Daniel Martin

by John Fowles

Book Overview

A new trade paperback edition of "a masterpiece of symbolically charged realism....Fowles is the only writer in English who has the power, range, knowledge, and wisdom of a Tolstoy or James" (John Gardner, Saturday Review).

The eponymous hero of John Fowles's largest and richest novel is an English playwright turned Hollywood screenwriter who has begun to question his own values. Summoned home to England to visit an ailing friend, Daniel...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316290394
• ISBN13: 9780316290395
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

After re-reading, it's still a great book

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.

Underated

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.

One of Fowle's Best

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.

My all-time favourite 20th Century novel

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.

True genius..

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.