Writing and the Self: John Fowles’ Autobiographical Non-Fiction

Year 2017, Issue: 38, 23 - 32, 18.12.2017

Barış Mete

https://doi.org/10.21497/sefad.376295

Abstract

One of the greatest novelists of
the twentieth-century English Literature, John Robert Fowles (1926-2005),
claims that he has always wanted to write poetry and philosophy. Despite the
lack of the same critical interest in his non-fiction as in his fiction, it is
his non-fiction as well as his fiction where Fowles makes clear what it means
to him to be a writer, and a novelist in particular. Some of Fowles’ essays
specially represent his obsessions with and passions for writing as a prolific
novelist. He says, for example, referring to this idea that writing is a
natural process like love. Moreover, Fowles’ essays quickly remind the reader
of especially his fiction of the notions and the themes that he has already
dealt with in his novels. In addition to all these, Fowles surprisingly
confesses in one of his essays that a simple image of a woman standing at the
end of a deserted quay and staring out to sea was how one of his most famous
and one of his most acclaimed novels of the twentieth-century English literature
came to life (This novel is the writer’s 1969 work, The French Lieutenant’s Woman.). Fowles, in his essays, does not
hesitate to talk about the difficulties he had either. Writing, for Fowles, is
a very personal business. Fiction making is creating another world. It is a
godgame where the novelist even falls in love with his heroine.

Keywords

Writing, fiction, non-fiction, self, confession

Yazı ve Benlik: John Fowles’ın Kurgu Dışı Otobiyografik Yazıları

Abstract

Yirminci yüzyıl İngiliz Edebiyatı’nın en önemli romancıları arasında yer
alan John Robert Fowles, daima şiir ve felsefe yazmak istediğini iddia eder.
Kurgusal eserlerine gösterilen ilginin kurgu dışı yazılarına olan eksikliğine
rağmen, Fowles tıpkı kurgusal eserlerinde yaptığı gibi kurgu dışı yazılarında
da bir yazar, özellikle de bir romancı olmanın ne anlama geldiğini gösterir.
Fowles’ın bazı yazıları oldukça verimli bir romancı olarak kendisinin yazıya
olan tutku ve saplantısını belirtir. Örneğin yazı yazmanın tıpkı aşk gibi
doğallığından bahseder. Bunun yanında Fowles’ın yazıları okuyucuya kurgusal
eserlerinde zaten ele aldığı kavram ve düşünceleri hatırlatır. Bütün bunlara ek
olarak, Fowles yazılarında kendisinin en bilinen ve yirminci yüzyıl İngiliz
Edebiyatı’nın en beğenilen romanları arasında yer alan bir eserinin, terk
edilmiş bir iskelenin ucunda durup denize bakan bir kadın imgesinin sonucu
olduğunu itiraf eder. Karşılaştığı zorluklardan bahsetmekten de çekinmez.
Fowles için yazı kişisel bir uğraştır. Kurgu başka dünyalar yaratmaktır. Hatta
romancının kendi karakterine aşık olduğu ilahi bir oyundur.

Keywords

Yazı, kurgu, kurgu dışı, benlik, itiraf

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