Daniel Martin

Story: 2 / 10
Characters: 5
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

“Tell me a story.” That's my reading philosophy. I pick up a book, either because it was recommended or won an annual genre award, but I don't read the description. I simply trust the author to reveal the story to me. I've gone years without reading the back of the book. After this book, that era is over.

Daniel Martin was the second book I've read by John Fowles. A work colleague recommended The Magus and I absolutely loved it. He then went on to recommend to Daniel Martin. Both books have fairly loose plots. While the latter does have significant events that result from the character relationships, the former doesn't. Basically nothing happens in Daniel Martin. Nothing in 700 pages. Unforgivable.

This was a long book to hate. Frankly, I'm scarred, afraid of returning to another John Fowles book in the future. Worse than that, I'm also going to have to start reading book descriptions. I would have known not to approach Daniel Martin if I had read the lacklustre description. Live and learn.