i tried reading this when i was 15, i think around the time it first came out. perhaps i was too ambitious, because the novel was too much for me, and i gave up. i suppose i just didn't get it. but i can be competitive - even with books, even with myself. so i promised young mark monday that the battle wasn't over, that i'd return to re-engage 25 years later, when i had become an old, wise man...and i would eventually conquer this one. well, mark, it is now 25 years later.__________...and so i promptly lost my original paperback right after i started reading it - after holding on to it for 25 frickin' years! it took time to get a new copy.but now that i'm finished with this one, i'm not even sure what to say. a lot of different things went on in my head when reading this. it is pretty one-of-a-kind. i think i'll give it some time to sink in before i write a real review. overall: a fascinating, challenging, often off-putting, drily humorous, always intriguing experience. but after all the headiness, i think i need to read a kid's novel to rinse the intellectual palate, so to speak.__________well, it's a few days after the above. today i've been enjoying my favorite Kate Bush songs on my back patio and at one point was surprised to recall that i had fully enjoyed these bizarre and challenging songs way back in high school, back when A Maggot was so intimidating. and so i became embarrassed at avoiding the review at hand. thanks Kate for the guilt trip!the storyfive figures in a landscape, traveling on horseback to an unknown destination. they do not speak; they exist, at first, simply as enigmas to contemplate. a nobleman. his faux-uncle, an actor. his manservant, or lover. a maid - or, perhaps, a whore. a soldier - or, perhaps, a lifetime liar. it is May 1736, in England. three will return, one will be found dead, the last will have disappeared without a trace.the stylei have read many times over that Fowles has a style that is challenging... prose that is dense and oblique, narratives that often veer off confusingly into the metaphysical, a guiding hand that shows little to no interest in offering the reader their more traditional pleasures. A Maggot is all of those things. it is a journey that ends in a kind of transcendence; it is a narrative that has no interest in answering your questions, silly reader. and yet this is by no means a difficult book to read - the difficulty lies in digesting and understanding any or all of its myriad implications.roughly three-quarters of the novel is in the question-and-answer format of a police interrogation and police procedural, except in this case the questioner is a curmudgeonly, reactionary, cynical old lawyer, with interests clearly vested in the keeping of station - the poor with the poor, the rich (his client, the nobleman's father - a Duke) firmly with the rich. there should be no challenge to the capable reader during these parts - the format allows all stories to be told in a reassuring first-person format, the tales told are straightforward (but only in the telling), and there are many acidic comments from the dear aged lawyer to enjoy, to roll around the tongue and then say out loud, with the utmost haughty, lawyerly disdain.interspersed between, before, and after these long interviews are sequences that can best be described with that hoary adjective, Brechtian. these parts are striking in what they do not tell. they view the actions and words of our characters at a firm distance, as players in a play that the reader has stumbled upon halfway, the activities a tableau rather than a display of actual movement. it seems intended to distance the reader, to force contemplation, and in that it certainly succeeds. perhaps too well... the tactic can be off-putting. the intent appears to be to separate emotion from content, to allow the reader to decipher entirely on their own the motives and meaning of what they see displayed before them... and in that the method is clearly successful.now i have to wonder why i was unable to finish this back in high school. this is not the most difficult of books. well, who knows. perhaps i was too shallow and more interested in fast-paced genre fiction. i suppose things have not changed too much on that front.the ideasso what is this novel about? well, now is the time to answer questions with questions.is it indeed a police procedural? at that it succeeds, in spades. the mystery is palpable, the truth seems just around the corner. lies are told and liars are caught in them. the death is a suicide or a murder. the party of five are many things and none of them what they appear. at first it appears to be an intrigue of surprisingly cosy proportions. surely this mystery can be solved? the lawyer seems to think it all hinges upon a secret gay relationship between intense young nobleman and mute, well-hung manservant. silly lawyer!is this a tale of witchcraft and dire deeds in a dark and eerie cavern? one of the tales told is explicitly so. it all becomes so clear to the reader accustomed to fantasy and horror during this very long sequence - at last, the truth comes out! it is a very well-constructed trap for the reader who demands an answer and who somehow equates vivid tales of perverse enchantment with an actual answer. and by "the reader", i am of course speaking of myself. it was certainly satisfying on the level of having an answer that turned out to be enjoyably dreadful, perversely erotic, and full of grim fantasia. it is an almost comfortably relayed tale of easily recognized horrors and i swallowed it whole - until i realized i was barely halfway finished with the book. i wondered: so now that the truth is out, what is left to tell? and then this familiar answer to the mystery began to seem unreal, the explanation began to unravel. it became a straw man, a paper tiger, a stalking horse.is this a tale of time travel, the future not just looking upon the past, but stepping in to mold that past, to create the future? the vision of a silvery "maggot" - in essence, a silver spaceship, complete with futuristic dials and knobs, strange fabrics, and viewing screens that show scenes that could never be seen in the viewer's lifetime - is a wonderfully clever nod to the trappings of science fiction. alas, no doubt 'tis another feint.is this a treatise on the inherent lack of godliness in any class-based system, in organized religion, in the lack of equality between the genders? yes, it is. dynamically so. angrily so.is this a vaguely postmodern whimsy on the roots and beginnings of Shakerism? the end of the novel is nearly a love poem to one of the most fascinating religious figures i have had the pleasure of learning about - the Shaker proselytizer Anna Lee. have you ever heard of the Shakers, outside of their excellence at furniture-building? i have, but then in my early youth i was raised in some aspects of the Quaker faith, from which many of the Shaker tenets developed. if you haven't heard of the Shakers, look them up! their belief system is truly compelling, not least in their unshakeable conviction that equality between the genders was an absolute for truly living in God's world. an admirable belief! they even thought that Jesus may return in the form of a woman, which was surely a beyond-radical concept for the time (and may still be so). and those Shakers danced! thus the name "Shakers". they danced and sang in crazy, awesome concentric circles. just about the only thing that i find questionable about the faith is their determination that all forms of sexuality, of carnality, were the devil's work. so... no sex. ever. not even for procreation.is this a tale of transcendence, a vision of the world as God intended, a reclamation of a lost soul, a transfiguration of sorts? such is the final tale, and no doubt the one closest to the truth. have our key players transcended, either shedding their physical form and earthly existence for the beyond or shedding the grossly carnal and materialistic forms of their current lives for something finer, something richer in spirituality, community, equality, and destiny? well, let me just tell you this: do not expect an answer to your questions. expect to be forced to think, and not to be led to the well to drink. expect a certain lack of satisfaction, a clear lack of narrative resolution. expect to be... frustrated.the titleis A Maggot "a maggot"? in the intro, Fowles recalls the obsolete definition of the word: namely, "a whim, a quirk". this is perhaps the only interpretation with which i resolutely disagree. A Maggot is far from a whim. its intentions are too serious, its possible meaning too compelling, too multi-leveled. unlike a mere whim, it exists to be contemplated seriously. its ideas are no fanciful quirk; indeed, it is a puzzle for the mind (and soul), an almost brazen challenge from beginning to end.__________the Kate Bushapropos of nothing at all, here are my Top 10 Kate Bush songs:(by the way, the videos are actually horrible. so incredibly dated, pretentious, almost unbearable to watch. and yet i love these songs!)Leave It Openhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OKxRa...Running Up That Hillhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43Od...Army Dreamershttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOZDKl...Get Out Of My Househttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDgvx...Wuthering Heightshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTs-Wa...James and the Cold Gunhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_2Ql...Hammer Horrorhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR4Knf...Coffee Homegroundhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp0qi8...Kenhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Opl8t...This Woman's Workhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TupvV...
I wrote this review a few years ago. I just moved to a new apartment, and while I rearranged my books in the perfect order, I came across my copy of A Maggot and remembered this, so I shall copy and paste:JOHN FOWLES: A MAGGOTMy previous experience reading the work of John Fowles is sporadic but rather steady: while taking a “Literature of the Occult” class in college, The Magus was required reading and sometime last winter I made it through The Collector (recommended to me by Maxim magazine, of all things). I never finished the former, as the parts I remember were a little over my head, and was underwhelmed by the latter. A while ago I was wandering through a thrift shop on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and randomly stumbled upon The Maggot. I immediately picked it up because of the author, but was drawn to it for other reasons, as well. It was a heavy hardcover, a former member of the Brooklyn Public Library system. I liked the cover. Featured was a photo of Mr. Fowles, which took up the entire back cover; someone had pressed a gold star sticker near his right hand, which was neatly tucked into a pocket. I liked the title. I liked the alternative usage of the word "maggot." All these things pleased my aesthetic. I began reading it right away, ignoring the several half-finished books littering my apartment. Though the style was dense and a little too stodgy for my taste, with about half of it consisting of mid-19th century British dialogue that had me reading paragraphs three or four times each, there was a slow-burning core of promise and thrifty use of language that kept me plugging away. I wouldn't say I couldn't put it down; I wouldn't say it amazed me. However, it's one of those books that plant you firmly into the personality of the author, into the way they see and structure. I was aware of how British Fowles is, and of what qualities he found attractive in a woman. His opinions on religion were evident. All these things, and more, weren't spelled out or even necessarily integral parts of the story- they were just present. I kept reading it; I even skimmed some of it. Usually when reading a book becomes tedious for me, I'll just move on to something else and tell myself I'll finish it later. It smelled of paper soon to turn brittle and weighted me down every day to and from the train. Others glanced at the title curiously. It was covered in a clear protective plastic.I finished it on a Saturday. It was one of the first warm days. I had gone for a walk in the sun, air, white cement, and my skin and hair had that green, metallic smell from being outside, from being slightly sweaty and then chilly again. My lungs worked easily. I was laid up on the couch, a cat purring warmly against my chest and belly. My legs had the slight tingle of a good, long walk. The windows and doors were all open. I had eaten pineapple and blackberries and Nutella in great, big spoonfuls. I was hurrying to finish this book, killing time. The day had been so perfect, my senses and mind so round and full that I didn't want to ruin it with television. So I finished it, turned the last pages, and the conclusion left me with a vague satisfaction. It was an unclear ending, the kind that you are okay with because the unknowing is fitting and more telling than a neat wrapping up. So it was finished, and I flipped to the epilogue, which was written directly to the readers from the author, like an explanation, or a letter. He made it clear that the entire novel, which was an amalgamation of a who-done-it, historical fiction, time travel fantasy, religious dissent, romance and political treatise, was crawling toward one purpose only; this purpose was the birth of Ann Lee.All these things, an entire complex and at times convoluted plot, and several characters...they all led to this. There were no hints, none, except for mentions of Quakerism. Ann Lee was the founder of religious sect known as the Shakers, who originated in England and quickly immigrated to America to escape persecution. A severe group, they were originally an offshoot of the Quakers and claimed a strict adherence to chastity as the main difference between their beliefs and other similar Protestant faiths. The first Shaker settlement in America was founded outside Albany, NY in the 1770's. In fact, this original community still stands within a couple of miles of my parents' house. In fact, I completed an internship at the Shaker Heritage Society at this very site while in college. I picnicked at Ann Lee Pond; I drove down paths entitled North Family Road and Watervliet-Shaker Road. Their presence in my life was extremely prevalent.The Shakers believed fervently in celibacy. They relied mainly on conversion to gain new members, and never exceeded over 6,000 members due to the difficulty of convincing people not to succumb to the temptations of the flesh. At times, it was difficult to control the natural proclivities of their members, especially the young ones (many of which were adopted orphans, without a choice in the matter). While at the Heritage Society, I read countless accounts of Shaker Girls Gone Wild, running half-dressed, bonnets askance, through the primitive streets, imbibing whiskey and threatening the piety of the town's menfolk. The Shakers were largely self-sufficient. They operated large farms and made most of their own clothing, soap, furniture, etc. I spent many hours showing small children how to comb and card wool, how to use a drop spindle, how to knit. I learned how to knit through this influence, directly; it has been a hobby of mine ever since that time. It has enabled me to make things for many people, people I love. In addition, their products were of such quality that there was high demand for them in town. Especially things that involved intricate handiwork; the Shaker women were famous for their luxury embroidered goods. Coincidentally, this was something they had little use for themselves. Their honey, brooms, herbs, seeds, and chairs were also famed and bought by many. The Shakers were also extremely innovative. They made vast improvements upon already existing items and ideas. I won't delve deeper into any of this, save to say that it is generally believed that their sacrifice of carnality enabled them to expend time and energy into all the aforementioned innovations, and into quality craftsmanship. This series of events may seem inconsequential; perhaps they are. What is evident to me after reading this work is the nature of coincidence and the nagging belief that the manipulation of energy, of being able to force things to you, away from you, based on what you give and take, is possible. Did all this happen because I have been rethinking my behavior lately? Or was it the other way around? In the epilogue, John Fowles mentions how the story came to him as if by accident or coincidence. He came into possession, by chance, of a replica of a drawing: a portrait of a woman. The woman wasn't particularly beautiful, but her image, through someone else's perspective, drew him in and inspired him. She may have been a prostitute. She was the basis for one of the main characters, Rebecca Lee, the mother of Ann Lee. The cover of my copy of the book is this original portrait, which pleases me immensely. Interestingly, Fowles claims he did little research and made most of the story up. Chance, coincidence, inspiration. I wonder what he was projecting to receive such bounty. And it's a personal bounty; it seems like he was striving to please only himself with this work. This exact mental path is the one that usually yields extraordinary results in art and literature.
What do You think about A Maggot (1998)?
Originally published on my blog here in July 2004.In The French Lieutenant's Woman, Fowles wrote a knowing twentieth century version of a nineteenth century novel. A Maggot is more conventionally a historical novel, set in 1736 but despite fitting better into the genre, it shares much of the ironic self awareness of Fowles' best known work.The novel starts with something very small - a group of travellers riding across Exmoor, who stop overnight at a small village before heading on again. But a few days later, one of the party, a mute servant, is found dead, having apparently hanged himself. The rest of the novel deals with an investigation, not so much an attempt to find out what actually happened, but to do so as a stage towards finding the rest of the party, who have completely disappeared and who included at least one important person. Thus, the form of most of the novel is records of the interrogations of witnesses, separated (to indicated the passing of time) by excepts from the Gentleman's Magazine, a journal of the time, apparently reproduced in facsimile. While outwardly more like The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Maggot actually has more in common with The Magus. The witness interviews reveal that the ostensible purpose of the trip to Exeter hides another more sinister motive; that the people involved are not who they seem to be; that what is really going on involves some kind of occult ritual.Anthony Burgess described this novel as "subversive", and there are several ways in which this might be considered to be true. There are both overt and covert attacks on the ideas behind the class structure of Georgian society, some of which are fairly clearly meant to make the reader think about those in positions of authority today. The idea that someone from a higher class would necessarily be a better person is not one readily believed today, but some relic of it is surely part of our hunger for scandal about the morals of politicians and celebrities - do we now believe that people in the public eye should be better than we are? There are also attacks on religious hypocrisy, particularly when the political nature of the Anglican church of the time is compared with the unsettling intensity of the Dissenters. This doesn't have quite the same resonance with the modern world, however, and attacking hypocrisy is not exactly subversive. Dissent is a sufficiently important theme that it as a focus may be said to be another aspect of subversion in the novel.The way that A Maggot is structured is another element which is more truly subversive. Historical novels are generally quite descriptive, because part of the aim of the genre is usually to convey their background to today's readers. Here, there is very little description, apart from that in the opening pages which are entirely of this form but which could be set in any time period in which groups of travellers rode horses across Exmoor when it was a remote dangerous wilderness and not somewhere frequented by tourists as it is today - in other words, any time before the arrival of the railways. After this beginning, atmospheric as good historical novels are supposed to be, yet not positioning the narrative in time or even (initially) in place, the historical context is mainly provided by the Gentleman's Magazine excerpts, which most readers probably find difficult to read as they're in extremely small type and a hard to decipher font, apart from their lack of relation to the story.There is also literary subversion of the same type as in The Magus. In both novels, layers of deception are gradually exposed; but here the use of interrogation reports makes the revelations less effective, even though the reader will still spend most of the novel wondering what is really going on behind all the lies.The way that the title refers to several aspects of A Maggot is not so much subversive as clever (and Fowles obviously thought it important enough to spell out why he chose it in the introduction). In one sense, it refers to the maggot as symbol of corruption, but a maggot is also a rather old fashioned term for an obsession. Several of the characters have obsessions, including the questioning attorney who is more interested in allegations of homosexuality than in the murder itself. But the novel itself arose out of an obsessive picture in Fowles' mind, of a group of horse riders in a wilderness. This became A Maggot's opening scene, and it is an arresting image. The literal meaning of the word also makes a surprising appearance.While those who do not know Fowles' work will probably pick up A French Lieutenant's Woman or The Magus, A Maggot is definitely worthwhile reading for anyone who enjoyed either of the other two novels.
—Simon Mcleish
A novel with lots of question and answer portions peppered all throughout the book, all in the 15th (or 16th? 17th?) century setting. One day I book binged and brought a bundle of John Fowles books, and this one was included in the bunch, along with The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus. Title's intriguing, so I decided to try it. Didn't enjoy that much, though I read it because that time I was still high from "The Collector" and "The Magus" (which was my favorite, by far).I think The Magus is the more difficult read compared to this one, but somehow, I just couldn't plow through the words. Not being pretentious/feeling intellectual here, maybe I was just lost, or banged up too much with work and school during the time I was reading this, so I just couldn't understand, I don't know.Planning to read this again in the future, when I'm 80% sane and my mind is functioning for at least 60%.
—meow_meow
This is one of those books that is great while at the same time missing the mark. Fowles does such a good job setting the stage, in a particularly interesting use of shifting perspective that I found quite engrossing (I love blatantly untrustworthy narrators). Throughout the book, it feels that he is building slowly to something important. Then the culmination comes (I mean the not the religious stuff, but the culmination of the travellers' journey) just doesn't work, in my opinion. Fowles told too much, in too much detail - the explanation for the mystery was so clear and specific that it seems to mean something... but what? (perhaps that's the point, and has something to do with the subjective and historically/socially specific lens through which the a human might interpret such a scenario). Still, somehow, whatever we can glean about what objectively happened (here, obviously, I'm trying not to give too much away) felt arbitrary, as though the author could have pulled out any other set of tropes from the SF-hat, and accomplished the same task.I believe that the beginning of the book states that the "maggot" that inspired this book was an image Fowles had of a group of riders. It makes sense to me that the book began as an image for which he searched to find a plot. This is the kind of book that is written based on a feeling, and idea that has not been fleshed out. It just gets written, expanded, added to, and then eventually the writer must end it, so he does. Come to think of it, that's kind of like how The Magus was. The Collector (the only other book of his I've read) came to a solid conclusion, but the Magus and A Maggot kind of fizzled.All this said, I recommend it as a good, if unsatisfying, book. Worth reading just for the quality of writing.Rating based on Barthelme Quotient (BQ)*:Strange object? 4/5Covered with fur? 4/5Breaks your heart? 3/5OVERALL BQ: 11/15(*Barthelme Quotient (BQ) is a rating scale of the ineffable rightness and worthiness of literature, and has little or nothing to do with plot or conformity to the standards of the form.)
—Andrew
