The Magus

If you like to spend time in the Mystery... your ideas of what it real and what is possible continually challenged... this is your book. The Greek island and its inhabitants are haunting and evocative. This is the kind of novel that takes up inside you... for a lifetime.

Powerful use of words, which in turn are brushstrokes depicting sceneries, or the essence of poignant emotions and feelings, creating tension in the reader.
Engaging story, the denouement of which is never boring nor predictable.

Very deep book...may be a tough read, especially for those not versed in classic literature, but fun to look up the references whilst reading. May also be somewhat jarring, especially when you are similar to the protagonist in many regards!

Even Fowles seemed to have been sucked in by some of his reviews, to read his preface to this novel, in which he compares himself to Dickens. None of the characters in this story are memorable. This is the first book I ever threw away. I got to about page 500 and this book ignores all the requirements of the code of the story. The main character is not only not especially likeable, he is no hero and undergoes no arc of character. Don't waste your time or your money. This is the first book Fowles wrote, and while he had the decency not to foist it off on the public until he had 4 or 5 best sellers to his credit, it is a total sham.

I must say I expected something different when purchasing this book,especially due to the fact that a lot of people appreciated it,but when I started reading it I was tempted many times to let it go,at the beginning the plot is very boring actually nothing really interesting happens in the first 200 pages and the end is really dissapointing.I can understand why in the sixties this book might have looked like an extraordinary special book.but nowadays this type of plot is not really appaling for my taste.but if you have the time and especially the patience go for it

I am surprised more reviewers don’t mention the fact that this book was “revised”. It is now difficult to find the “unrevised “ first edition of the book. If you have not yet read this book, I highly recommend that you search online for a first edition copy. The author received an immense amount of mail concerning this novel, and much of it was critical of the “vague” ending and the overall difficulty in understanding the meaning of the book. For this reason he revised the book to make it more “clear” and, in doing so, RUINED it! The original version makes you think- and several interpretations are possible. The revised version, especially the ending, makes it sophomoric and ridiculous. It is well worth the time to find the original version in a used bookstore or online.

This is a book about a small conspiracy, with apparently unlimited resources, which repeatedly undermines a young man's sense of social reality, all the while winking at him (and the reader) about a major payoff which will justify the frustrating experience. The only payoff that comes is an epistemological lesson about the limits of knowledge. And a vague existentialist lesson about the need to make a choice. I.e., you spend five hundred pages getting wound up with suspense, and instead of resolution you get a sophomore's philosophy homework. The most generous interpretation of this novel is that it's a cruel, successful aesthetic experiment in disappointing reader expectations. The more likely interpretation is that it's a structurally unsound novel held together only with brilliant writing and suspense, which was designed only to demonstrate its shallow epistemological and existential premise.

If you're looking for this kind of philosophy in a novel, your time is probably better spent with Cosmos by Gombrowicz or Remainder by McCarthy. If you must read this novel, take it as an experiment in endurance and cruelty, like a Warhol film.

Well........ it's ok. When I first starting reading it I was pretty engaged in it. Even though not a lot was happening, the author had a way of engaging you right from the beginning with his prose. As I was reading this I quickly got a feel for John Fowles extreme intelligence. He references other books, authors, languages, psychologists, he knows his geography, plays, scripts, etc...all the time. He also used words I've never seen before and I'm an avid reader. At first I started looking some up, but then it got to be too much and I just went with the flow. Even the references, I am not as wordly as Fowles and had to just skim over those. Some I recognized from my old World English college class (Lysistrata), and most while I knew of them, I had no clue exactly how that reference fit into the plot. Again, Fowles is an extremely well read and intelligent author.

Then there is the main character... I didn't think he was the cruel, unfeeling person some of the other reviewers thought he was. I simply thought him incapable of really committing to a relationship as a typical 20 something year old. While this book was written years ago, its really nothing new even in this day and age. He wants to commit, but he can't.

The book was interesting until about 1/2 way through it. Once the whole Conchis (the master manipulator who has unwittingly engaged our main character Urfe into a 'living play', lies, and a living psychology experiment) and psychological twisting came in, you never knew what was real or what was plotted. At first it was very intriguing, but when for another 200 pages it was the same thing over and over again, lies, truths, manipulation; it got annoying and boring. There was some random incident with Germans, in the 50's that happened. Our character calls them the actors, he believes its part of the master plan of Conchis - but it truly is just.. random. Didn't fit in the story line at all.

I ended up skimming the entire last 1/3 of the book in about half an hour. And, I didn't miss much by doing that. He's held against his will, there are a series of 'doctors', mystery plots, meeting people, believing the people, then realizing they too are lying (<<<sigh>>> same plot line, but 500 pages later) he sees the woman he fell in love with have sex, right in front of him with her other partner - on purpose - while he's tied down, and gagged. All for the mindgames of Conchis and all supposedly because our main character was a 'shallow' non committing man. If that was the case, half of the male population between 20 and 35 should be engaged in Conchis's 'experiments'.

And the ending.. nope - your realize the one woman you thought was not part of the plot, was and there is no ending. It leaves you wondering - is this a lie too and more of the same plot? How long will Conchis continue to mess with this poor guy, and why? Forever? What did our young guy really do to Conchis or anyone besides being a confused 20 something year old guy who can't commit. Why did they torture him like this and mess with his mind so badly. Was it all a set up from the very first time he got that first apartment? ALL of it? Was too weird, unsettling, no point to the madness really. If there was some big plot boiler about our main character where you get the Ah Ha moment of OH! That's why they screwed with this guys head for years.. ok - I could have dealt with that. But there was no rhyme or reason.

Summary in a nutshell: Random guy chosen for mindscrewing pyschological plot by a disturbed old man for no good reason.

Nope - wouldn't recommend it.

""The Magus" is a stunner, magnificent in ambition, supple and gorgeous in execution. It fits no neat category; it is at once a pyrotechnical extravaganza, a wild, hilarious charade, a dynamo of suspense and horror, a profoundly serious probing into the nature of moral consciousness, a dizzying, electrifying chase through the labyrinth of the soul, an allegorical romance, a sophisticated account of modern love, a ghost story that will send shivers racing down the spine. Lush, compulsive, richly inventive, eerie, provocative, impossibly theatrical--it is, in spite of itself, convincing." Thus wrote Eliot Fremont-Smith in his New York Times book review when this magnificent novel was first published back in 1966.

Let me tell you folks, this was one powerful literary experience - not only did I read the book but I also listened to the outstanding audio version, read by Nicholas Boulton. "Stupidity is lethal." One of the many musing from first person narrator Nicholas Urfe, a dashingly handsome twenty-five year old Oxford educated Englishman on the Greek island of Phraxos during a conversation with Conchis, a much older wealthy recluse, a man imaginative enough to remind him of Pablo Picasso and mysterious enough to remind me of Aleister Crowley.

This 660 pager begins with Nicholas Urfe recounting his background as an only child of middle class parents, stickler brigadier father, an officious military man down to his toes, a man forever trotting out words like discipline and tradition and responsibility to undergird his position on any topic, obedient housebound mother, public school education (what in the US is called private school), short stint in the army during peacetime and then reading English at Oxford. When one day at Oxford he receives word that both his mother and father died in an airplane crash, Nicholas feels a great relief since he no longer is obliged to carry around a huge sack of family baggage. Ah, family!

However, after Oxford, there’s one person who exerts a profound influence on Nicholas prior to his traveling to Phraxos to teach boys at the English-run Lord Byron School - Alison, a gorgeous, graceful Australian gal who moves in with Nicholas in his quaint apartment facing Russell Square. And that’s influence as in emotional intensity, as in red hot passionate lovemaking, bitter heated arguments and nearly everything in between, as if their relationship is a primer for the Dionysian frenzy and chaos Nicholas will eventually encounter in Greece.

When leaving England, Nicholas calls to mind how he needs more mystery in his life. Well, he certain gets his wish when he meets old Maurice Conchis and is initiated in unexpected ways into the atrocities of World War I and then the Nazis, the vitality of Greek theater and mask acting, isolation and religious fanaticism, hypnotism and mysticism, Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian archetypes, ancient pagan religions inexplicably mingling with science and humanism.

Pulled into the vortex of the brutality of recent European history and pushed out to hidden spiritual realms with a dose of romantic love thrown in along the way, Nicholas is forced to confront his basic philosophic assumptions: How free are we? How much influence does our culture and historic epoch have on our values? Is there a universal foundation of morality beyond social convention? What is the connection between truth and beauty? Does love conquer all or is this merely a hackneyed cliché?

Toward the end of the novel, we as readers join Nicholas in asking: Ultimately, what was the real intent and purpose of Maurice Conchis and his so called godgame? Was all of what he as a young Englishman lived through at bottom a madman’s desire to manipulate and control, so much so it would it be more accurate to label Conchis’ inventive masque a congame rather than a godgame?

Turning the novel’s pages, we are right there with Nicholas as the suspense mounts – for every mystery that appears to be solved, two corollary mysteries pop up to take its place. Are we delving deeper into the mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of a detective novel, or both? No wonder Eliot Fremont-Smith called “The Magus” a stunner. I couldn’t imagine a more apt one-word description. I can also appreciate John Gardner’s judgement when he wrote, "Fowles is the only writer in English who has the power, range, knowledge, and wisdom of a Tolstoy or James."

Nicholas Urfe is spending time on a beautiful Greek island where he doesn't have to work that hard, gets all the benefits of hanging out with a rich old guy and seems to have attracted the attention of the hottest girl around. Even better, she's got an equally hot twin sister. Yet he's having the worst time of his life.

That sounds like all the elements of a bad eighties romantic comedy and a good chunk of the novel can be filed under "Problems I Wish I Had" but if anything Fowles proves that you can take any scenario and save it from cheesiness by dropping in as many mythological and literary references as possible, and then cranking up the weirdness factor as far as his genteel English soul will allow.

How did we get here? Nicholas comes to the island for a teaching position after basically ditching a girl back home in England because he's too shallow to actually want to fall in love with anyone. It doesn't help that he's sort of incapable of making friends with anyone thanks to a combination of arrogance and a complete lack of social skills that might endear him to another human beings. The only people who seem to like him are the island inhabitants, and that might be because they only speak Greek. So it's not too long that he wanders to an old house on the other side of the island and meets local mysterious millionaire Maurice, who might have collaborated with the invading Germans in World War II (the novel is set in the mid-fifties), who quickly seems to take a shine to him. And by "shine", I mean, "wants to indulge in endless mind games". Cue the girls masquerading as his dead wife, and the people wearing animal heads, please.

Your enjoyment of this novel is probably going to depend on two factors, neither of which are entirely dependent on the other. One is whether you get a kick of out playing "spot the reference" as Fowles proceeds to have Maurice invoke pretty much every myth he can grab his hands on in the course of messing with Nicholas, with some of them more over than others. The other factor will depend on how invested you are in why they're putting Nicholas through all this and whether our young cad will come out of it unscathed. I actually wound up sympathizing with Nicholas after the first hundred pages or so, mostly because after a while I hated to see the poor guy kicked while he was down and frankly, Maurice and his cronies come across as rather smug, wrapping all their explanations in Jungean terms, but a lot of it seems to come down "We did it because you're here, and because we could."

And boy, do they. Clocking in at a bit over six hundred pages, it's probably a valid question to wonder how the heck Fowles manages to fill all that space up with mindgames. Yet, he does. Endless mindgames, to the point where it becomes useless to try and figure out what the ultimate reasoning is for anything and simply go with it. If you've ever seen the 1997 Michael Douglas box office bomb "The Game" you may have some idea of what you're in for, as the shape of the games quickly becomes apparent. Maurice tells Nicholas something, Nicholas doesn't believe it, events are manipulated so that it might be true, one of the lovely girls that hang out there admit that it's all a game and they're all playing parts, and then everything resets and you find out that all the stuff you were previously told about none of it being true wasn't true either. There is a sense that Fowles is attempting to strip Nicholas down in layers, with Maurice as the catalyst, but a lot of it seems to boil down to how many scenarios he can concoct, with the book finally ending when he's run out of patience with his own literary gyrations (it should be noted that most versions of this novel that are out there are revised from the original publications, as Fowles wasn't happy with the first attempt and decided to tinker with some bits, with some of that tinkering apparently either changing or clouding some of the original intent).

But he's good at constantly upping his own ante, escalating the intensity of the games with each succeeding variation, until it starts to seem actively dangerous, with people being drugged and beaten and kidnapped, until you just want to tell Nicholas to go back to England and get away from all this nonsense. Without having to explain too much the mechanics of all this stuff it allows Fowles to go all out and do whatever the heck he wants, even it seems like a lot of money and time spent in pursuit of what later comes across as an oddly minor goal. That alone keeps the book interesting, seeing what Fowles will come up with next but he does manage to ground in some semblance of humanity. Nicholas reacts like an ordinary to most of this craziness and after a while you start to feel for him being way out of his depth. His relationship with the twins comes across as touching at times, even as the motivations for everything just keep sifting and shifting, like realizing the wonderful beach you've discovered is actually hiding a giant worm underneath. This grounding in Nicholas helps the book pivot because with everything else constantly being a lie, there's very little reason to get emotionally attached to anything here, as fifty pages after you learn about it you find out that it was all untrue.

Still, he manages. Nicholas' reaction to a long-distance suicide remains one of the book's best moments, both self-centered and numb, and the scenes where Nicholas starts to puzzle things out better carry a small sense of triumph after watching the poor guy get batted around like a cat's plaything for pages and pages (it's a measure of how much the book stacks the deck against itself that on two separate occasions Nicholas slaps a girl in the face and you can't a hundred percent say it's not deserved). Fowles constantly evokes the magic and majesty of the setting, a feeling he's able to carry over when the action shifts back to England, draping everything in a sort of hazy mystique, as if Nicholas has crossed a fence into another land but hasn't bothered to look back to see the border. All of this keeps it readable but can't quite disguise the factor that it's a lot of hullabaloo over what amounts to something fairly minor, and after a while you start to wonder if it the stated goal was worth all the effort it took to get there (especially since by the end it doesn't seem to have changed anything) and all the words that were spent in that effort. It's clear to someone that Nicholas needs to change but Maurice and his band of merry misfits taking it upon themselves to arrogantly force the issue makes me want to root for Nicholas staying a complete tool that much more, which I'm not sure was Fowles' intent. But then, maybe the whole thing is metaphorical in which case I suppose it worked out the way it was supposed to, a layer of misdirection where you're told it holds meaning from any angle but like the best magicians you're manipulated in such a way that you're only seeing the side the author wants you to see, with all the other facades hidden from view, and in doing so are convinced it was your idea the whole time.

Well deserving of its place on many "best of" lists of 20th century novels, The Magus (1965) is either the first, second or fourth novel written by John Fowles, as he began writing it first, originally published it second (after The Collector) and republished it with revisions a dozen years later (following The French Lieutenant's Woman and Daniel Martin). For the record I've read the republished (and so far final) version though if I could find it I would be interested to see the 1965 original.

Anyway, I found this book absolutely captivating, driven by the deepening mystery of what is happening to Nicholas Urfe, the young British teacher who narrates it in first person (a very critical factor). Nicholas is a bit of a cad whose primary way of distracting himself from an unfulfilling life is sex. Just before going off on a teaching job on an island off the coast of Greece, he embarks on what may be a more meaningful relationship with a young woman named Alison that is basically ended by his departure.

In Greece, he encounters the mysterious Maurice Conchiss who, with the help of a set of assistants, proceeds to start playing some of the most elaborate mind games ever invented on Nicholas. As the narrative is exclusively from Nicholas' point of view, we see only what he sees and experiences and we get only his perspective, except for the utterances of others that he chooses to relate to us. Thus, we are on the mind trip with him and feel his frustrations and puzzlement over what is happening.

Basically, Conchiss and his allies proceed to put Nicholas through an emotional (and occasionally physical) wringer in which he never knows with certainly what is truth, what is lies and what is illusion. At the heart of the manipulation is a mysterious young woman Nicholas believes he has fallen in love with, though as is his usual inclination, it is the physical consummation he seems to want most.

The book reminded me of Philip K. Dick with its constant challenging of the border between reality and illusion. This is Total Recall on steroids, and Fowles manages to keep it up and keep it fascinating for almost 700 pages. Shakespeare's The Tempest is another obvious touchstone, and in fact that play is alluded to several times. Conchiss is clearly Prospero, the "magus" of the title, though some of the other character analogies are a bit fuzzier.

I did think Fowles went a bit over the top in a couple of instances (especially an elaborate trial scene late in the book) and one must question the basic premise of why anyone should take so much trouble over such a nonentity as Nicholas (I had a similar question in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four about all the attention paid to Winston Smith).

But these are quibbles. This is that rare bird, a philosophical novel that remains as entertaining and suspenseful as a good thriller thanks to Fowles keeping the focus on Nicholas and the mystery that envelopes him.

One of the best English language novels of the 20th century? Absolutely!

“I acquired expensive habits and affected manners. I got a third-class degree and a first-class illusion: that I was a poet. But nothing could have been less poetic than my seeing-through-all boredom with life in general and with making a living in particular.”

The story opens in 1953 London. Our protagonist, Nicholas, is a twenty-something self-absorbed and selfish young man, who moves from one relationship to another and one situation to another, in the hopes that something more exciting lay around the corner. He answers an ad for a teaching position on a remote Greek Island and heads south for adventure. Which is exactly what he finds. He meets an eccentric man of great wealth and becomes lured into his world. What Nicholas hopes for (to be exposed and included in a Mr. Conchis’ upper class society) and what Nicholas gets (a confusing carnival of strange situations) are two very different things.

This is probably the fifth time I’ve read The Magus. My virgin reading was at the tender age of 17, and I thought this was the most fascinating and absorbing book I’d ever read. I haven’t picked it up in twenty years or so, and I was eager to see if my views on the book had changed. While I gained some new perspectives on Fowles’ first novel, it was every bit as good as I remembered.

First, Fowles is a master of language. From his broad vocabulary to his use of double entendre, I am riveted through each word, sentence and paragraph. It’s simply lovely. I was grateful to be reading The Magus on a Kindle this time, as the dictionary feature is so helpful. Unfortunately, either Fowles makes up words, or you would have to use the 26 volume Oxford dictionary to find the meaning of at least half them. (Not to mention the ability to translate Latin, French and Greek).

Second, the author knows how to write a good story. Great prose will only get you so far. Without a captivating story-line, I could never give an author more than three stars. The tale of Nicholas’ adventures on Phraxos, weird though they may be, make this book impossible to put down.

Third, I just love how Fowles messes with your mind. As the protagonist tries to figure out the truth, so do you, the reader. Nicholas triumphs, and gains control, and so do you the reader. Then…Fowles turns everything upside down and both you and Nicholas are left befuddled as to what happened.

Lastly, no great book could ever earn 5 stars without exploring some pretty deep themes. My favorite in The Magus is the concept of freedom. Can one truly have freedom if choices are made in light of constraints? Sometimes those constraints are put there by our own selves – so, then are we really free to act? I spent a good deal of time pondering and discussing these thoughts with my book-club friend. I also enjoyed reading Fowles’ own interpretations on the subject. At the time of writing The Magus, Fowles possessed negative views on religion and felt that faith takes away freedom. If John Fowles could come back from the grave and sit at my dinner table, I’d love to have a long conversation about this. It seems to me that personal constraints are every bit (and sometimes more) hindering than the constraints that others place on us. Truth faith requires an indifference to self, thus eliminating those personal constraints. This, in turn, makes one more free.

At any rate, this book is amazing on so many levels. It is definitely a must read for any serious lover of literature!

This is one of those novels I recommend reading more than once ever few years. And this is my second time, and I have to laugh at how much my perception of the story has changed since the first read-through. Or perhaps I have changed.

The first occasion I was in my early 20s and very much of the assumption that Nicholas Urfe was the one done wrong by Conchis and his cohorts. Funny how my opinion has changed a decade later.

In brief, our protagonist Urfe runs away from a relationship in the UK to go teach at a school in Greece, where he meets a reclusive millionaire, Maurice Conchis, who claims to be a magician. Suitably ensorcelled, Urfe finds himself bewitched not only by the location, but by the bizarre psychodramas in which the old man immerses him. He meets the twins Lily and Rose, and becomes hopelessly fixated. All the while he is of the opinion that he has the upper hand, but Conchis is an adept storyteller, and very soon Urfe can't tell the fabrications apart from the truth. Isolated as he is, on the island of Phraxos, he is confronted by his own shortcomings and is faced by choices that will impact him later. The question the reader has to ask: Does this man ever truly learn from his mistakes?

Urfe, as a protagonist, is an intellectual snob crippled by his misogynist, classist, and racist outlooks on life so mired in his solipsism he can only judge people according to how their shortcomings measure up to his perceived personal virtues. His overweening pride and belief in his intellectual superiority cripples him as he casts himself as the perpetual outsider - unable to connect with the people around him and incapable of maintaining a genuine relationship. He feels a degree of contempt for everyone around him which is perhaps a reflection of the contempt he feels for himself that he is unable to admit.

And he willingly walks into the elaborate trap set for him by Conchis. Perhaps the first hint we have of this is Conchis takes him snorkelling and makes casual mention of how an octopus will fall for the same bait again and again. Again and again, Urfe tries and fails to come to terms with the game, in the end falling prey to his narcissism that he is somehow "elect". What is sad is that he clearly and consciously chooses to be manipulated.

By the time we reach the end of the story, Urfe is reduced to a paranoid paralysed state, isolated and unable to reach out even when he's offered the opportunity for a fresh start. And that is where Fowles leaves us. We simply don't know the final outcome. I'd like to think that Urfe walks away but that small, niggling voice at the back of my head whispers that the man is doomed to repeat the same set of behaviours over and over again in the vain hope that the outcome will somehow be different.

I don't feel sorry for him; in fact I feel he deserves this personal hell he has evoked. He was given every opportunity to awaken and step outside himself but like the octopus is unable to see beyond his subjective reality.

Other than that, this is a lush novel worth reading for the crisp strokes of Fowles's prose in which he effortlessly paints the Greek and British settings, as well as the people who populate them. The Magus is laden with esoteric imagery and half the fun is picking up the clues along the way. The novel offers much to think about and I'm glad for this second opportunity to have chewed through it.

"The Magus" is a very strange novel, without a proper ending. It is very well written, has paragraphs of intense luminosity and poetry, and some others of profound philosophical insight. Although the central character is the narrator himself, and the novel is the story of his sentimental education, the character of Conchis steals the show, along with Lily-Julie. Undoubtedly, the book's main quality consists in its being a deeply disturbing novel, which poses hard moral dilemmas and thorny subjects. Let's put it this way: if it is supposed to be a didactic book, its methods are monstruous.

Nicholas Urfe is a selfish and frivolous young man, an only child who has inherited a reasonable sum after his parents' death. Not knowing what to do with his life, he finds a position as an English teacher in the small island of Phraxos (the real Spartes) in Greece. But shortly before departing from London, he meets an Australian flight attendant, Alison, with whom he begins an affair. Not a real relationship, mind you, since Nicholas seems to be fit only for passing one-night stands. Alison is supposed to marry a pilot in a few weeks, and she seems pretty open, so there seems to be no problem and Nicholas departs for Phraxos. Now, to the island's South there happens to be a mysterious house by the beach, across several hills, inhabited by an eccentric man with an obscure past, and Nicholas decides to go take a look.

To describe the plot in any detail would be long and confusing: the point is that Bourani, a magnificent villa by the Aegean Sea, right at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, with its own dock and private beach, is a Grand Theatre where a perverted, impenetrable play develops, presided over by a despotic and unpredictable "Magus": Maurice Conchis. Conchis is the stuff of legend, with a fabulous fortune, an inexhaustible cultivation, and a terrible history about which one can never know what is true and what is not. Little by little, Nicholas gets hooked in the macabre game, full of mysterious journeys and hair-rising stage shows intended to "educate" Nicholas on life, the psyche, emotions, and relationships. Every weekend, Nicholas is lured into the villa, only to be tempted, threatened, pleased, and scared by Conchis and a series of menacing characters, among which stands out a beautiful English Rose, called sometimes Julie and sometimes Lily. Nicholas falls in love - or rather, gets obsessed - with the elusive and slippery girl, who seems to play different roles. In the middle of this turmoil, Alison shows up.

The plot advances with many twists and turns, crises and inflexion points. Bourani's inhabitants appear and disappear; Conchis tells stories-within-stories which have obscure didactic purposes that Nicholas simply can't decipher. Sometimes Alison committs suicide; sometimes Julie seems to be his lover; sometimes Conchis sends a letter saying the game is up. There are kidnappings; there are stage representations of World War II, with Nazis and all, and eventually he returns to England, where he spends his time following the few clues he has, hoping to find out what exactly has happened, why, and what for.

Psychoanalysis, the Nazi footprints both in Greece and in Europe's consciousness, the relationship between sex and emotions, life's traumas, God and Freedom, Freedom and humans, are just a few of the themes of this novelized madness, these quicksands of situations, characters, ideas, and emotions. Although this novel could only have been written in the XXth Century, it contains immortal subjects. No character is lovable, because there can be none of it in so crude and provocative a story. The final denouement of the plot adds its own touch of mystery and horror, although not in a novelistic sense, but a metaphysical one. I think that whoever finds a conclusion, lesson, moral, or explanation is someone who simply didn't understand it. And I'm not saying I have the clue.

Nicholas is a man adrift. His parents have both died, leaving him without anchor in his life. He goes from one relationship to another, never making permanent connections with any one woman. He isn't terribly interested in any kind of work. Despite being in the midst of a relationship with a girl who loves him, Nicholas takes a job as a teacher in a boys' school on a remote Greek island.

Once he arrives at his new job, Nicholas finds it stifling and dull. He goes wandering, and stumbles upon the estate of a very wealthy, very eccentric hermit. Maurice Conchis is a man of legend on the island. A story circulates about his collaboration with Nazis during their World War II occupation, and Nicholas finds that Conchis is almost universally hated by the locals.

Nicholas is intrigued.

Over the course of several weekends, Conchis draws in his new friend with mysteries, psychological games, and the presence of two beautiful young women who seem to be very nearly within Nicholas' reach. However, we, and Nicholas as well, soon realize that nothing is as it seems in Conchis' world.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns of this novel, and didn't much mind the inconclusive ending. It was fascinating to me to predict what particular lies were being told, and I liked finding out that the deception went even deeper than I could have imagined. It was amusing to me to read a book that kept me guessing right up until the end.

I bought 'The Magus' almost accidentally, having a discount code that was valid only if I ordered one more book. I had seen it on too many "books you must read before you die" lists, and I remembered having been intrigued by an article which quoted an excerpt of it (the story of the wizard and the prince).

So I thought I would have taken this fleshy book with me at university, and read just a little bit each day to fill the time between one lesson and another. The plan worked until I reached one third of it; at that point I was so caught by the story that I was compelled to go back to it everytime I had a free minute, and so reached the end in that same day.

After that, for some days, I kept on thinking about the story, the characters and their choices. I often found myself reaching for the book in order to read a little more, and then remembering with affliction that I already knew it all, that nothing more could have happened. This doesn't happen often, and when it does happen I consider it an undeniable sign of great fiction.

From a point of pseudo objective analysis, I was surprised to see how many facets of narration Fowles seems to master. Of course you are moved to take sides with the main character, through whose point of view the others are seen, but you will also find many situations in which you are forced to think outside the narrator's frame (this is of course made easier by the sort of paranoia that such a tale of mistery and betrayal can generate - it takes you in a space where you feel you shouldn't trust anyone or anything).

Every character, even the ones just sketched in few words, is presented in such a way to become alive in your imagination, like those few words were sufficient to give you their dna with which you can build everything else - and still they are not boring cliche.

I am somewhat reluctant to say a great deal about this book, for fear of giving anything away! It is the story of a young Englishman, who, despite his faults, is sensitive enough to become sickened by his own lovelessness and cynicism. Although not at first fully clear as to the causes of this "sickness", he quits his job, and takes a position as teacher on a Greek island, perhaps hoping that the culture-shock will be beneficial. He certainly gets more than he bargained for after meeting Maurice Conchis, the "Magus" of the title. The reader should not be put off by being confused, surprised, or even annoyed at some of the twists and turns in the narrative; this is absolutely intentional; the strange seductiveness of the Greek setting takes one out of oneself and into Nicholas's inner voyage. Since one of the main themes of the book is male selfishness, female readers may have some difficulty identifying with our Nicko; but having been on the receiving end of this all-too-common problem, they may find it illuminating! After all, the "having" mode of existence, the wish to control others, and the inability to love or be loved, are not a male prerogative. Readers of any age from perhaps around 16 up, if they are curious about what humans do and feel, will find this a stimulating and, in the best sense of the word, entertaining read. If seeing the film put you off reading the book, tough luck, but you may still enjoy it anyway, if it's your "scene". Finally, if you would like to discuss, or comment on, any aspect of this book, especially (! ;-)) if you have any problems with it, you are welcome to email me.

I reviewed what the critics thought of this book. They loved it. A masterpiece!
Well it was not very good, The novel is long and boring. The characters are not realistic and the plot was ridiculous. I would not waste my time on this book. When I finished Magus I started a wonderful book, " The Little Paris Bookshop". Read it instead.

"The Magus" is wonderfully well written, packed with evocative character studies and relationships, and intensely plotted. This is one of those books where you don't know where the deception begins and ends (or even if it does).
The main character, Nicholas, accepts a teaching post on the small Greek island of Phraxos. Once there, he succumbs to the allure of a mysterious loner living on a remote corner of the island. Their interactions together are meant to challenge Nicholas's assumptions about himself, his place in the world, and the way he treats those around him. I don't want to give away how this is acheived, but it involves imaginative distortions of history and elaborately staged scenes.
Critics of this book tend to point to flat dispassionate characters as its main downfall. Ironically, this is precisely what makes the book the stunning case study that it is. Much of the language, especially with regards to the relationships between the characters, is cold and precise. That's exactly how it's supposed to be considering that you're not meant to know whether each event in the book is staged. If you figure that out early enough, you'll be better off and left free to enjoy the book for what it is - a clinical look at a morose young man and his disfunctional, energy-sapping relationship with the world. This is one of the most rewarding reads I have had in quite some time.

1) Plot (5 stars) - A hyper-intelligent but utterly self-focused twenty-something leaves dreary England for a sunbaked isle in the Mediterranean, searching for an adventure worthy of his life and getting more than he bargained for. The plot was packed with twists and turns. But not the over-the-top, "here we go again", thriller type. In this novel, each twist was so well crafted, each turn at the perfect level of subtlety. Who is Mr. Conchis, the mysterious rich old man who lives on the other side of the island? An eccentric? A liar? A showman? A madmen? And what does he want with the main character, Nicholas? This was the underlying tension. But swimming closely alongside it was the love story tension--Nicholas and the two girls--how he chases and uses them; and how they retreat and use him.

2) Characters (5 stars) - Nicholas was so well-drawn as the intellectual smart enough to be depressed, but not smart enough to be happy; as the aloof lady's man skilled enough to bed who he wants, but not wise enough to keep them. Mr. Conchis was perfect as the enigma--as the vacillating Buddha and Barnum. Girl #1 (Alison) was amazing as the sexually mature tomboy waiting for her beau to grow up. And girl #2 (Julie) was great as the tantalizing femme fatal--innocent enough to draw you in, but full of poison if you get too near.

3) Theme (4 stars) - The quarter-life crises is the theme I pulled out of the story. An exploration of that time when thoughtful young men and women have to decide whether to conform and prosper or resist and vanish.

4) Voice (5 stars) - I'm a sucker for that British wit and wisdom, and Fowles packs these pages with it.

5) Setting (5 stars) - I was there along with Nicholas, trapped in Mr. Conchis' island game; seeing the sunlight dapple through trees and ocean, feeling the lust and confusion, falling under the spell of story after story.

6) Overall (5 stars) - High art. Cerebral and emotional. Not only would I recommend it, I would read it again.

Ever been dangled upside down by your feet? No? Get ready. This book will do it to you. A metaphysical metaphorical deliciously sexual and at the same time blood-chilling horrendous romp into a psyche of one Englishman who tries to look into the meaning of love and life and his own identity, loses it in the process, finds it again, then, at the very last page, offers you yet another carrot, all at the hands of deranged man by the name of Maurice Conchis, a mysterious millionaire on an island in Greece who likes to play deadly games with people. John Fowles is a master. This is the first book I have read of his, and it’s magnificent. Prepare to laugh for the first 50 pages or so, with gem descriptions like “one of those unfortunate females whose faces fall absolutely flat from nostrils to chin”, then get thrown into a spin of a thriller unlike you read before, with a dark dip into brutality of World War 2, then come back out again, all the while suffering with the characters through their torturous love affair. Add spicy, snappy, and at times poetical images like “the grin didn't seem quite real, but the result of pulling strings” and “she sat puppy-slumped like a dejected fat boy”, and you’ve got yourself a nice fat ride 600+ pages long. It gets violent there, and mind-bending, so be warned, some scenes might make you sick. It is, however, my kind of darkness. A must read.

The Russian translation of "The Magus" (a truly excellent work by Boris Kuzminsky) came at a right time - when my generation was exactly the main character's age. At twenty or thirty his problems and torments would seem equally artificial. At twenty-five, they happened to be very much in resonance with what was going on in our very different lives.
I had a personal reason for a special treatment of this novel. I had a feeling that Nicolas Urfe was very much like me - psychologically and intellectually. I easily identified myself with most of his reactions. I felt that he read, joked, ate, smoked the way I did.
I have now re-read the novel - though not the second, amended variant (which was the source for the Russian translation), but the original one. Several years ago I found myself in an English-speaking intellectual company, and the participants in the chat cordially agreed that the second variant of "The Magus" stunk, while the first, on the contrary, ruled. I was intrigued; I still am. Unless my memory is playing some major trick on me, the changes in the second variant were mainly cosmetic. A couple of erotic scenes, no more. The main difference seemed to be the fact that the mysterious Lily (or whatever) gave in to Nicholas in the second draft, while in the original version she had remained a teaser par excellence. Probably as one grows older, the relativity of sexual and other feelings becomes less and less surprising. But it does not signify any serious change.
It became much harder to sympathise with the main character after these several years. His subtlety is now perceived as snobbery and showing off. During the first read I felt irritated that Nicholas was not ready to face a miracle and looked for a rational explanation for everything. I am even more irritated now. It is especially revolting that in the long run he turns out to be right.
I also feel a larger cultural difference between myself and Nicholas Urfe. I did not notice then how much he reflected on his englishness, how consistently distanced himself, an islander, from the Continent; how he mused - in these terms - about the game, forced upon him by the European, Maurice "The Magus" Conchis, how his hate of fascism was based on the idea that Europe could have produced such monsters, while England could not. If we think of this detail of the British national psyche, it is usually in an ironic context, while in fact a Shakespearean drama lingers beneath.
The Greek island of Phraxos, the main location of the novel, is a different story. It is hard to imagine someone so unemotional who would not want to go to Greece immediately after reading "The Magus". Fowles does not seem to be saying anything new - everyone knows about the sea, sun, pines and ancient statues - but one cannot help but feel the obsession which this nature and this country impose upon you. In "Daniel Martin", Fowles does the same trick with Egypt, Syria and New Mexico. He is an absolutely stunning travel writer.
One critic rightly remarked that Fowles's best novels possess an old-time quality: the reader can literally sink into them and live inside until the last page is turned. "The Magus" displays this quality to an amazing degree. Especially if read at the right age.

John Fowles ends his new introduction to this 1998 edition by saying, "I can't really be Greek, but I wish I were."
Well, yeah, him and me too.
The story takes place on a not-so-imaginary Greek island which is actually Spetses.
Long stretches of this work are ugly and horrifying, but at the same time they are beautiful, because they cover all the range of human experience that each of us knows so well and has to put up with: betrayal, violence, lies ... but also hope, freedom, and love.
The protagonist meets up with an elderly eccentric who wants to pass as a wizard or shaman but is really involved in a dehumanizing psychological experiment whose true purpose is never made clear. Everything is staged, apparently to make the main character suffer as much as possible, both physically and spiritually.
There is something Hamlet-like about his thinking as he decides between getting wholly involved or opting out. At some points one might get the idea he enjoys the savagery being inflicted on him.
Fowles is the absolute master of modern English prose narrative, his writing is richly textured, his imagination inexhaustible.

Please read the most excellent ONE STAR review of JerryG (January 19, 2010). Totally, totally agree with...Murray Love, and his posted comment. I, too, really enjoyed the review. I read this book when you are supposed (not) to, at age 16. I would not insult JerryG to suggest that he didn't totally understand exactly what he communicated in his review. As I commenced the novel, I shared certain, not wholly laudable, character traits with Mr. Urfe and, by its end page endeavoured to mimic those "worthy" of Conchis. Oh dear...

Philosophical metaphysics, mental masturbation, intellectual S&M, or simply an overworked adolescent (why must it remain so?) desperation to transcend? Call it what you will, but what say we of great works that are unseen, unheard or unread? In The Magus, Mr. Fowles prepared something that unquestionably provoked/produced the creation that became quite the substantial volume of experience in its audience. Call it cruel; call it callous; call it reckless, wanton and licentious. Rain down upon the author these charges and more, but if you really want to hurt him back, just tell Mr. Fowles that it is insignificant.

It is over three decades since I first read The Magus, and probably more than two since re-reading. I remember the telling of a few of Conchis's moral dilemmas, relevant at and to any age. I remember too following in Urfe's footsteps feverishly trying to decipher all that was presented, coded, referenced, and in Latin, or not. And finally I smile, in affected condescension, at those who beg for explanation. Did Conchis not tell us that to take away the mystery is to deprive us? Oh, and by the way, I actually know what it all means. But, have no fear, I am chaste.

JerryG said no stars. Add my five, divide by zero.

This novel...
dear magi,
... is one of our favorite books of all time and, in our opinion, a true classic. It is the story of a young and arrogant Englishman who lands a teaching job on an island in Greece and is befriended by some of the local residents only to discover that they are playing "mind games" with him. However, unlike others of what we might call the Mind Game or Head Trip genre, these individuals are not psychos playing with his head for their own amusement but something quite else. There is in this a sense of the ancient Elysian mysteries recreated in modern times.
This is a brilliant novel. The movie, The Magus with Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, which is based upon the novel, is interesting, but like most movies made from books, is a poor shadow to the magic of the novel.
kyela,
the silver elves