A couple of days after I had started reading A Maggot by John Fowles, I realized that the first fifty pages or so were missing. Still, I went on reading the book because it made perfect sense even without the missing part.
The first part of the book is really interesting, written in 18th century English. It starts as a mystery, but when I finished the book, I had the feeling that Fowles didn’t do justice to the very interesting situation he created. The book is about witchcraft, obsessions, prostitutes, Stonehenge, mysticism, religion, philosophy, actors, liars, and traveling.
The book has very interesting characters, although most of them are unreliable: Henry Ayscough (the investigator), Mr. Bartholemew (a duke’s son, traveling under this false name, while his real name remains a mystery throughout the novel, and being referred to as Lordship), Dick (his Lordship’s trusted deaf-mute servant), Rebecca Hocknell (aka Louise or Fanny the whore), Francis Lacy (an actor who played the role of Mr. Brown, Mr. Bartholemew’s uncle), Jones (the party’s bodyguard who travels under Farthing), Mrs. Claiborne (Louise’s employer in the whore house), Thomas Puddicombe (the innkeeper of Black Heart, where the traveling party has last been seen), and other minor characters.
His Lordship mysteriously disappears, his servant apparently commits suicide, and the rest of the characters are part of an investigation that tries to bring light to what really happened in a cave in the woods of Exmoor, in England.
I wasn’t too satisfied with the ending, but I cannot say I didn’t enjoy the book. Fowles was one of my favourite writers when I did my BA in Romania. But compared to the other three books I read by Fowles (The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The Magus and The Collector), I liked A Maggot the least.
A Maggot was published in 1985 and is John Fowles’ sixth novel.
