![]() She is young, hardly more than a girl, pale-faced, with dark hair bound severely back beneath a flat-crowned chip, or willow-shaving, hat…She is evidently a servant, a maid. ![]() ![]() The woman raises her hands and pushes back the hood of her cloak, then loosens the white linen band she has swathed round the lower part of her face. Fowles’ lyrical language floats us, dream-like, into the story: Who except John Fowles of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” would combine a story taking place in the 18 th century with the much-maligned and ridiculed subject of UFOs? It was fascinating to see the counterbalance between what at first appeared to be normal travelers plodding along and then the subtly unraveling mystery they all carried with them the shared, unspoken secret, the verboten knowledge. Fowles’ whim is often to tease…In ”A Maggot” the hypothesis seems to be that readers will tolerate more teasing, and more indeterminacy as to plot and character, than is usually expected of them. ![]() Though Fowles denies that “A Maggot” is historical, it does nevertheless take place during a precise historical timeframe of May 1736 to February 1737.Ī maggot in this sense is a whim, or a work based on a whim, and Mr. John Fowles’ “A Maggot,” circa 1985, a truly bizarre and fascinating tale revolving around one of the most unlikely subjects possible for the historical setting of the 1700s, slowly pushes open an eerily creaking door on the controversial world of UFOs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |