The Magus [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This is a book encompassing just about every other book you will ever read. It is about thruth and imagination, about the limit between reality and fiction, theatre and real life. About youth, about wisdom, about god and faith, about braveness and treachery. But most of all, following me, about love. How one has to protect it and defend it. About the strugle and the suffering once you've lost it... We are all little Urfe's, Fowles' art consists of making you feel this story was written just for you.

When Nicholas rejects Allison in Athenes, we, male readers, pity her but think that this is the way things often go in adolescent relationships. Nicholas probably feels the same. And yet, as the stage is being set up to show him among so many other things the cruelty of his deeds, we start just like him to regret the way things happened and the way we thought about them. And like often the case, this ultimate enlightment might come to late...but then again maybe not,...

Just simply the most enriching book i've read so far

On the whole it's well written, with stronger prose than structure. I think its depth in the examination of hedonism is quite remarkable, and the presentation fluidous and occasionally witty in the English way. I guess my ultimate compliment is that the book is better than any of the Lawrence I've read.

The weaknesses of the novel are

1) a relatively stale plot: the setting and dynamics of interactions, while exotic, are monochromatic;

2) verbosity and repetiveness: while each episode differs in outward texture, the protagonist doesn't seem to reveal new feelings as the drama progresses; it gets dull after Nick gets to kiss Julie.

3) unevenness in dramatization: Some of the dramas are quite exciting and original, such as the religiously fanatic Henrik. Others tend to be run-of-the-mill and follow third-rate scripts, such as the WWI experience, and the execution of the hostages (these are scenes I could have written, or at least conceived).

4) Lack of character development. Conchis I can designate as the true schzephreniac here, and don't demand understanding. But a disappointment to me is Fowles' failure to establish a certain bond of sympathy to Nicklas. Nick's lack of texture is a major reason that the novel failed to grip me in a personal way (compare Nick to Dostoevsky's Raskolnokov should indicate Fowles's shortcomings -- Fowles overdid Nick's sexual desire and hence made him more or less one-dimensional, steroetypical). From this lack of full characterization stems a whole range of issues regarding some unconvincing episodes such as Alison's suicide, and Julie's later affair etc, because Fowles hasn't shown the reader just where Nicklas is loveable, his sensitivity, vulnerability, animal appeal, cynicism? Not sufficient clue is given.

As to the intellectual credit given to the novel, I tend to side with Fowles himself that those loose ends or high-actane storyline are more an indication of a young writer not knowing what he was doing than deliberate puzzles with definitive answers. That Fowles wrote them is a credit to his artistic temperament, not to his intellectual virtuosity.

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.