Story: 2 / 10
Characters: 5
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

"Tell me a story." That's my reading philosophy. I pick up a book, either because it was recommended or won an annual genre award, but I don't read the description. I simply trust the author to reveal the story to me. I've gone years without reading the back of the book. After this book, that era is over.

Daniel Martin was the second book I've read by John Fowles. A work colleague recommended The Magus and I absolutely loved it. He then went on to recommend to Daniel Martin. Both books have fairly loose plots. While the latter does have significant events that result from the character relationships, the former doesn't. Basically nothing happens in Daniel Martin. Nothing in 700 pages. Unforgivable.

This was a long book to hate. Frankly, I'm scarred, afraid of returning to another John Fowles book in the future. Worse than that, I'm also going to have to start reading book descriptions. I would have known not to approach Daniel Martin if I had read the lacklustre description. Live and learn. ( )

Rather like reading The Magus, updated for the middle-aged.

There is nothing surprising here: the elements of the story are laid out early on, and they follow their inevitable course.

As one would expect from Fowles, lots of insight, vivid description, careful dissecting of behaviour and motivation.

"Us-or-them" comparisons abound: England and America, England and Europe, Literature and Hollywood, Oxford and plebs. ( )

This is a book about middle-aged angst. The protagonist is Daniel Martin, and we catch up with him living in California. He's in his forties, and living with a twenty-something actress. Both are from the UK and trying to make their way in Hollywood, Daniel as a screenwriter and Jenny as an actress. John Fowles is an excellent and very literate author. His character descriptions, and his descriptions of the feelings and emotions that Daniel faces in his mid-life crisis are breathtaking. The book is set internationally - as it starts in California, moves to England, and then to Cairo and Syria and it spans three decades of Daniel's life. Daniel realizes that he has to go back home to the UK to face his past in order to put his present into perspective. An old, unaddressed rift among Daniel and a couple of his friends kicks off his discovery of himself. We follow Daniel on his journey to self-discovery and we are there with all of his innermost feelings as he comes to terms with the past, deals with the present difficulties, and plans for a very uncertain future. The book is also an enduring love story that survives decades and distances. This is a big, sprawling tome of a book, that is riveting in its simplicity. Highly recommended. ( )

I wish I had skipped it. The torture that is every relationship (and then some). ( )

I remember reading somewhere that this was John Fowles' difficult book. Having found most of his books rather tricky, that would explain why i've waited a long time before getting round to this one. Is it difficult? Perhaps. It plays with different timescales, narratives and perspectives. It deals with the inner worlds of some very privileged characters in a small anglo elite. It treats with philosophy, politics, social class and religion and it makes a very long journey out of what might be seen externally as a small event. But as an insight into its time and place - the over indulged immediate post war generation, transitioning from tradition to a very unsure new world, it is exceptionally thoughtful and creative. And as a book about the difficulties of love it is never less than intriguing, if self indulgent and over analytical. It's worth savouring and questioning..