The Magus by John Fowles
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.95 You Save: $11.04 (65%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.50 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Magus
Book Review: Dated and long
Summary: 4 Stars
In terms of involvement, I should have read this back when I was reading Hesse and I would have stayed numb and giddy with insight. It's a book of its time, when we were soul searching. I not only think Nicholas doesn't resonate with the present, I think, for all his internalizing, he is not a character whose situation is easy to relate to . . . now. Only Alison comes to life but then that is later undermined. The plot gets lost in an unbelieveable number of impossible coincidences and phantom-like characters. Still, I kept reading waiting for the eroticism to kick into gear (it doesn't), or to feel Nicholas surface above his narcissism . . . . I read it because it was mentioned in a recent review to Jennifer Egan's The Keep, which does fulfil its promise.Book Review: Whoa....whatta rollercoaster
Summary: 4 Stars
To be honest it was a struggle to get through the first 100 pages...not alot happens and I was skeptical it would pick up but once Nicholas got onto the island the fun begins! Alot of twists and turns and not knowing who to believe and what was real and what wasn't was just a joy to keep up with...you didn't want to put the book down as you knew something or someone would change and you just had to know who or what it was. The ending killed me as well...not in a bad way but in a way as if I was Nicholas himself and had gone through this experience personally instead of just reading it. Great fun and one that I will likely read again.Book Review: Eh...
Summary: 3 Stars
Fowles has written much better books; I would recommend this one only to people who already like reading him, and want to read even his weaker works. The book has some good moments, and one memorable setting, but that's not enough to sustain a 700 page novel. At half the length, it would have been a very impressive first novel, but...The basic premise is attractive: while conspiracies and webs of deceit are usually malicious, conspiracies _against_ someone, this book points out that (especially if you're a self-absorbed young man) it can be pretty cool to be the focus of a conspiracy of rich intelligent people, especially if one (or two or three) of them are beautiful and sexually uninhibited women.
But that's about it; the premise is there, the lovely Greek island is there, but they just sit there. We have 400 or so pages of slow setup, a couple hundred pages of slightly quicker development and mystery, and then a final hundred pages of dull thud as we find that after undergoing a novel's worth of life-changing experiences the protagonist hasn't changed perceptibly, and is still the basically uninteresting jerk he started out as.
The motivations of the conspirators are never really explained. Or rather the explanation is so implausible that it doesn't count; these people would not have gone to all that trouble for this guy.
So I got some nice images and new mental structures out of it, but I think my time would have been better spent elsewhere. It's hard to recommend a book when my first thought after finishing it was "whew, finally! Now I can go on and read something better."
The Latin passage at the end is from Pervigilium Veneris; Parnell's translation is "Let those love now who never loved before; Let those who always loved, now love the more." And that's not really a spoiler IMHO; we still don't know what happened... *8)
Book Review: UGH. Maybe it's because I'm a girl.
Summary: 3 Stars
I picked up "The Magus" two summers ago, in a lazy few weeks between ending work and going to grad school. The only thing I really enjoyed about this book was that it was like taking a trip to Greece, and it certainly made those weeks seem a lot longer.
basic, basic plot: Young British rake moves to Greek island to teach at a boys' school, having nothing else to do. Meets mysterious man who lures him with his wealth and various inexplicable happenings at his house. Psychological games and various unusual events ensue.
Out of fairness for this book, although I despised the main character for his subpar treatment of women and for not being a remotely sympathetic character, you WILL NOT see what is coming in this book. Fowles should be lauded for writing a book that is really not like anything I've ever read, and I found it utterly unpredictable.
Perhaps my main problem is that so many people over the years have told me how reading "The Magus" in younger years, often in the summer as it is quite long and demands time, proved to be a life-changing moment. It was not for me, but I think it must come from the theme of taking responsibility for your actions, and to realize that other people may be in on something that you cannot have access to because of your attitude. This is what I got out of it, but I would not be surprised if all of us came together with different takes on the ambiguous message of the story. It sometimes seems to me that men like this book in greater numbers than women. I have no explanation for this, aside from the obvious one about the ability to empathize with the main character, but that seems a bit too pat for a book that is built upon women acting as the tormentors of men, even when they appear to be the victim.
Book Review: not impressed
Summary: 2 Stars
i was not impressed with this book. the plot was a big mish mash. there was too much going on as far as action, and the plot was weak and the characters half baked. i had to read this for my book club and i feel i wasted a lot of time with a book that left me flat. not even the ending was interesting.