SPRING 2017 A PETIT LITERARY JOURNAL VOLUME 2 ISSUE 1 The Origins of the John Fowles Center “The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.” s the 20th Anniversary Over the years, we corresponded Aof the John Fowles Center but lost touch until 1996 when approaches, I thought it would be I was awarded a Leverhulme a good idea to talk about how it Fellowship to teach at the all began. I first started to write University of East Anglia in Fowles in 1978 when I was in a Norwich. The Creative Writing quandary about whether or not Department at UEA had always to pursue a literary career and/or been considered the premier a writing career. I wrote Fowles program in the UK and, at the for two reasons: 1) I was a fervid time, faculty such as Malcolm admirer of his work and 2) we Bradbury, Max Sebald, Andrew shared the same birthday: March Motion and Vic Sage, among 31. I knew he lived in Lyme Regis others, were alive and well and and wrote him a letter hoping that productive. At the time, Chris the postman would know exactly Bigsby was the director of the where Fowles lived and deliver it Arthur Miller Center for American which he did. He wrote me back Studies and he asked me if I’d and said: “I think the academy in be interested in a pilot project general does not make a proper that Fowles had initiated. It was distinction between the self- a project that involved turning critical faculty a novelist needs his Belmont estate into a writer’s and the public kind of critical retreat after his death. I was quick faculty required in the teacher to say yes even though I had no of literature. On the other hand I authority to do so and my family have not much faith in the garret and I traveled to Lyme Regis to theory of artistic creation. The meet Fowles and talk about the pressures there can be just as project. It was the first time in 18 bad, of course.” He recommended years since we last communicated finding an agent which is a story and meeting him was an anxious unto itself and finished by writing: honor. But, I thought, he was “I am sorry I can’t help more but at typically Fowlesian: flattering to least I can wish you well. At heart my ex-wife, teasing my son, and it’s everyone his own voyage, and I scolding me for not writing more; don’t think advice from outsiders and admonishing me to visit the can ever mean very much.” I Greek island of Spetses where he wrote him back thanking him wrote The Magus. Still haven’t for his thoughtful comments. done that. Exactly what I had 1 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Contents Rebecca Goodman ...............38 Introduction POETRY FICTION Forgotten Night (Excerpt) Angela Pradelli ...................43 The Origins of the John Margo Berdeshevsky ...........17 Linda Kalaj .............................. 8 Pronouncing the World Fowles Center ......................... 1 La Belle Hermaphrodite A Wooden Door with a Glass Frame Blason for W.S. Merwin (Excerpt) Pablo Baler ..........................46 The Last Word Yuriy Tarnawsky ...................27 James Blaylock ....................10 (Psychological Comedy) Small Houses ESSAYS Roses are Red/Violets are Blue Steve Katz ..............................48 Carlos Gamerro .................... 4 Zulfikar Ghose .....................33 Carlos Franz ..........................14 Meloon Cardenio No More Bohème, Please Spaniards Lost in America A Woman Bathing Ben Stoltzfus ........................19 Michael Abbott ...................... 6 Singing Birds Beirut BIOGRAPHIES Parlez-Moi D’amour Burgos A Need To Keep A Souvenir Prayer About the Writers ...............52 Do You Remember That Evening? David Matlin ..........................23 Douglas Messerli ................41 “The Still Hunt” (Excerpt) Pleat Lou Rowan .............................25 Mellow Drama Without A Twisted in Arrears (Excerpt) Proper Villain Refugee Tatiana Servin .......................29 Red Line Karen Tei Yamashita .............31 Borges and I Pedro Mairal ........................36 Early This Morning Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge those who have helped make the publication of MANTISSA possible: President Daniele Struppa, Dean Patrick Fuery, Dr. Joanna Levin, and Dr. Eric Chimenti. This Issue was created by Chapman University’s Ideation Lab. Special thanks to Renee Bulda. Look for Volume 3, Issue 1 in the Spring of 2018 2 Mantissa Journal Volume II Issue I Introduction anticipated. He gave us a tour of much he relished The Magus and spoke. But the line that stuck with he would have been enthusiastic his Belmont estate, naming just how brilliant he was. John smiled. me more than any other was the about the center named after him about every plant in the garden. Somehow the talk transitioned line he came up with in answer and what its intent has always We talked about his novels, the to Hemingway. John listened for to a question about his writing. been. Though the innovation adaptations of such (which about as long as he cared to listen I can’t remember the exact in his work remains, what I he was not keen on) and about to about Hemingway and finally question, but his exact response miss after these twenty years teaching. I didn’t know when said, “Never liked Hemingway.” was, “I love the word dissent.” is his wit, his bawdiness, the and if the Belmont project would Conversation over. The third rascalian scarf he wore, but ever come to fruition (eventually time came when he was being Our sporadic correspondence even more I miss his aura. taken over by the Landmark interviewed by Dianne Vipond, covered twenty years and we met Trust and the house refurbished), a professor from Cal State Long only twice over a period of maybe but recalling the Arthur Miller Beach, at the Los Angeles Public ten days, but it didn’t take me long Centre at UEA I asked him if I Library. During a question and to discover what a unique human were to start something similar answer session, Fowles started being he was. From the coffee cups at Chapman could I use his name. fielding questions about the FLW. he coveted to his encyclopedic His response was immediate: Someone asked him where Sarah knowledge of every plant in his “Anything to help writing came from. He immediately went garden, to tray upon tray of his students.” When I returned to into some rambling discourse Smithsonian fossil collections, Chapman in the summer of 1996 about how it was the name of a Fowles was always original, I immediately set out to start the skiff or something along those perceptive, inquisitive. He was John Fowles Center for Creative lines. I turned to Sarah and looked the consummate curmudgeon, Writing, the first invitee being at her quizzically. She just shook amicably contentious and, like the Argentine novelist, Luisa her head as if a silent confirmation the Existentialists he so admired, Valenzuela, who came in 1997. that he was writing fiction as he lived an “authentic life.” I think Before the 1997 graduation, Fowles was on tour with his wife, Sarah. Wormholes had just come out and he was promoting the book as best as he could given his state of health which, even then, was fragile. I remember meeting him at the airport and when he came off the plane I held up a sign that read: Miles Green. Miles Green being the protagonist in his novel, Mantissa. When he ignored the sign I went up to him and asked him if he were Miles Green, and he looked at me as if I were a character in one of his novels he’d rather forget. I recall that when I introduced myself to him he shook his head as if he’d just remembered that, in a manner of speaking, he was Miles Green. Fowles and Sarah spent a week or so in Southern California where we visited the Getty, had lunch in Malibu, and listened to him lecture at the Los Angeles Public Library. I remember three specific incidents that, for me, encapsulated who John Fowles was. The first one came at the graduation ceremonies at which point he was awarded an Honorary Degree. He spoke to the graduates for several moments and, at one point, he said, “Question your teachers,” then he turned, pointed at me and continued, “Especially Axelrod.” Obviously, he was prescient. The second time was when we invited him to dinner at our home. We also invited a few close friends and during the dinner someone came up to him and started talking about how 3 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University essay Cardenio Conversation between WS: Now they are free to JF: No. He goes off into a wild John Fletcher and William marry one another. wood, the same one mad by Carlos Gamerro Shakespeare, Blackfriars Cardenio would have Gatehouse, London, JF: I was ready for that. Perhaps wandered into did dead Cardenio is a novel about William November 1612. you’ll like this one better then: men retain the use of their Shakespeare and John Fletcher’s once Cardenio and Lucinda are legs, and there meets an old play of the same name, based on JF: When Don Fernando tries to fast married, she jumps to her religious man, and after Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In the slip the ring onto her finger, feet and reveals the bladder some question with him Cervantes original, Cardenio Lucinda closes her hand into of blood she had concealed is converted both from his is a noble youth befriended by a fist, and when he and her under her clothes, the only purpose and from the world.