The Magus

John Fowles, 1965/1977 Datre Read: 3/1/23

First, a note: I read the "revised" version of this novel that was published in 1977. The author's note indicates there are significant differences between this version and the one originally published, so if you don't read the revised version yourself, my thoughts may not make sense.

This is a novel that is clearly meant to be very deep. It is chock full of literary and mythological references. Greek and Roman gods appear, people are referred to as Prospero or Iago, and there is even a scene reenacting one from Othello.

I'm not overly familiar with Shakespeare, so I didn't understand all of the references.

I don't want to spoil the plot or the story if you later choose to read this novel, and it is very difficult to share my thoughts without spoilers. Suffice it to say, this story is the embodiment of the phrase "you have to be cruel to be kind". It is also absolutely ludicrous and hysterically ridiculous.

I think the writer knew this, though, because he came very close to breaking the fourth wall:

...but all my life I had tried to turn life into fiction, to hold reality away; always I had acted as if a third person was watching and listening and giving me marks for good or bad behaviour - a god like a novelist, to whom I turned, like a character with the power to please, the sensitivity to feel slighted, the ability to adapt himself to whatever he believed the novelist-god wanted.

The main character and narrator, Nicholas, is a very averagely bad person. He's acutely normal. He probably/possibly did not deserve what is done to him, and I really didn't get any indication that it did any good. Again, I'm speaking in vague terms in order not to spoil the story.

You'll have to decide for yourself if you enjoy this novel. Online, I saw it is very much a case of you love it or you hate it. I'm not sure yet which one I fall into. It wasn't spectacular and I think it was meant to be deep but didn't actually achieve it. A lot of the reviews I read online (after finishing the novel, of course, not before) said they loved it when they were young but found it very trite as adults.