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The Magus

By John Fowles

(53)

| Mass Market Paperback | 9780440351627

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Book Description

A man trapped in a millionare's deadly game of political and sexual betrayal.

Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship wContinue

5 Reviews

1 person find this helpful

smoke and mirrors, endless brain games, twisted minds: when you start to get a firm grasp on a character, it crumbles in front of you like a house of cards. mesmerising reading, it keeps you hanging on.

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Elsastella said on Mar 9, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

The novel tells the story of a young teacher who comes to an identity crisis on a Greek island, where he has to deal with a series of unusual events.
The book achieved great success, I guess, because of the (then) new wave of interest in irrational / non-scientific theories like mysticism.
To put i ... (continue)

The novel tells the story of a young teacher who comes to an identity crisis on a Greek island, where he has to deal with a series of unusual events.
The book achieved great success, I guess, because of the (then) new wave of interest in irrational / non-scientific theories like mysticism.
To put it simply; if you do not believe in anything, you can't get involved by this novel.
I did not get involved.
Maybe some honest fantasy or sci-fi is a better spent time.

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Plucino said on Apr 24, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

“Baron von Masoch sat on a pin / Then sat again, to push it in”.

This will take a while.
*adopts Nicholas Urfe conceited manners*
I approached this book and found myself feeling like young Urfe does in the story itself. I read spoilers. I knew that the basic idea was later stolen to make a Hollywood blockbuster you have probably seen (and I read, with sadness, ... (continue)

This will take a while.
*adopts Nicholas Urfe conceited manners*
I approached this book and found myself feeling like young Urfe does in the story itself. I read spoilers. I knew that the basic idea was later stolen to make a Hollywood blockbuster you have probably seen (and I read, with sadness, that Fowles considered a legal case but decided against it because going against Hollywood lawyers was quixotic for an old British writer).
I even downloaded and watched the 1968 movie, a remarkably shite effort by very good actors (Anthony Quinn re-doing Zorba the Greek, a very young and curiously expressionless Michael Caine in a dead monotone like he can’t wait to have another sex scene or go for another swim on glorious Greek beaches instead of talking philosophical bollocks) – it must be said that the movie did capture the visual atmosphere of the story though, I wouldn’t have imagined the island of Phraxos in any other way, the exaggerated Mediterranean light which “does not purify, but corrodes”. I also knew from Fowles’ previous books that he is prone to tricky plots and, well, mindfucks (try “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, where the narrator’s point of view and the historical perspective bounce back and forth like tennis balls).
So I approached the book like Urfe approaches the strange Greek billionaire on the island: thinking I could second-guess anything that would happen.
The hubris!
And the beauty of it is how young, pretentious, self-centered Urfe, plunged into a world where reason and reality basically stop, still thinks he’s above it, still wants to tag events with normal names, still tries to reduce the huge spins on the real world to plausible reasons; our human instinct to resize everything to bite-size human dimensions will always make us limited. How laughably proud he feels every time he thinks he has solved a riddle or found a realistic solution to things! Then comes another mad spin on reality, and there he tries to make “human” sense of it again.
Urfe is a despicable anti-hero, a smarmy 25-year-old who feels he's on top, a liar, a cheater who thinks nothing of hurting people, and totally deserves everything that happens to him; you want to see what next amazing/horrible/punishing/ravishing thing happens to him to see if he learns any lessons, but he doesn’t. The reader, who might not be such vermin, feels a certain pleasure in his pain, but also feels a very real and upsetting vertigo caused by being *constantly lied to*. Fowles lies to you all the time. Every time you think the “magician” Conchis is perhaps telling something real, and you cling to it because it’s simply unbearable – at a very primitive, personal level - to be faced with a character who never says anything that can be proven or trusted, he’ll pull the rug from under you with some even madder story, or embellishment, or maybe a flat-out lie disguised as a rational utterance. The feeling of outrage and lack of certainties is nearly physical.
There are myriads of references to occultism, mythologies, symbolisms which I recognize, but am too ignorant on these subjects to understand what they actually mean. It’s frustrating: I just barely grasp that the book can be read at a higher level, but the dozen or so references I do get make me painfully aware of the two hundred references I do not. I felt like I was watching a movie on a black and white Sixties TV, knowing it’s playing in glorious 3D megascreen in a multiplex I’m not allowed in. Experts of occultism and/or myths will probably take a lot more pleasure in this book. It will remain enigmatic to me at that level, unless someone publishes an annotated version, which probably won’t happen because this book is being slowly forgotten.
There are also philosophical questions - and few answers.

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Paola said on Apr 6, 2010 | Add your feedback

A mystical experience

Amazing, astonishing, a book that touched me inside

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Pippawilson said on Jun 12, 2007 | Add your feedback

The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by sta ... (continue)

The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by staged deaths, erotic encounters, and terrifying violence, Urfe becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life. A work rich with symbols, conundrums and labrinthine twists of event, The Magus is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, a work that ranks with the best novels of modern times.

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ambient pleasures said on Sep 12, 2006 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback