With the "whole sight" that is characteristic of his novels, John Fowles has looked to the past, specifically to the twelfth-century Celtic romance, as well as to present trends in narrative to formulate his own polystylistic novels. From the beginning of his writing career until his most recent novel A Maggot, Fowles has shaped his narratives with the pattern of romance. Time as a thematic and formative element of Fowles's adaptation of romance is the central concern of this study. In using time as organizing principle, Fowles attempts to reveal the movement of time as well as its timelessness in his novels. His complex narrative structure reflects a sense of time, which allows him to see beyond present modern traditions, enabling him to adapt the modern novel to older models.
The introductory chapter describes the narrative configuration of romance and Fowles's adaptation of the romance's circuitous form, whereby he presents a philosophical unity of time with the past, present and future merging in the transformed identities of his protagonists as they journey through the maze of the romance. Although Fowles uses the romance pattern, he does not feel compelled to stay within the confines of romance, for he has always enveloped the marvelous elements of romance in reality. Freedom, one of Fowles's recurrent themes, also applies to his choice of forms in his fiction, for he feels free to use metafiction and fabulation, as well as romance and realism.
The following three chapters delineate Fowles's application of romance to his novels, which are intricately woven narratives much like those of ancient Greek romances with their many episodic incidents woven together in a design that connects to the basic plot. Time functions as the organizing principle which brings order to these diverse elements.
The concluding chapter points out the various identities of Fowles as romancer, realist and fabulator which is illustrative of Fowles's wholistic literary perspective. It also views Fowles as part of a contemporary literary movement that is concerned with audience participation in the communicative act of narrative.