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The Magus John Fowles 9780316296199 Books

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The Magus John Fowles 9780316296199 Books

This has been my favorite novel for decades, something of a cross between the films "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Eyes Wide Shut" (with a hint of "The Prisoner"!) A young ex-pat teaching English on a Greek island falls into the clutches of a mysterious and wealthy recluse, who proceeds to play elaborate mind-games with him, interspersed with discussions of philosophy (mostly existentialism peppered with Jungian psychology). I don't know how well the novel works for an older audience, but when I was in my early twenties, it seemed to open doors like nothing else had. For a similar (if quite a bit more precious) read, see The Alexandria Quartet.


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The Magus John Fowles 9780316296199 Books Reviews

Psychological mystery/thriller set in Greece. A mystery/thriller that kept the tension ratcheted right up until the very last page was turned.

This was a 4.5 read simply because the story did get a tad bogged down in the middle. A story that kept me wondering how the main character Nicholas Urfe would fare and a story that kept me wondering when finished. I do enjoy ambiguous endings.

Loved the setting of Greece and the historical time periods touched upon in the novel. Particularly enjoyed the fact that there wasn't an inkling how it would end. No tidy ends on offer here.

Another from the Boxall 1000 list.
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. ".

After reading many 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 edition to see how the edition transferred, as well as see how the story may have been different after revision.

conclusions
- The version is the updated revision (not the original)
- The 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.).
Wow, just wow. Yes I do not normally review fiction and there are some plot issues (along the cohesiveness lines), but this is just simply colossal. I'm not sure why it took me so long to actually read the book.

I absolutely loved Fowles' lush, intricate English, his penetrating psychological insights, absurdly intelligent cynicism of his main characters. And obviously the insane twists.

An absolute and unforgettable pleasure!
I felt that the Magus had an intriguing beginning that grew only more intriguing during the middle (though bogged down at times by a less-flowing pace) and a fairly satisfying ending that introduced less interesting characters and which was left somewhat open to interpretation. The writing felt overly literate at times, and often used unnecessarily complex words that even an avid reader may not have stumbled upon before; so unless one wants to constantly be referencing a dictionary—which I did at times but didn’t feel to do always—one may not understand everything being communicated. He also uses plenty of untranslated French and Greek.

One thing I found bothersome was the overemphasis on the main character’s skepticism, which is constantly repeated through use of his private thoughts which are typically of a doubtful nature in response to all he’s experiencing. When being presented with higher possibilities for existence his response is always essentially that magic is not possible; although in the end, after deception is revealed to have been at the heart of nearly everything he experienced, one might justify that skepticism; yet I did not, because I find “reality” to be a highly subjective concept and even though the antagonist utilized deceptive means I do believe that in many ways he was expanding the protagonist’s mind, heart and beliefs about what was possible for existence (and perhaps those means that were all that would get through to his closedness), and in that sense was offering him a gift in a questionable disguise; he was essentially “shocking” him into higher consciousness and greater aliveness, forcing him face to face with what mattered most and what he truly wanted, while putting him through an emotional ringer to achieve that.

I heard that Fowles worked on this book for ten years (to what extent I don’t know) and it’s my sense that the unevenness of the book is a result of such a prolonged span. While it flows and draws you in at the beginning, in the middle it gets lengthy at times and even had me feeling annoyed and wanting to get past certain sections (and I’m very forgiving and patient). Overall it feels like it made some turns, or choices, that made it lose the magic it was initially carrying. I heard there’s a revised edition, and perhaps he ironed out some of those problems; though I don’t plan to read that.

The book has some nice ideas and is quite profound at times and has you feeling as though you’re in Greece, yet overall I found the main character to be a bit shallow and to have grown too little from his experiences. Teaching is the pretext for his being in Greece to begin with, and yet there’s no mention to any relations with his students, as the sole focus of the book is on the other side of the island where lies all the intrigue—a place he visits on weekends and obsesses about the rest of the week while being put out by his school responsibilities. The character was essentially, like many of us, discontent with his present reality and living in a fantasy world. His singular obsession with women became tiresome after a while as he transferred his feelings from one to the next and then back again. I found the antagonist, Conchis, who was responsible for all of the deception, to have been a more well rounded human being, possessing greater awareness of the subtleties and intricacies of life and thus far greater depth. A lot of the most interesting writing involved descriptions of his past which may or may not have been true, but which pointed to profound universal truths and made for interesting history nonetheless. For of what use there might lie in any opinion, there was mine)
This has been my favorite novel for decades, something of a cross between the films "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Eyes Wide Shut" (with a hint of "The Prisoner"!) A young ex-pat teaching English on a Greek island falls into the clutches of a mysterious and wealthy recluse, who proceeds to play elaborate mind-games with him, interspersed with discussions of philosophy (mostly existentialism peppered with Jungian psychology). I don't know how well the novel works for an older audience, but when I was in my early twenties, it seemed to open doors like nothing else had. For a similar (if quite a bit more precious) read, see The Alexandria Quartet.