her head and smiled, and said, "Sorry, sorry!"
Fowles was stunned at once, her beauty, like her long braids, reached people's hearts.
In this way, they met, and the girl was Ginette.
At first, Fowles did not dare to express his love, fearing that his abruptness would scare her away. He hides his love deeply in his heart, and waits for her at the place where she gets off work every day, but he doesn't meet each other every time. He is afraid that if he sees too much, he will disturb her. More often, he just hides in the corner, watching her come out of the gate of the workplace, get on her bicycle, and leave like a fairy.
Every time he sees her, he will make a record in his diary. Her smiles, her worries, and the clothes she wears are all the subjects of his records. He is often in a trance, as if what he records is not a diary, but his own emotions.
When he saw her with her hair loose on her shoulders when he was off work, he wrote in his diary: "It's so beautiful, like a mermaid, I can't even breathe.
" In the evening, Fowles finally plucked up the courage to confess his love to Genet. In the snowy sky, their relationship quickly heated up and they both fell in love.
However, Gennet's father is a wealthy businessman. When he knew that Genet was falling in love with the poor and introverted Fowles, he was very angry and strongly opposed it. Genette wanted to persuade her father, but instead angered her father, he sent her directly to her aunt's house in a foreign country.
In this way, Fowles' first love died in less than a year, but he could not forget this unforgettable memory, and Genet became an important character prototype in his future writing.
Looking for a new
love
In the middle of the night, he often dreamed of the butterflies in his childhood. They were obviously flapping their agile wings in the sky, but they suddenly fell on the beach, unable to move an inch. But in an instant, they turned into specimens and returned to the pages of the book, and transformed into Ginette like magic.
Fowles switched between the butterfly specimen and Genette countless times, and he felt that he had also become a butterfly, flying under the blue sky. He opened the diary again and began to record the stories of the past.
Slowly, Fowles woke up from his sleep, and suddenly had a strong urge to express, since he has no relationship with Genette in life, then write her into the novel, in the illusory world, you can definitely dream come true.
His first novel was born in this way. In the novel, the hero is a clerk in a tax office. He lives in poverty and has a withdrawn personality. His only hobby is collecting butterfly specimens. By chance, the male protagonist meets the female protagonist, and since then he has been spying on her and doing some unrealistic daydreams.
As a result, once the hero won a large amount of money in the casino, in order to get the heroine forever, he kidnapped the heroine and imprisoned her in an underground luxury villa. He bought her gorgeous clothes, exquisite perfumes, discussed art with her, appreciated paintings... He gave her everything except freedom.
But the female lead doesn't like the male lead and always wants to escape, so the male lead has no choice but to catch her back again and again. In the end, the heroine died slowly in the prison cell due to the infection of wind and cold, but the hero felt that he was relieved, because he saw that the heroine turned into a butterfly and completely belonged to him.
This is a horrifying story, and Fowles didn't want to submit it, just to vent the anger in his heart. After finishing writing, he put the manuscript on the bottom of the box, and the anger in his heart finally became much calmer. As time went by, the uncomfortable feeling gradually dissipated.
In 1952, Fowles went to teach at a school on the island of Spetses, Greece. There he befriended another teacher, Roy Christie. Roy likes to drink, and when he drinks too much, he will be noisy. He is a very destructive drunk.
One night, Roy drank too much again, his feet were floating, and he couldn't even walk steadily, so Fowles had to send him home. When Roy's wife Elizabeth Christie opened the door, Fowles' eyes lit up, not expecting his lover to be so beautiful.
Elizabeth stood by the door, with her back against the white wall. There was a picture on the wall, which was the end of the breakwater near the sea. She was dressed in black, and the wind from the electric fan was blowing her black clothes, but she remained motionless. Looking at it coldly, like a shadow in a myth.
Fowles regained his composure, quickly helped Roy into the room and lay down on the sofa, looked at Elizabeth again, only to find that Elizabeth was also looking at him. Her eyes had a natural enchanting power, Fowles sank into them all at once, his eyes became hot, a ball of fire galloped away like mountains and seas.
Elizabeth suddenly lowered her head, feeling ashamed to speak. Fowles was fascinated by it. He thought she was the woman he had been looking for, but she was his friend's wife, so how could he think otherwise?
Fowles took a deep breath, stopped thinking about it, and hurried out to go home. He didn't want to meet Elizabeth again, but a few days later, Roy got drunk again, so he had to send Roy home again.
Seeing Fowles, Elizabeth was obviously flustered, but immediately calmed down. After she settled Roy, she gently said to Fowles: "You know, Roy is an alcoholic, and he doesn't care about my feelings at all."
Fowles wanted to defend Roy, but when he saw Elizabeth bright eyes, suddenly do not know what to say.
With Roy's indulgence in drinking, Fowles and Elizabeth had a lot of time together, they fell in love, and her bright red nails stretched and retracted enchantingly, like a little flower snake swimming around his neck.
Not long after, Roy discovered their secret, reported to the school, and Fowles was fired. In desperation, Fowles had no choice but to return to England. He wanted to elope with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth had a daughter, which was her heart and soul, so how could she let it go? Although she really wanted to go with Fowles, she chose to stay and take care of her daughter in the end.
Back in England, Fowles found a new job at St. Godric's College of Secretaries in Hampstead, North London, where he taught while writing letters to Elizabeth about his lovesickness.
After this incident, Elizabeth had separated from Roy, and she told Fowles that she would come to England after she completed the divorce procedures.
Fowles was full of joy. He planned the future of the two of them and became more and more attentive to his work. He was soon promoted to the head of the English Department. A few months later, Elizabeth moved in after her divorce and began their two-person world.
On April 2, 1957, they walked into the palace of marriage hand in hand, opening a new page in their lives. Their marriage was based on physical and intellectual tenderness and mutual attraction, and while Fowles' fanciful mind may have idealized and fantasized about Elizabeth, that didn't prevent them from spending every day together. In 1960, Fowles and Elizabeth found a farm a few miles outside of London, at the foot of the hill in the Dorset seaside town of Lyme Regis, where it was quiet and fresh with pleasant scenery
.
Decided to move the family here.
When moving, Fowles asked his good friend Tom Marcelle to help. Unexpectedly, when cleaning the box, he found the manuscript written when his first love was frustrated. Fowles was about to throw it away, but Marcelle, who was an editor, snatched it in his hand, and was immediately attracted by the wonderful content.
Marcelle said: "I didn't expect that your story was written so well. If you revise it again, it must be a best-selling novel."
Fowles was stunned for a moment. Although he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in college, he has been focusing on English and never thought of writing.
Marcelle smiled: "Trust me." Of course Fowles believed in Marcelle, he was the best editor in the novel world at the time, and the words he affirmed were all excellent.
As a result, Fowles began to rework the manuscript, basically retaining the original story line, and named it "The Collector".
In 1963, the novel was officially published. Unexpectedly, it became very popular as soon as it was released and became the best-selling book of the year. All of a sudden, people read Fowles' books as the trend. How popular are his books? If people at that time had not read his novels, they could hardly open their mouths to talk to people.
This success brought confidence to Fowles' creation. He simply quit his teaching job and devoted himself to writing. But he said that the reason why he engages in literary creation is that he can indulge in fantasy, and can fabricate scenes and dialogues of characters as he likes, so as to escape various external lives that he does not like.
If "The Collector" made people know Fowles, then "The French Lieutenant's Woman" deeply engraved his name in the history of literature. The success of the latter novel owes much to Elizabeth.
After "The Collector" became a bestseller, almost everyone was very happy, but Elizabeth was the only one who was very sad, because the protagonist in the book was based on Fowles' first love, not herself.
After Fowles found out, he smiled and said, "It happened so many years ago, and you're still jealous? Then, in order to make up for the damage you suffered, I decided to write another one, using your prototype to construct the heroine."
Elizabeth burst into tears For laughs, "The French Lieutenant's Woman" was born.
In the novel, Fowles described the hero’s feeling when he saw the heroine for the first time: “The man was standing at the end of the breakwater by the sea, all in black, and the wind was blowing her black clothes, but she was numb. Not moving, just looking out to sea, it seems like a living monument to a maritime wreck, a mythical shadow."
Isn't this the scene where Fowles meets Elizabeth for the first time? Elizabeth smiled shyly. She liked Fowles's subtle but affectionate confession.
After the first draft was written, Elizabeth became the first reader, but she was quick to point out that the novel did not end well.
Fowles ends the novel with a happy ending, in which all the sufferings of the protagonist are redeemed in a happy reunion, but Elizabeth felt that it was better to write a "tragic" ending, because the beauty of incompleteness is often more touching.
Fowles followed Elizabeth's advice, and it was this change to the ending that made the novel a bestseller and a film adaptation that won an Oscar in 1981.
In the eyes of Fowles, his wife Elizabeth is the source of inspiration and the eternal protagonist of his writing. With the popularity of "The French Lieutenant's Woman", Fowles entered the golden age of writing, and Elizabeth played a role in each of his novels.
For a long time, she was Fowles' first reader and editor. Moreover, she often polishes, deletes and even writes the ending for Fowles' novels.
Over the years, Fowles wrote a variety of works, including the novella "The Ebony Tower" and the novels "Daniel Martin" and "Maggots", as well as the parody novel "Mantissa".
Fowles said: "When I write, I often feel that the heroine of one novel is the same woman as the heroine of another novel. Their physical characteristics may be completely different, but they are the same to me. family, basically the same woman, she is my wife Elizabeth."
However, it is unexpected that Fowles chose to leave the literary circle when he became famous. Although he lives in the city, he avoids the upper class, rarely sees other writers, and naturally rejects countless invitations. He even wrote a long article called "America I Cry for You", which is almost Tailored to alienate his fans, he completely isolates himself.
He regards this as freedom, although it seems to be isolated, but he never regrets it. On the contrary, it is this alienation from the world and the times that allows him to gain perspective on life, and thus embarks on a journey of life. Pursue the path of a higher level of self-worth and life meaning.
His publisher said: "Fowles hates playing some writer's grandstanding game, he just wants to be in his own garden at Lyme Regis, and he loves nature, birds and flowers, not people." The
Times Time soon came to 1990, and Elizabeth, who had been with Fowles for 33 years, died of cancer.
It wasn't until 1998 that Fowles was rescued by a publisher's daughter, Sarah Smith. They met at a banquet, attracted each other, and got married in a flash. After the remarriage, Fowles had a spiritual support again, and his enthusiasm for writing was stimulated again, and he published two novels and a collection of essays successively.
He wrote in his diary: "Unexpectedly, I finally found a woman as good as Elizabeth again."
In his more than 40 years of writing career, John Fowles left six novels and many novels. non-fiction works. Some critics say that the great thing about Fowles' fame is that his novels never repeat the same content, and the style varies from book to book, giving people a sense of freshness that is constantly innovating.
In life, Fowles likes to keep enough private space and hates the fame brought to him by his works. In a 2003 interview with The Observer, he said: "I spend very little time feeling sorry for myself or being complacent. I look down on writers who are vain and want to be famous... You have to have a certain amount of vanity to be successful and sell your work. But you have to keep your vanity in check and don't take yourself too seriously, or you'll be the kind of person you pretend to look down on."
A good novel, a compelling plot is important, but the most important thing is to shape The characters that come out are full and vivid. Just like no matter how many years later, when Fowles recalls the works he once wrote, he will always recall the three unforgettable women in his life. They are the muse goddesses and the treasure house of inspiration for his own creation.
On November 5, 2005, Fowles died of heart failure at his home in Lyme Regis at the age of 79.
Fowles doesn't like publicity principles and a low-key style, which makes his status in the minds of ordinary people underestimated. "The Guardian" once commented: "John Fowles is a firm 'literary hermit'. His life represents the development of contemporary English literature. Many contemporary literary masters, such as Byatt, Eco, Mike Ewan said that Fowles had a great influence on him, and he is completely an epoch-making literary master."
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