John Fowles was born 100 years ago! Kelly Cresap, Ph.D., continues to find new ways to celebrate Fowles’ 2026 birth centenary, and especially Fowles’ 1977 novel Daniel Martin.
In January he gave a talk, “John Fowles’ Synoptic View of Human Existence” at an arts and humanities conference in Athens, Greece. For an interactive community event in May, “Passage Forward,” in Takoma Park, Maryland, Cresap used excerpts from Fowles mid-career novels to engage participants in sharing about universal facets of living.
In numerous formats Kelly has argued that Daniel Martin packs in more than readers may initially realize:
“A first read reveals a novel of midlife reckoning, or a second-chance love story. Internal links and motifs become more apparent on a second or third read. Look closely at Fowles’ ‘whole sight’ commitment to inclusiveness and you find a ‘ball-of-wax’ story—a novel about the whole world and the history of the world. It’s like a 3D puzzle, or a map that continues expanding the more you engage with it. That’s true in both external and internal ways. Daniel Martin’s inner life, as one scholar wrote, appears to be limited only by the degree of attention a reader brings to it.”
Kelly is actively looking for other outlets, forums and allies during the Fowles centenary and in his Daniel Martin critical reassessment project. He welcomes contact and ideas at kcresap@umd.edu.
