Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Tibor Tóth: Fiction as the 'River Between': Daniel Martin

Fiction as the 'River Between': Daniel Martin Tibor Tóth Daniel Martin is not only John Fowles's longest novel, but it is also a work of fiction which challenges the most feared rival of contemporary fiction both at the level of its plot and by way of 'bringing home' its technical solutions. The most feared rival of contemporary fiction is of cours e twentieth century film, more specifically its Hollywood versions. We assert that the process of 'bringing home' technical solutions, which earlier belonged to the realist novel but by now are predominantly employed by the art of film, is an essential aspect of the novel. This process is extremely complex and it is virtually impossible to describe it, so we would like to use two quotations taken from John Fowles's non-fiction to suggest the 'atmosphere' it is supposed to create and support. John Fowles explains the artist's desire to be at home in a kind of myth which is at the same time extremely private and also universal, where childhood and adulthood are one but are still identifiable, where dreams and reality are and are not interchangeable. Beyond the specific myth of each novel, the novelist longs to be possessed by the continuous underlying myth he entertains of himself-a state not to be obtained by method, logic, self-analysis, intelligent judgement, or another of the qualities that make a good teacher, executive or scientist. I should find it very hard to define what constitutes this being possessed, yet I know when I am and when I am not; know too, that there are markedly different degrees of the state; that it functions as much by exclusion as by awareness; and above all, that it remains childlike in its fertility of lateral inconsequence, its setting of adultly ordered ideas in flux. Indeed, the workbench cost of this possession is revision-the elimi1 Fowles, John. 1986. Daniel Martin. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Eger lournal of English Studies, Volume III, 2002 55-74