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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Magus by John Fowles(r)

All Acting Regiment

19:50 / 04.04.04

I hope some people here have read this book. I have to say it's one of those that really makes you sit up. For those who haven't, its about a young English teacher who goes to a greek island wherein lives a mysterious man. But i really cant put across just how strange and beautiful this book is. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

00:47 / 05.04.04

I've read 'The French Lietenant's Woman', which is pretty good.

Without giving too much away-- what whas your favorite aspect of this novel?

00:50 / 05.04.04

Can you tell me more about what it was in the book that you found appealing? It had a strong reco. from somebody trustworthy, but has been languishing in the bathroom for more than a month, and I manage to put away a few more pages each time I take a crap. About 50 pages from the end now.

There's a white guy who doesn't appreciate his girlfriend, who is also white. The writing's like R. Firbank, but not funny or strange. That's all I got from it, though I am open to the idea that there is something I didn't understand and should take a second look at, if you'll give me some pointers as to where I should look. A particular passage or scene I should reconsider?

All Acting Regiment

11:24 / 05.04.04

Um...I really didn't pick up on the racial element you're talking there, but I could be wrong.

01:28 / 06.04.04

Damn, I read that book ages ago, thought it was excellent, but now as I sit here typing this all I can remember is the main villain type guy getting up every morning and raising his arms and saying KA!

Read it cause I had just read the Collector in an english literature class, kind of a freaky book, same author, about a guy who collects butterfly's, wins some money in a football pool, buys a house with a house in the back and kidnaps a girl and holds her captive. Told in his perspective and then in hers, but from what I remember most of the time when reading her version of events I kept thinking, duh, thats what I figured she was thinking when I was reading it from his view. Good book tho. I think they made it into a movie? I think there is a comment about it in that issue of Sandman with the guest appearance of Chris Carter from TG in it.

00:29 / 07.04.04

Chris: Precisely.

13:16 / 07.04.04

I liked the Magus, but then I'm a white guy, so there you go. I didn't find it very beautiful. I think it was about an intensely unpleasant young man having an intensely unpleasant summer. The interesting part for me was the way whichever narrative Conchis (har har, "Conchis"!) had presented at the time totally shaped whatsisname's outlook.

13:23 / 07.04.04

(damn those white people and their mediocre novels... *shakes fist*)

The Timaximus, The!

03:20 / 31.01.05

Several years ago I read my library's copy of the original edition of The Magus and quite liked it, but when I went to purchase my own copy, all I could find was the revised version. I bought it anyway, but today I finally found the original in paperback, and I'd like to reread it pretty soon. However, I'm now torn. Should I reread the one I already know, or should I go for the author's preferred text? Does anyone who's read both care to push me one way or the other?

12:44 / 01.02.05

There was a bit in William Burroughs's "Cities of the Red Night" where a character would loan people a copy of "The Magus" as some kind of test based on their reactions (how much to trust them with certain kinds of information, etc.). This particular part of the story was an occult-tinged missing person/murder investigation on an island in Greece, but the significance of "The Magus" in particular is never really explained (aside from the common setting). Any ideas, from those of you who've read it?

~L

15:00 / 01.02.05

Well the story of the Magus is roughly that -- a wealthy, older eccentric manipulates a younger man teaching English (I think?) in Greece. Uses a number of special effects, and confederates, to do so. All of which had some kind of point, but it eluded me.

All Acting Regiment

19:50 / 01.02.05

In answer to the above thread, I'd say that there isn't a difference in quality...just quantity. You get more, scenes go on longer etc.

Uses a number of special effects, and confederates, to do so. All of which had some kind of point, but it eluded me.

I think the point was that each little vignette the English guy is exposed to presents a conflict between good and evil in one way or another, or perhaps just conflict in general. To wit- the horny satyr and the virginal girl.This is basically what an author does, so Conchis the hermetic millionaire is using his means to act as an Uber-author create a living meta-novel(or theatre as he calls it).

A bit like the invisibles in some respects, but that's just one view.

22:57 / 01.02.05

Now you see, I'd quite missed that. Thanks.

14:22 / 02.02.05

Legba, thank you. That meta-Author interpretation ties in directly to a lot of the ideas Burroughs illustrates in CotRN. This in mind, I'll take another look at that section.

~L

10:44 / 07.02.05

See, I thought it was about an old pervert bringing a feckless young nihilist around to a religious worldview. I think of the last seen, where he feels he's being watched, compared to the early scenes where he's alone in the crowd.

22:36 / 25.02.05

I'm on page 350! Don't tell how it ends!

Yeah, great so far. the best angle is the way it deals with magikal subjects, such as how beleif creates reality, without ever needing to get "supernatural" Is Conchis' domain his personal magical reality? Is his game theatrical or a psychological experiment? what is the labyrinth?

The main character is an asshole (more chauvenist than racist, but there is one scene..."I'm not a racilist, at least not in my own oppinion.") and a liar.

an rich old man with his own private retreat decides to fuck with his head. It freaks him out but he's so intrigued by the wierdness he keeps coming back. then the old man intoduces a woman to him who may be a) an actress playing the old man's first love b) a schitzophrenic pathological liar or c) on of several co conspititors

all about a man who skillfully manipulates reality. Totally magic, and to hell with th occult. A real page turner.

23:16 / 03.03.05

Without spoiling anything, the perfect illustration through practice of what any occultist is reffering to to by the term "psychodrama".

21:02 / 16.04.05

I'm about 300 pages into it and I am bored. This is coming from the guy who read The French Lieutenant's Woman in just under three days. I went head over heels for that novel, but maybe that's because I'm a huge fan of metafiction and et cetera. The Magus is just boring me right now. I agree with above posters that this is a book about a nasty young man having a nasty summer. It's like Bret Easton Ellis without any emotional detachment (and this is a bad thing).

01:23 / 17.04.05

Hmmm. I read this a long time ago, and wanked at the bondage bits. I think. I'll have to track it down and check them again...

18:15 / 07.11.05

Noted white author John Fowles dies at 79.

02:45 / 08.11.05

Shocking. I am saddened.

All Acting Regiment

05:36 / 08.11.05

Yeah, it's a shame he died after an illness. On the other hand he's had a very productive life.

08:50 / 08.11.05

One of the best things that I ever read was not Fowles' own book, but an interview with him, conducted by a couple of PhD students (if I remember rightly). They were amazed by his books (as am I!), and asked him how on Earth he managed to write such a work of genius as The Collector as a first book. To which he replied that it was not his first book at all. It was his thirteenth-- it was only that The Collector was the first book that the publishers did not reject. This is a reassuring story for anyone, I believe à la Robert the Bruce.

I had always heard legends of his working as a curator in a small museum in Lyme Regis, and intended one day to go and pay homage.

07:15 / 13.04.08

So, I've not read this before and am now, and wow, I really would like Nicholas to get a nice kicking sometime in the next forty pages. He's nearly exactly like James Bond without the ability to have things explode or get shot around him so we can ignore what a misogynistic conceited ass he is. Not that anyone else is much better. But it's an entertaining read for all that it makes me incredibly judgmental, and I'll just pretend the racism, the misogyny, and the awkward framing of every scene, the opaque direction and construction, are all intentional and therefore witty and interesting. I think they mostly are, actually.

All Acting Regiment

12:42 / 13.04.08

Yeah - Nicholas, when being an idiot/evil, is one of the best idiot/evil narrators in the 20th century novel, I think - even approaching Humbert Humbert and Doctor Kinbote.

09:29 / 14.04.08

It's a long time since I read The Magus but I definitely enjoyed it, although as per usual I wouldn't claim to have understood anywhere near fully. My memory tells me that the Magus is somehow in league with some girl that the narrator treated badly in the past and has decided to help her teach him some kind of lesson - is that right or did I just make it up?
I do remember being uncomfortable with some of the thoughts that the narrator put forward on race although I can't remember specifically what he said or did. Was it something to do with him being shocked by an interracial relationship? Whatever it was, presumably the thoughts are those of the narrator rather than the author but I remember finding them strange at the time. Maybe I'm a more sophisticated reader these days and would find it easier to separate the two voices whereas back then perhaps I struggled with a novel where the main character was so hard to identify with.
I don't remember that bit in Cities of The Red Night at all, interesting though, I wonder why Burroughs picked The Magus. Can't suggest a reason I'm afraid but thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Regarding Fowles' other novels, I think it's more than possible to enjoy some of his books and hate others as they are all so different and I think I remember reading that he makes a conscious decision to write in different styles with different voices. Despite enjoying The Collector, TFLW and The Magus I remember being horribly frustrated by another of his novels called, I think, Daniel Martin, which was recommended to me by someone as his best. It was filled with loads and loads of analysis by the central character of what people think and why they think it and it really became quite annoying by the end.

14:50 / 15.04.08

I just read The Magus for the first time last year, and I've got to agree...I'm not sure what the last book was that so made me want to give the main character a good ass-kicking.