The Ebony Tower
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
From one of Britain's most celebrated and intellectually daring postmodern writers comes The Ebony Tower, a masterful collection of novellas that holds a mirror up to the complexities of art, desire, and moral ambiguity. The title story centres on David Williams, a young and comfortably successful abstract painter who journeys to the remote French forest retreat of Henry Breasley, an aging, cantankerous, yet undeniably brilliant figurative artist. What begins as a professional visit rapidly unravels into a profound confrontation with creative compromise, erotic temptation, and the seductive pull of a life more fully — and dangerously — lived. John Fowles constructs each story in this collection as a meditation on the tension between the rational and the instinctual, the civilised and the wild, using the verdant isolation of Brittany as a charged and mythic backdrop drawn consciously from the Arthurian tradition. The accompanying stories, including a translation of a medieval Breton romance, are not mere appendages but integral threads in a rich literary tapestry that interrogates the very nature of storytelling itself. Fowles writes with the same cool precision and psychological acuity that distinguished The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus, rewarding the attentive reader with layers of meaning that surface long after the final page is turned. For those who believe fiction can be both intellectually rigorous and deeply sensual, this collection presents an irresistible challenge.
Author: John Fowles
Format: Hardback
Published: 1974, Jonathan Cape
Genre: Modern fiction
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
From one of Britain's most celebrated and intellectually daring postmodern writers comes The Ebony Tower, a masterful collection of novellas that holds a mirror up to the complexities of art, desire, and moral ambiguity. The title story centres on David Williams, a young and comfortably successful abstract painter who journeys to the remote French forest retreat of Henry Breasley, an aging, cantankerous, yet undeniably brilliant figurative artist. What begins as a professional visit rapidly unravels into a profound confrontation with creative compromise, erotic temptation, and the seductive pull of a life more fully — and dangerously — lived. John Fowles constructs each story in this collection as a meditation on the tension between the rational and the instinctual, the civilised and the wild, using the verdant isolation of Brittany as a charged and mythic backdrop drawn consciously from the Arthurian tradition. The accompanying stories, including a translation of a medieval Breton romance, are not mere appendages but integral threads in a rich literary tapestry that interrogates the very nature of storytelling itself. Fowles writes with the same cool precision and psychological acuity that distinguished The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus, rewarding the attentive reader with layers of meaning that surface long after the final page is turned. For those who believe fiction can be both intellectually rigorous and deeply sensual, this collection presents an irresistible challenge.