6.4 /10 1 Votes
Country United Kingdom Publication date Aug 1982 Pages 192 Originally published 1982 Genre Fiction Cover artist Pablo Picasso | 3.2/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print ISBN 0-224-02938-X Page count 192 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publishers Little, Brown and Company (US), Jonathan Cape (UK) Similar John Fowles books, Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mantissa is a novel by British author John Fowles published in 1982. It consists entirely of a presumably imaginary dialogue in a writer's head, between himself and an embodiment of the Muse Erato, after he wakes amnesiac in a hospital bed.
Contents
Critical reception
Mantissa was Fowles' only novel to receive generally negative reviews. The New York Times called it "a surprisingly tedious novel," asserting that it was little more than Fowles' response to critics that he felt misunderstood his work. The Boston Globe named it "an idiotic story." Time magazine, in a more positive review, asserted that the book consists of a sort of intellectual play between Fowles and the reader, or by Fowles at the expense of all reading. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette likewise identified the book as intellectually playful but found the dialogue tiresome.
Writing
The novel was completed in autumn 1981.