John Fowles’s diaries as a creative biography of the writer

Abstract

J. Fowles’s diaries illustrate the emergence of the creative career of the prominent 20th-century English writer. In Russian science, there is an opinion that Fowles’s oeuvre belongs to postmodernism. However, Fowles persistently separated himself from postmodernism. A thorough study of his diaries testifies that with all the variety of themes and images and the abundance of the techniques of artistic representation of reality, the key issue of his works was the theme of the individual gaining self-awareness as a necessary condition for achieving freedom. His diaries can be considered as a compact documentary and fictional work, as a presentation of the principles of literary development and its continuity. Fowles’s diary is a peculiar confession of a young man, his creative pursuits and doubts of self–determination in society and life. In his aesthetic principles Fowles focuses on the classical tradition of literature in the 18th–19th centuries. Continuing the tradition of Rousseau, Fowles creates a model of a man who is characterized by the cult of emotions and nature. For Fowles, the world of art is the world of spirituality. Fowles’s diaries allow us to consider the attitude of the autobiographical protagonist to important phenomena of public life. In his diaries, special attention is paid to the topics of time, memory and nature. The diary of John Fowles describes the process of the person’s psychological formation with a real chronotope, with an analytical, informative and aesthetically rich word.