The Magus

[Christine]

Has anyone else here read this turd? IN my opinion the author completely blew it. He had all the makings of a fantastic novel - if only he'd been as interested in telling a great story as he was in creating "great literature."

I would love to have seen this plot in the hands of Donna Tartt or even Jonathan Lethem...

[Vanessa]

I read it almost twenty years ago because I had it recommended to me by a friend as "the most amzing book I've ever read." Even then, barely out of my teens, this novel read like something a teenaged or fairly immature young man might have written - basically a sexual fantasy-adventure for the twenty-something male protagonist. Basically, bored and bitter college graduate has fling with Australia stewardess who is crazy about him, dumps her when he goes off to Greece to teach, then becomes embroiled in some giant head-f*ck ritual with some weird old guy and twin sisters that look like Claudia Schiffer (or other interchangeable blond catwalk model) who play all sorts of mind games with him, get him all wound up and horny only to leave him hanging. At the end when it is all resolved and he has the choice of going back with the Aussie stewardess or the blonde, supermodel, perpetually unavailable c*ck-tease, our immature dude (who apparently, still has not learned his lesson) admits that he wants to have his grey matter scrambled a little bit more by model-chick. Ah, c'est la vie.

The only thing missing from this male fantasy - a sex scene with both sisters at once.

[Ann M]

I agree with Vanessa. It was recommended to me by a 40-something guy, who lived entirely in his head, and who'd read it in his 20s. Boorrrringgg.

[Marsha]

I also loved The Magus. Read the original version and also Fowles' revised version.

[Kay]

I liked it, but I read it when I was twenty-something and I have always thought 'don't go back, you can never go back' about certain books:

Watership Down
The Magus
Stranger in a Strange Land
A Confederacy of Dunces.


And so far, I think I've been right - I did go back to SSL and it was the wrong thing to do. It destroyed a book I'd remembered with such pleasure. Time and people move on, but books don't.

PS - I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany, Sherri and I only read that one last year!

[Xysea]

Wow, I've never read the Magus. I'm torn between a bizarre kind of curiosity and a rather strong sense of trepidation. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment because I feel I should read it now. lol

[Cassiel]

I've read John Fowles' more straightforward novels, and was quite surprised by this book when I read it last winter. I had utterly no preconceived ideas about it, hadn't even heard of it.
I enjoyed it; it reminded me a lot of trippy 60s television (The Prisoner). While I didn't come away from it with any deep insights, I would recommend it, if only to round out reading Fowles' work.