The Magus (1965) is a postmodern novel by British author John Fowles, telling the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is teaching English on a small Greek island. Urfe becomes embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which become increasingly dark and serious. Considered an example of metafiction, it was the first novel written by Fowles but his second novel to be published. A revised edition was published in 1977.[1]
In 1999, The Magus was ranked on both lists of Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 93 on the editors' list and number 71 on the readers' list.[2] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 67 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[3]
Background
The Magus was the first book John Fowles wrote, but his third to be published, after The Collector (1963) and The Aristos (1964). He started writing it in the 1950s, under the original title of The Godgame. He based it partly on his experiences on the Greek island of Spetses, where he taught English for two years at the Anargyrios School.[1][4] He worked on it for twelve years before its publication in 1965. Despite critical and commercial success, he continued to rework it, publishing a final revision in 1977.
Plot summary
The story reflects the perspective of Nicholas Urfe, a young Oxford graduate and aspiring poet. After graduation, he briefly works as a teacher at a small school, but becomes bored and decides to leave England. While looking for another job, Nicholas takes up with Alison Kelly, an Australian girl he meets at a party in London. He goes on to accept a post teaching English at the Lord Byron School on the Greek island of Phraxos. After beginning his new post, he becomes bored, depressed, disillusioned and overwhelmed by his life on the Mediterranean island; Nicholas struggles with loneliness and contemplates suicide. While habitually wandering around the island, he stumbles upon an estate and soon meets its owner, Maurice Conchis, a wealthy Greek recluse. They develop a sort of friendship, and Conchis slowly reveals that he may have collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
Nicholas is gradually drawn into Conchis's psychological games, his paradoxical views on life, his mysterious persona and his eccentric masques. At first, Nicholas takes these machinations of Conchis, what the novel terms the "godgame", to be a joke, but they grow more elaborate and intense. Nicholas loses his ability to determine what is real and what is artifice. Against his will and knowledge, he becomes a performer in the godgame. Eventually, Nicholas realises that the re-enactments of the Nazi occupation, the absurd playlets after Sade, and the obscene parodies of Greek myths are not about Conchis's life, but his own.
Characters
Main
Nicholas Urfe – the protagonist, a 26-year-old Englishman who goes to Greece to teach English and one day stumbles upon "the waiting room"
Alison Kelly – Nicholas' recent Australian girlfriend, whom he abandons to go to Greece
Maurice Conchis – a wealthy intellectual who is a main player in the masques
Lily Montgomery / Julie Holmes / Vanessa Maxwell – a young woman who is involved in the masques and with whom Nicholas falls in love
Other
Joe – a young black American, involved in the masques
Maria – Conchis's maid
Demetriades – a fellow teacher at the school
Lily de Seitas (older) – Lily's mother
Rose de Seitas – Lily's identical twin sister
Benji de Seitas – the younger brother of the Seitas twins
Kemp – an unmarried woman who rents Nicholas a room in London
Jojo – a young girl whom Nicholas pays to accompany him
Story characters
de Deukans
Gustav Nygaard
Henrik Nygaard
Anton
Wimmel
Ending
The book ends indeterminately. Fowles received many letters from readers wanting to know which of the two apparently possible outcomes occur. He refused to answer the question conclusively, however, sometimes changing his answer to suit the inquirer. The novel ends quoting the refrain of the Pervigilium Veneris, an anonymous work of fourth-century Latin poetry, which has been taken as indicating the possible preferred resolution of the ending's ambiguity.[5]
Literary precedents
John Fowles wrote an article about his experiences in the island of Spetses and their influence on the book.[6] He acknowledged some literary works as influences in his foreword to the 1977 revised edition of The Magus, including Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, for showing a secret hidden world to be explored, and Richard Jefferies's Bevis (1882), for projecting a very different world. In the revised edition, Fowles referred to a "Miss Havisham", a likely reference to the character Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (1861).
Critical reception
"A major work of mounting tensions in which the human mind is the guinea-pig ... Mr. Fowles has taken a big swing at a difficult subject and his hits ... are on the bull's eye" (Sunday Telegraph)
"A deliciously toothsome celebration of wanton story-telling ... Before one quite realises what is happening, one finds oneself no less avid for meanings and no less starving amid a plethora of clues than is Nicholas himself" (Sunday Times)
In Jasper Fforde's comic detective novel The Well of Lost Plots (part of the Thursday Next series), The Magus wins the "Most Incomprehensible Plot" Award at the annual "Bookie" Awards, the awards programme that characters in literature give one another.
The novel was adapted for film with a screenplay by Fowles, directed by Guy Green, and released in 1968. It starred Michael Caine as Nicholas Urfe, Anthony Quinn as Maurice Conchis, Anna Karina as Alison, Candice Bergen as Lily / Julie, and Julian Glover as Anton. It was filmed on the island of Majorca. The adaptation generally was considered a failure as film; when Peter Sellers was asked whether he would make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied, "I would do everything exactly the same except I wouldn't see The Magus."[7][a]
Caine said that it was one of the worst films in which he had been involved because no one knew what it was about. Despite the critical failure, the film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast in 2016 a dramatization by Adrian Hodges, with Charles Dance in the role of Conchis.[8]
In 2020, a new television miniseries adaptation of The Magus was announced to be in development at Neal Street Productions, with Johan Renck being looked at to direct based on a screenplay written by Tom Edge.[9]
Notes
^Peter Sellers' comment is frequently misattributed to Woody Allen.
^Fowles, John (Spring 1996). "Behind The Magus". Twentieth Century Literature. John Fowles issue. Hofstra University. p. 4. Archived from the original on 20 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2016 – via FindArticles.com.
^Goldman, William (1983). Adventures in the Screen Trade. New York: Warner Books. p. 227. ISBN0446512737.
