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Summary: The best book I've read
Review: The Magus is awesome--an utterly engrossing and fascinating read. John Fowles literally creates another world, and host of flesh and blood inhabitants. My one complaint is the liberal use of French and the lack of translations; its arrogant of the author to assume that all educated readers today have a basic knowledge of French. Other than that, I can't praise the novel highly enough.
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Summary: Thinking individuals MUST read this book
Review: You can read the official review above... Nicholas becomes "a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life" in my humble opinion, there is something in this book for everyone...this is a book that I wish I could read again for the first time :o) hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Summary: A Psychological Mess
Review: "A man trapped in a millionaire's deadly game of political and sexual betrayal. . ." What the hell are they talking about? The only thing trapped in this long-winded, slow-motion, so-called suspense novel is the reader! (Did I mention long-winded?) The reader, dragged through hundreds of pages of meaningless innuendo accompanied by pretentious pseudo-eroticism, cries out "For the love of God, GET ON WITH IT!" Perhaps the most entertaining bit of this 600+(!) page tome is the setting - mysterious, bucolic, etc., altogether well-chosen for what Fowles was (presumably) trying to achieve in his novel. Nevertheless, a good setting alone cannot rescue this overrated work.
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Summary: A Jungian Tempest on the island of Phraxos
Review: I can't say with certainty that Fowles' novel is my absolute favorite of the many novels I've read, but it probably is. No other book resonates with me the way The Magus does, and one of the reasons for this is that I have much in common with the story's narrator, Nicholas Urfe. In essence, Nicholas is a young man who yearns for a more distinguished, less conventional life. Sickened and alienated by the banalities of his childhood, his formal education, and the preprogrammed destiny of the English middle class, Nicholas contrives to "escape" from whom he believes himself to be. To this end, he creates, for himself and others, a fictional self: a rootless young rebel/intellectual who is honor-bound to live his life and indulge his worldly appetites to the fullest, regardless of the consequences to others. Fowles very masterfully sums up Nicholas' twisted, masculinist worldview, and the evolution of his refined selfishness with its patina of intellectual justification, in the first two or three pages of the book. The rest of the novel is concerned with the unraveling of Nicholas' false self, and the painful emergence of a newer, more mature and emotionally honest personality. This unraveling, of course, comes through the otherworldly intervention of a reclusive Greek millionaire named Maurice Conchis (a pun on 'More Conscious'?). I don't think a plot summary is necessary here, but I will say that Fowles' spellbinding narrative, his lush layering of details and psychological twists and double-takes, makes Nicholas' adventures under the spell of Conchis a riveting experience for the reader, despite the smattering of literary pretension tossed into the mix. Fowles is perhaps a bit to smug with his Latin and French epigrams, his too-casual way of name-dropping composers, artists and prominent intellectuals, and the pat, perfect sermons of his otherwise plausible Mr. Conchis that at times make a compelling character into an intellectual puppet, a mere mouthpiece for an author's literary agenda. This is a fundamental flaw in a novel as concerned with concepts of freedom as The Magus. Nevertheless, the novel holds up as a suspenseful foray into an exotic, engaging realm; the remote Greek island of Phraxos is made as real as any place one is likely to encounter in the realm of fiction, and one can't help but envy Nicholas Urfe's trials. We should all be so lucky as to have our flaws so dramatically and instructively revealed to us, and in so lovely a place.
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Summary: truth is where you find it
Review: Fowles devilishly leads the reader by the nose,just as Conchis seduces Urfe,into seeking the answer to the question,"just what is really going on around here anyway?".Pull back the veils to get a better look.Peel that onion.Oh yeah,it ALL makes sense now.Oops,should have read the fine print in the form of t.s.eliot's "we shall not cease from...". Just like Urfe,we struggle with the questions and plead for the answers.Read the book,see the movie(screenplay by Fowles),and go round the circle one more time.
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Summary: A Psychological Chess
Review: Mysterious, enchanting and very clever. The reader is invited to play a psychological chess with Conchis and Fowles.
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Summary: this book is amazing, at so many levels
Review: This book was wonderful -- definately 5 stars. It creates a world within a world, and throughout the reading, it is difficult to know what is real, and what is pretend. So many things are warped, you will want to read it until the end. My favorite quote from the novel: "men see objects, women see the relationship between objects. whether the objects need each other, love each other, match each other. it is an extra dimension of feeling we men are without and one that makes war abhorrent to all women - and absurd." enjoy it.
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Summary: Incredibly Transcends the Normality of Reality
Review: I am writing this review after reading The Magus for the second time (three years apart). As many reviews have said already, it is a truly astounding work. For me (as Fowles indicates in his recent introduction of the 1998 edition), it can serve as therapy and companion to one trying to unravel the weight of social morality in a shifting culture. 1953 seemed very much like the 80's and 90's for me from reading the book. His instinctual use of primal metaphors to describe banal situations creates the mystique that the novel never drops. For me, the second reading was as invigorating as the first. I was never bothered by not knowing where it was going. In fact, that aspect was a reassuring feeling that it mimicked reality in every sense. I am elect. I have known hazard, but not embraced it as I did after reading this. The masque is everywhere, penetrating the sublime nature of the roles we play and the context of their relations. The objects that we desire are entangled in the linkages that they are weaved into which is our very being. The Jungian deconstruction of Nicholas allows one to reconstruct their own multiplicity, if not by simile than by contrast. Read this, and engage the world with a new perspective forever. This may scare some, and excite others. From this, we may truly know the meaning of Hazard.
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Summary: The most thought-provoking novel of my lifetime.
Review: If you want to be pulled into a story and find yourself constantly reviewing the twists, turns and characters, long after you've finished it, then this is your present to yourself. You will believe that the events are happening and you won't have a clue as to what will become of the main characters until the last paragraph. It captures the senses like no other novel in modern history. If you want to learn how a man transends himself and becomes a wiser. loving human then you will thoroughly enjoy this experience. I've read it three times!
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Summary: A startingly Human Revelation
Review: I found the Magus to be quite interesting. As a High School student I can relate well, to the main charachter, but I thought that although the plot line was lacking and at some points the book got redundent, it was never the less a worth while book. I think the insites into the human nature are acute and to the point, but the main charachter could use some more backstory development.....
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