The Magus

Rating:
Summary: You either love it or hate it -- and I hated it
Review: It starts off so strongly, so promisingly: Nick, a young British man, alone in the world, able to do whatever he wants. He drinks too much, sleeps around with a lot of women, lies his way into bed. Then he takes a teaching post at a remote Greek island, where he gets an inordinate amount of free time. And he makes a friend of the eccentric billionaire living on the other side of the island, and the sweet nymphettes who live there as well.

But after a while it gets so boring. After about page 300 you'll do one of three things: stay up all night reading it because you love it, stay up all night to finish the thing so you can say you read it, or you'll chuck the book into the recycling bin. Conchis says in the book something to the effect that he gave up reading fiction because he found in 500-odd pages only a dozen half-truths. He couldn't have been more right about The Magus. Fowles makes some startling observations, then pounds them repeatedly into our skulls until we're more zombielike than Nick the Clueless.

I'm glad I read this so that I can tell my enemies to read it so they'll never talk to me again.

Rating:
Summary: The God Game
Review: At twenty-four I haven't read a book that spoke so directly to me or encapsulated so thoroughly the maturity level and mindset of a particular age since I read The Catcher in the Rye at age seventeen. As a work of fiction The Magus works on every level. It can be read as popular fiction or as supreme literature. Filled with twists and turns, the intense sence of mystery and intrigue propels the narrative quickly through it's 600 plus pages, finishing with a thoroughly rewarding conclusion (read the revised version). Some people complain about the length of the novel, but I enjoyed the length, and found that it lent to the effect of the book brilliantly. The Magus is as entertaining as it is thought provoking, and is flat out one of the best books I've ever read, belonging on the list of literary rites of passage along with the best of Salinger, Heller, Nobokov, and Orwell. In defense against those who rated the book two stars or less, and felt "decieved" by the end, I leave you with a quote from Nicholas Urfe: "How could they be so cold, so inhuman -- so incurious? So load the dice and yet leave the game?"

Rating:
Summary: Psyco Thriller Extradonaire
Review: This is one of the most amazing books I've ever read. Fowles is a master of human psycology and uses it to create a modern classic.

Rating:
Summary: The Magus' Magic
Review: I had always thought of myself as an avid and intelligent reader of intelligent novels, but I realized I was wrong after I read The Magus. This book, still my favorite of John Fowles' work, really brings the reader into another dimension, when the characters are swept into a labrynth of lies and conundrums galore. However incredible this book is, though, BEWARE! The Magus does have a large amount of fairly advanced references, and a reader might be lost without having a relatively strong educational background. Otherwise, The Magus is an amazing work of art, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: The Magus
Review: After rumaging through Modern Libraries top 100 for a good book to read a few months ago, I picked up an old copy of the Magus at a used book store, and loved it. The Magus works as both popular fiction and supreme literature, and I think it is something any twenty-something would enjoy reading. I have one problem though. My old copy was published in 1970, and while I was finishing the last twenty pages I found myself browsing through chapters and decided to finish one of their new copies of the book. After reading it, I found it so thought provoking and enjoyable, that I came home and reread the ending and was surprised to find subtle but very significant changes were made, leading to a completely opposite ending to the up to date publication I read in chapters. Both endings work very well, and both are equally satisfying. However, I found myself wondering when and why the ending was changed.

Rating:
Summary: Not for me
Review: The very first pages had me thinking, "Hmm, this is pretty well written". Into the second half of the book I began to get frustrated with it. Some parts I liked. But it got to the point where I kept on reading just to find out what the hell this story, this book, was all about. At one point, things got so ludicrous, I was thinking "What the hell am I reading?". And the ending, when I finally got to it, left me dissatisfied and feeling deceived, and I was not altogether surprised by that.

This is a book which sets you up, makes you wonder what is going on, keeps you turning the pages in search of answers, and essentially repeats this pattern ad nauseum, dragging you on, until, at long last you reach the end of the book, with nothing at all explained. A literary wild goose chase.

I have a tendency to keep most books I've read, but this one is easily going to a second-hand bookstore. I felt the book and the author wasted my time.

Rating:
Summary: The World's top 100, my top 1
Review: I felt compelled to write this after reading so many negative reviews about Fowles' masterpiece. While Fowles' himself has admitted the novel is overly complex, I think any reader would be missing out if they did not attempt reading "The Magus."
As a student I have been forced for years to comment on the literary credentials of a novel, but this is the first novel which I have ever read that I honestly enjoyed the text. Not as much what Fowles says but how he says it. Never in my life have I encountered a novel so beautifully written that made me think so much as "The Magus" has. The novel tells of Nicholas, a young man who finds himself questioning his life when he encounters Conchis, the Magus (ie the sorceror)who through trickery and deception, teaches Nick both about himself and the world around him.

Now I'm not going to say that the novel isn't confusing, because it drove me mad trying to work out what it means (a curse of being a student) and although it does sound like a cop out, I don't think there is a set meaning, it's a book that is entirely up to the reader's personal interpretation, and I think that scares a lot of people. The romantic inside me probably thinks it's about love. The novel shows Nicholas as a hedonistic, manipulative womaniser at the outset of the novel, who as a consequence of the spiritual journey that he embarks upon, realises the fragility of the human heart and more importantly the fact that he needs people. I think this brings light to the last line of the novel (annoyingly in latin, leading to many a sleepless night.) However, the other part of me thinks that the novel is about humanity. It exposes the weakness of human beings showing that all our lives we look for something... a sense of meaning, a purpose, some answer that will complete our lives. However when this answer suddenly appears, (usually to the outcome that there is no answer), we cannot accept this and therefore cling to the pre developed society around us, which although is lacking and heavilly flawed, we cannot cope without. I guess that goes back to the whole love thing; we need something, anything... and we will allow ourselves to be blind to all its flaws because we cannot exist without it.

I admit that the novel is at times hard going, and more than once I had to get my dictionary out (english, french and latin) but I was so glad I did because it was totally worth it. Yes, it is probally Fowles' sloppyest novel, but that doesn't mean its not his best. Other critics have called has thoughts pretentious, but i honestly thought his words were beautiful and thought - provoking.

In essense, it's a novel which you will either love or hate. If your finding it hard then give it until he meets Conchis and then admit defeat, because if you don't like it by then, your never going to. If, however, you're hooked by the first page then I guarantee that this novel is going to make it into one of your favourite books of all time, too, so keep going and you won't be disappointed.

I must admit I'm one of those impatient people who skip to the back of the novel before they start reading, and thats what really got me. I'm not spoiling the story (as if you could) by putting this in so this is how it ends:

"A blackbird, sings out of season form the willows by the lake. Aflight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves."

"Let those love now who've never loved; let those who've loved, love yet again."

Simply, if this doesn't make you want to read the book then don't, but if it does, then don't be put off by its thickness, because it's worth every page!!!

Rating:
Summary: You're better off with Shakespeare
Review: If you want to read a book about a genius/lunatic living on an island with his beautiful female companions, and the mind games he plays with the lesser mortals who happen his way, then go and read "The Tempest".

Aside from being a much more cogent work, it's a hell of a lot shorter than "The Magus".

Rating:
Summary: Not for me
Review: I really disliked this book, which I found longwinded, pretentious, fraudulant and in the end silly. But I'm unreasonably bitter towards it since I stopped enjoying it inside the first hundred pages, yet continued to struggle through the remaining 500 or so pages towards the ending.

Nonetheless, I know a lot of people who loved this book. They were more accepting then I was of the themes of space- and time-travel and mind-expansion that the novel touches on...

If you are interested in a clever novel of ideas and history, and can put up with a lot of trickiness and would-be profoundity from the author, then you might enjoy this book. Just try to remember that "The Magus" is neither as clever nor as profound as it thinks it is.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book of All Time
Review: The Magus is by far my favorite book of all time! This mystery, set in the isles of Greece, is riveting. Fowles writes with mastery and plays tricks on the reader that parallel the tricks being played on the main character. This is a long book, but you won't want it to end.