[Fowles's] collection entitled The Ebony Tower takes [Marie de France's] Anglo-Norman lay of Eliduc as its focal point, or so the author states in his headnote to the translation which occupies the midpoint of the volume. In this note he says that his book owes its "mood," and partly "its theme and setting," to medieval literature…. (p. 351)

[Marie, however], can be described as a writer of distinctly feminist tone. This is hardly the case with John Fowles, although he also specializes in male weaklings. There is, however, a paradoxical lack of sensitivity to a woman's point of view in much of his work, including the title novella of The Ebony Tower. (p. 357)

Eliduc, in the ironic tale we know by this name, is unlike David of The Ebony Tower: he gets the girl—with the help of his wife. Such a man is clearly not worth keeping. It...