존 파울즈가 죽었군요.

컬렉터는 보지 못했지만, '프랑스 중위의 여자'를 매우매우 재미있게 읽었더랬다. 잘은 모르지만, '영국식 음산함'과는 좀 다른 '프랑스식 적막함'이랄까. 뭐, 딱히 어느나라식인지를 따질 필요는 없을지도.

오늘자 BBC 기사입니다. 오비추어리(부고 기사)는 역시 뉴욕타임스가 짱인 듯. BBC의 오비추어리는 어쩐지 별로인 것 같지만.

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Writer John Fowles dies aged 79 

Essex 출신. 옥스퍼드대학에서 불문학 전공. 
교사생활 하다가 '컬렉터' 1963년 발표하면서 화려하게 등단.
'The Magus' 'The Collector' 등 대표작. 
프랑스중위의 여자(1969년작) - 메릴 스트립과 제레미 아이언스 주연으로 영화화, 1981년 오스카상 노미네이트.

It was seen as a new kind of writing, a historical novel, with layers of truth, fantasy and self-awareness. The French Lieutenant's Woman has been described as a pastiche of a historical romance, juxtaposing Victorian characters with the commentary of the author writing in the 1960s. 
Fowles was a boarder at Bedford School before completing compulsory military service between 1945 and 1947. 
His tale of a butterfly collector who kidnaps a woman in London was made into a film starring Terence Stamp two years later. 
Fowles moved to Lyme Regis in 1968, which was also the setting for The French Lieutenant's Woman. 
In the same year he adapted his 1966 novel The Magus, a tale of intrigue on a Greek island, for the big screen. The book, which achieved cult status in the US, was reportedly inspired by his time working in a college on the island of Spetsai. But the film version featuring Michael Caine was widely regarded as a flop, with Fowles himself describing it as "a disaster all the way down the line".

Virtual recluse

Fowles once remarked he had been trying to escape his upbringing. "No-one in my family had any literary interests or skills at all," he said. "I seemed to come from nowhere. When I was a young boy my parents were always laughing at 'the fellow who couldn't draw' - Picasso. Their crassness horrified me." 
The author is survived by his second wife, Sarah. His first wife Elizabeth died in 1990. Fowles, who had a stroke in 1988, suffered from heart problems. He was known to be a fiercely private person and stayed as a virtual recluse in his house overlooking the sea. 

2003년 가디언지와 마지막 인터뷰- 
"I know I have a reputation as a cantankerous man of letters and I don't try and play it down," 
"But I'm not really. I partly propagated it. "
A writer, well-known, more-or-less living on his own, will be persecuted by his readers. 
"They want to see you and talk to you. And they don't realise that very often that gets on one's nerves."