The Ebony Tower (Isis Series)

Rating:
Summary: Mildly absorbing pieces, but what are they doing together?
Review: Four novella slices for sandwich
A French tale added to make it rich
Bodies tease and elude
Minds show up in the nude
There's one boring piece, won't tell you which

Rating:
Summary: Varied, textured, resonant short works by a favorite author
Review: I do like Fowles's novels, but I agree with the Amsterdam reader, this is a chance to get a distilled version of his charm: all the pleasure of his intelligent plotting and dialogue, without the excesses a novel will allow. I love the way the various stories resonate with each other in obvious and subtle ways--in that, it reminded me of Julian Barnes's _The History of the World in 10 and a 1/2 Chapters_ (another short story collection I loved).

Rating:
Summary: Showing now, at a cinema near you...
Review: If you're looking for the easy bedtime read John Fowles short fiction collection may not be what you are searching for. If you're looking for thought provoking contemporary fiction by a master this is for you. No one ever said a Fowles book would be easy and The Ebony Tower is no exception. The premise is five interlocking short stories all in a way centered around a medieval myth (which the author provides in brillent translation). Each story attempts not only to address its immediate subject but entire concepts and reflections on life and art as well. The stories force one to look at more than the daily lives of the characters but to see deeper(a sort of removing of the various layers that make up individual events of these peoples lives). While the individual plots may seem somewhat foriegn to first time readers if you stick it out to the end you'll come away with a new outlook on the world, art, history and the conflicts between the generations.Add in Mr. Fowles lush word pictures and you can't go wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Multilayered Word Pictures From a Master
Review: If you're looking for the easy bedtime read John Fowles short fiction collection may not be what you are searching for. If you're looking for thought provoking contemporary fiction by a master this is for you. No one ever said a Fowles book would be easy and The Ebony Tower is no exception. The premise is five interlocking short stories all in a way centered around a medieval myth (which the author provides in brillent translation). Each story attempts not only to address its immediate subject but entire concepts and reflections on life and art as well. The stories force one to look at more than the daily lives of the characters but to see deeper(a sort of removing of the various layers that make up individual events of these peoples lives). While the individual plots may seem somewhat foriegn to first time readers if you stick it out to the end you'll come away with a new outlook on the world, art, history and the conflicts between the generations.Add in Mr. Fowles lush word pictures and you can't go wrong.

Rating:
Summary: intelligent and compelling
Review: In Fowles' short stories I tend to find none of the excesses and all of the good things that I enjoy about his novels. Definitely worth reading, particularly if you have an interest in painting.

Rating:
Summary: Read this if you want to learn more about being alive.
Review: Its kind of self-damning to review this book, given the authors view of those who do such things, but nonetheless there is so much insight to be gained about being alive, human communication, and the "systems" we are only vaguely aware of being trapped in, that I felt there should be some sort of attestation here for those who have not read it.

Rating:
Summary: Showing now, at a cinema near you...
Review: Rereading this collection recently, it struck me that John Fowles is to novels what Ridley Scott is to films. Both craft consistently slick, well-put-together work which quite often doesn't stand up to much intellectual scrutiny. Thus, Ridley Scott made "Alien" and "Blade Runner", which looked and were great, but also "1492" and "Gladiator", which merely looked great but were quite vacant. Similarly, Fowles wrote The Collector and The Magus, but (unfortunately for his reputation) he also wrote Daniel Martin and The Aristos.

The Ebony Tower works best if you think of it as a series of commercials - movie trailers, almost - for the rest of his work. That's not what it was meant to be, but that's how it works. Some of it's good, some of it's dull, but it's always at least well-constructed and workmanlike.

So there's the usual bit of thought, the usual bit of female nudity (well, quite a lot, actually), the usual rumination on the human condition, and the usual episode featuring a bearded middle-aged writer whose alluring intellect very young women find so attractive they overlook his bandy white legs and paunch and leap enthusiastically into his bed. If you've read his Daniel Martin, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you actually *are* a bearded middle-aged writer with said bandy white legs and paunch, you won't.

You'll like this if you're the kind of person who collects both classic movies *and* their original theatre trailers. But you'd never sit down and watch just the trailers, right? And that was how I felt about this collection. If I wanted a dose of Fowles, I'd go straight for his two classics.