Found it tedious. But, as usual, beautifully written. Strong sense of place and time. I felt always like I was in a dim room and a dull mood when I read it.

Historical novels, burdened by yards of fustian, are so often less than satisfying. John Fowles's A Maggot is an exception. Rather than piling on detail after detail in an attempt to impress us with the research he has done, Fowles offers only items that actually illuminate the period about which he is writing, the 1730s. His plot, told largely in testimonies by various characters to a lawyer commissioned to investigate the disappearance of a young lord, moves right along, but it is the voices that compel us to keep turning the pages. And the most beguiling voice of all is that of the author who, in the fashion of novelists working in the years of which he is writing, is not hesitant to intrude, and his intrusions, with a bit of fiddling, would often work fine as stand-alone historical essays. Those who treasure the works of Daniel Defoe, and find the idea of a novel in the manner of that master intriguing, will find a lot of pleasure here.

Dazzling. Stunning. The best I've read of him.

One of my favorite Fowles books. ( )

2007 A Maggot, by John Fowles (read 27 May 1986) Reading this book was a mistake. It tells a stupid story of a London prostitute taken on a trip by an English nobleman. The story is told mostly in questioning by the nobleman's father's lawyer of the persons who knew of the events of the trip. It is all so stupid and pointless. ( )