The Magus by John Fowles (PDF)

Description

Widely considered John Fowles’s masterpiece, The Magus is “a dynamo of suspense and horror…a dizzying, electrifying chase through the labyrinth of the soul….Read it in one sitting if possible-but read it” (New York Times).A young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching post on a remote Greek island in order to escape an unsatisfactory love affair. There, his friendship with a reclusive millionaire evolves into a mysterious–and deadly–game of violence, seduction, and betrayal. As he is drawn deeper into the trickster’s psychological traps, Nicholas finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish past from present, fantasy from reality. He becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his very survival.John Fowles expertly unfolds a spellbinding exploration of the complexities of the human mind. By turns disturbing, thrilling and seductive, The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The Magus took John Fowles more than two decades to complete. It was the first viable novel he began writing, but was published for the first time in 1966, and then in a revised version in 1977. The latter edition, which is by far the easiest to find these days, was the one I read.As Fowles explains in the preface, some of the details of the story are taken from his own life: for instance, like his protagonist, Nicholas Urfe, Fowles spent some time teaching at a school on a remote Greek island. From such material, Fowles weaves a fantastic story that owes a heavy debt to Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest. The Prospero character, in this instance, is Maurice Conchis, an elderly multi-millionaire who own a house on a section of the island known as Bourani. Nicholas finds himself drawn to Conchis’s character, and in the hours they spend together he learns more and more about his host’s past, which includes an uncertain relationship with the Nazis. Further characters are introduced, most notably a pair of beautiful twin Englishwomen and a black man, Joe.The story proceeds as a series of disjointed acts in which Nicholas, blessed (or cursed) with a critical mind, undermines and sidesteps the stories of the people he encounters. He increasingly suspects that he is taking part in some kind of masque or drama in which the others are all actors. It is through this device that Fowles causes the story to twist and turn, with new characters abruptly appearing (the German soldiers, for instance) or being dramatically recast (Joe, the twin girls) as Nicholas grapples with the line between fiction and reality. Nicholas’s story is framed, in turn, by his affair with an Australian girl, Alison Kelly, whose directness and solidity are repeatedly placed in juxtaposition with the mind-games of the island drama.The story itself hums along nicely enough, but there are points in the middle of the book, especially when Nicholas is drawn into permutation after permutation of different but similar mind games, that it starts to drag a little. Let me be clear: I think Fowles is the greatest English writer of his generation. His genius lies in his incisiveness, both in terms of his storytelling ability and his utter lack of moral prudery. Nonetheless, I found fault with The Magus mostly for the character of Nicholas, whose part in the game I thought became too predictable; truly turning the tables on Conchis and his actors would have been an interesting move that Fowles does not exploit. I also felt as though the flaws Nicholas judges so harshly in his character at the end of the book were merely the markings of inexperience rather than anything fundamentally bad about him. Toward the end, the novel comes dangerously close at certain moments at being morally judgmental in this respect.Still, despite these minor flaws, The Magus is an astounding piece of fiction. Fowles clearly wrote it in a spirit of ambition that would have defeated many a lesser writer. The Magus is thus an important novel that, while it does not measure up to the true greatness of, say,

⭐, is still an enjoyable and worthwhile book to read.

⭐This is not a full review of the book, as others have already done a much better job than I could ever do. Instead I wanted to provide some further clarity for those of you who, like me, are discovering this masterpiece for the first time and are trying to make a decision regarding “original edition” vs. “revised edition”, as well as “hard copy vs. Kindle”.After reading many Amazon reviews, I became a bit panicked that “I need to find an original edition!” as I am a purist and “Of course I want to read the version the author originally released! No George Lucas-like after-the-fact hatchet job for me!” I went and did just that, finding a release year (book club) edition in my local used book store. I read that version, enjoyed it very much, and then immediately bought the Kindle edition to see how the Kindle edition transferred, as well as see how the story may have been different after revision.Kindle conclusions:- The Kindle version is the updated revision (not the original)- The Kindle version looks good (i.e., the conversion to electronic was decent)Revised edition conclusions (just my opinion but I’m fresh off of reading both versions back to back as a NEW reader. I’m not one of those who read this back in the 1960’s and has nostalgia for that 1960’s experience):- Don’t knock yourself out looking for the original version. The edits are not that significant (arguably the revised is better anyway for a new reader)- The updated version is Fowles’ OWN revisions. He did them himself (in 1977) to “improve” his own masterwork, which was the first novel he ever wrote, although not the first to publish. According to him the book suffered because it was his first. He admits in the revised edition Forward, “…my strongest memory is of constantly having to abandon drafts because of an inability to describe what I wanted.”- The revised version is a little more “erotic” in some of the earlier chapters (where he had original intent, but witheld because he was afraid of the books reception in 1965).- (MINOR SPOILER IN THIS BULLET) The revised version is a little “tidier” in the last chapter (he wanted to remove some unintentional vagueness, while at the same time not removing the intentional vagueness regarding the final question, “what did the protagonist do next?”)My personal opinion of the book is that I’m very glad I read it. I would be just as glad with either version knowing what I know now. “The Magus” now belongs among my (unfortunately) small collection of great novels that make me take stock of myself, mull my life, think about where I’ve been and where I’m going, etc. (One of my favorite books in this category happens to be “Replay” by Ken Grimwood, and if anyone reads this review and knows of similar books, I would love to hear from you.).

⭐This book is a big beast (669 pages) and you don’t really want to embark on reading a book of this length if you’re unsure of liking it.I’ve read Fowles before but always avoided The Magnus presicely for that reason.Such is the complexity of the prose it’s hard to believe the author was only 28 when he wrote it. It’s precocious for sure, full of insightful observations and provocative ideas.The storyline itself is highly unlikely and extremely ambitious but Fowles is one of those rare authors with the literary skills to pull it off; just when I found myself giving it up as too far fetched he completely swings it around again and makes it credible. A common complaint among the reviews is that it’s pretentious and self indulgent, but I’d disagree with that sentiment; the alleged pretentiousness is reasoned and backed up by mainstream psychology; it’s also over-indulgent rather than self-indulgent.But if you strip away the excess what you’re left with is a biopic of the 1950s British male.A woman beater who twice smashes women across the face when he loses his temper and on other occasions talks about not being able to wait to get his hands on them (to beat them) In short he resorts to physical violence towards women when they annoy him.One of his assaults took place in a public park, witnessed by bystanders who just stood by and did nothing. That’s the way it was in 50s Britain, when domestic abuse was considered acceptable.with the women always on the receiving end of it of course.Then there’s racist overtones in the storyline too. Nicholas is appalled when he discovers the upper middle class white girl he’s fixated with is sleeping with a black man.You have to ask yourself, is Nicholas, Fowles’ alter ego? Are Nicholas’s period attitudes the author’s too?Maybe so, but I think Fowles recognized this and laid it bare. And after all it was written in the fifties and set in 1953 when racism and domestic abuse were prevalent in Britain.The other flaw in the book was Nicholas’ relationship with Alison. He ditched her even before he met and fell in love with another girl, so why he should be vilified for it throughout the book, I don’t know. Their relationship sits awkwardly in the book; it just doesn’t make sense. People don’t get married because only one of them is in love. His crime, if he committed one, is that he didn’t love her. Fowles highlights the cultural and class differences between the two, which takes us to that other fifties obsession – class-distinction.For all it’s faults and excesses the book is mostly brilliant. It’s peculiar, odd, strange, but it works, the 669 pages keep you glued for the most part.. Fowles was good albeit odd, he only wrote a handful of novels but they were all very original, no more so than The Magnus.

⭐Like several other reviewers, I first read The Magus back in the 60s and was mesmerised by it. A holiday on Spetses, the Greek island on which Phraxos, the island in the story, is based, motivated me to read it again. I’m pleased to say it gripped me just as much as the first time, more so in fact.Although Fowles has revised it, the story is for the most part the same. Nicholas Urfe, the narrator, is an unpleasant young man: selfish, narcissistic and careless of other people. He’s also an isolate. At a loose end after leaving Oxford he accepts the post of English teacher at a boys’ boarding school on Phraxos (the school is still there, or rather the building that housed it is). Just before he leaves he meets Alison, an Australian free spirit who has a very 1960s attitude to sex. They have a short fling, and Nicholas leaves us with the impression that although he likes her he can put her down, but that she feels more strongly for him.On Phraxos he meets Maurice Conchis, the magus of the story. Conchis is a mysterious and enigmatic figure. He is obviously immensely wealthy, and he targets Urfe for what it transpires is a bizarre experiment. Over a series of encounters Conchis recounts to Urfe key events in his life, and sets up tableaux and experiences to illustrate these, some of them challenging and some unpleasant. They become increasingly extreme and unsettling to the extent that Urfe is no longer in control of his life – if, of course, he ever was. He becomes obsessed by the world Conchis has created, and he is mystified by what is going on and why. There is a penultimate section in which all is supposed to become clear but doesn’t, and the book ends with a meeting between Urfe and Alison and the question of whether they stay together or not.Urfe is confused and mystified for most of the book, an experience shared by the reader. One of the things both Urfe and the reader want to know is why Conchis sets up this elaborate performance. The book has been criticised for not answering this, but in reality it’s a pointless question. You might just as well ask why a young boy meets an escaped convict in a churchyard, or why a young woman takes the post of governess for an employer she has never met. The reason why is because if these things didn’t happen there would be no ‘Great Expectations’ or ‘Jane Eyre’. Fiction demands the reader to accept the premise on which the book is based. There’s no right or wrong in this; either the reader does or s/he doesn’t. This accounts for some of the less enthusiastic reviews the book has had.I enjoyed my second incursion into the book immensely. I was totally absorbed while reading and haunted by it for a time after. So why not 5 stars? The simple answer is that there’s a pretentiousness in some of it that I can’t get over. Urfe, the narrator, is of course a pretentious young man, but I think it’s more down to the author. The reader seems to be expected to have a working knowledge of French, a little Latin and some Greek. Not many people have this. None of us want to be talked down to, but we do want things to be comprehensible, and those who attended schools where classical languages are not on the curriculum have a right to expect translations.

⭐‘…There was also a girl I was tired of…’ Twenty-five-year old brigadier’s son, Oxford graduate and recently-orphaned Nicholas Urfe has a nasty addiction to breaking girls’ hearts, or so he fancies, in his caddish sort of way. ‘By the time I left Oxford I was a dozen girls away from virginity,’ and its 1951 remember! Then there’s Alison who he meets – supposedly – by chance, but soon disposes of to take up a job teaching English in an all-boys school on the Greek island of Phraxos. There are histrionics – which by some readers might be considered irritating, but JOHN FOWLES in his novel THE MAGUS has an ability to produce – in this reader anyway – feelings of intense sadness and loss. Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Fowles’ novel is ‘post-modern’ – which I assume means that the works of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce et al, are taken as read, ie a foundation upon which Fowles builds his epic examination of the validity of the novel in a post holocaust age. He achieves this by not just adding elements of time, which he stretches and distorts, but by adding depictions of cinematic and graphic art. The reason that Urfe tries to get rid of Alison is that he’s become enchanted with Lily who he’s met on the Greek island and who seems to be a kind of prisoner of a charismatic Greek landowner, art collector, psychologist/philosopher called Maurice Conchis. Conchis’s philosophy is that ‘novels are useless and dead.’ He believes only in that which is real and which he can bring to life, which he does with the aid of a mysterious, and as it ensues sinister entourage of actors and elaborate props. But what is real, and what is not? As Urfe plunges into crisis after crisis blindly pursuing Lily – or Julie as she insists she is – he is forced to confront his own existence and being. As the narrative develops, the effect upon the reader is a series of surprises followed by shocks, and a crude comparison might be the nightmare sequences which befall the hapless victim of the American Werewolf in London, when he awakes from one nightmare and begins to relax, only to find that he’s in another, and to awake to find he’s in yet another! The narrative is stiff with literary and artistic references – particularly Shakespeare, the cubists and surrealists but it’s Greek mythology which stands out, even many of the words Fowles uses are of Greek origin; ‘…a polysemantic world…a reality breaking through the thin world of science.’ ‘Alison could launch ten ships in me, but Julie could launch a thousand.’ There’re also pithy home truths such as ‘…an amusing person in Paris or London, can become insufferable on an Aegean island.’ Late in the narrative there are characters who appear to have down to earth attributes, such as the decaying landlady Kemp who ‘reads The Daily Worker’ for the ‘truth’, and certain other papers for the ******* lies,’ and whose ‘mouth without a cigarette is like a yacht without a mast; one presumed disaster.’ There’s also the winko-dinko British army type Mitford, whose potential sexual exploits we hear; ‘we didn’t quite get around to unarmed combat old chap, but I reckoned she was up for it.’ But it would appear that they too are actors of a certain kind. The real clue to this novel is in the original title which Fowles later changed. It was to be called The Godgame.

⭐There is little doubt that the now unfashionable and often overlooked John Fowles is the best post-war British novelist. His, albeit limited, range of works are always thought-provoking and readable. Unfortunately ‘The Magus’ is not his finest hour, although it remains much more interesting and readable than most of his rivals’ works.Written in the 1950s before his first published novel and first published shortly after ‘The Collector’, Fowles rewrote significant sections for republication in the 1970s. However it remains overlong and overwritten although always an entertaining fiction of what seems to be the author’s sexual wish-fulfilment.It also suffers from Fowle’s compulsion, like Dorothy L Sayers, to demonstrate his cleverness. Although we are spared the extended treatises that Sayers was so fond of including in her books (‘The Nine Tailors’ being an example, with tedious sections on bell-ringing or ‘campanology’ as Fowles would no doubt deem it), Fowles refuses to translate the many phrases in foreign languages with which the book is peppered and will always use an obscure English word when a more normal one would do. Most annoyingly the Latin phrase with which the book is concluded is not translated.When reading a hard copy of the novel it is necessary to have a good dictionary to hand (I am not illiterate, I have a PHD in English literature and an extensive vocabulary) and although the Kindle edition makes this easier, strangely it does not help with translation as it has not Latin or Greek dictionaries installed.Nonetheless a good read and I recommend the film version if you enjoy really bad cinema!

⭐The novel is a cross between the film by Peter Weir THE TRUMAN SHOW and the book THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY by Berger and Luckman. The film is where the main character does not realize that he is in a reality show. All are actors creating his reality and all that he does is filmed and heard. The book attempts to explain how far human interaction affects the reality we perceive and the behaviour we exhibit towards it…..giving you an understanding of how much your self-identity is connected to the society you live in.Fowles lived 1926 to 2005 but was very unhappy living in England and jumped at the chance of escaping to a school on a Greek island 1951-53. He taught there and it changed him greatly and inspired the book. It also made him more hostile to middle class English life which he couldn’t bear. There are parallels with Orwell (1903-50). George was a teacher and was very unhappy with middle-class English life. Thus we see him escaping to other countries such as France and Spain. He lives a part of his life as a tramp and with poor families, writing books such as COMING UP FOR AIR clarifying his discontent.Nicholas, in the Magus, is very bright and a bit of a womaniser but likes to love them and leave them. Thus he is very experienced with women and then meets the Australian Alison. They get very close and she reads him and handles him better than anyone he has met before. She falls in love with him and the parting is harrowing for her, him not so much. Nicholas is bored with teaching at the school and runs around the island looking for something of interest; this is the early 50s before the tourist explosion that took place a decade later. He meets a very rich man who owns a magnificent villa at the other end of the island Maurice Conchis. Nick is drawn into Maurice’s world whereby nothing seems as it is. He finds it confusing and worrying but exciting. Each weekend he can’t wait to get back to this new wonderful world after a week of boring teaching at the institution; in other words it becomes an addiction.Nick tries to get info. from previous English teachers who he has taken over from but gets nowhere. Maurice puts him through all sorts of strange experiences which he finds challenging but exciting. He needs an excuse to gain some time and uses the island of Hydra for it; “where there is an embryonic artistic colony of sorts”. (This is where in 1960 a young Canadian poet came to write). The deeper he gets involved into the magus, the magician of the tarot cards, the more he falls in love with a twin, Julia. He gets a letter from Alison where she says she’s going to be in Athens and would like to meet up again. It’s obvious she still loves him. He does meet her and they spend the weekend together but he uses the lie that he’s recovering from syphilis so as not to sleep with her. The real reason is that he is deeply in love with Julia. However Alison in her anger in their second break-up tells him a few home truths. When they split up in London she’d followed him and seen him laughing with the newsagent before catching his train, ie. he was great with it whereas she was destroyed.Nick does not know, in the midst of all the mind games, what is true and what is false. Thus he writes letters to various people and institutions in England checking up to see what is real and what is not. The letters he gets back confirm things so that he keeps believing the things Maurice is telling him and showing him. He keeps dropping lines in such as, “because we were English, we were born with masks and bred to lie”. There are constant literary refrains to people like Shakespeare especially and Dickens in the novel. Fowles is obviously well read as his English degree from Oxford attests. Nick gets a letter and articles on the suicide of Alison after their second break-up. He realizes he has caused it and he feels it incredibly deeply, all the guilt.The book is full of twists and turns to the very end. It’s a very big book, going on 700 pages so there’s plenty of space for Fowles to develop his thoughts. It becomes a literary classic and widely read by not only bohemians who visited the islands. It very often appears on top 100 best read charts and is highly thought of across the board. This is the first book that he started writing but it took him several years of re-writing before it was released as his third book. Although it received all this praise Fowles regarded it as one of his weaker books. He said, “I have long learned to accept that the fiction that pleases me the least ….persists in attracting a majority of my readers most”. Also Fowles said of it, “I now know the generation whose mind it most attracts, and that it must always substantially remain a novel of adolescence written by a retarded adolescent.” In other words, it’s a decent novel but it’s not a profound work with answers to what is life. It is a bold novel written out of the imagination of an Englishman in his 20s inspired by the 2 years he lived and worked on a Greek island in the early 1950s.

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