HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

The Magus: a revised version (1966)

by John Fowles

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
4,833902,288 (3.94)17
Nicholas Urfe accepts a teaching post on a beautiful, remote Greek island, in order to escape an unsatisfactory love affair. He meets the enigmatic Maurice Conchis, who introduces him to the exquisitely lovely Lily, his ideal of the perfect woman.
  1. 00
    The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton (charlie68)
    charlie68: A book where things aren't as they seem.
  2. 00
    Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (charlie68)
    charlie68: Ditto.
  3. 00
    Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (charlie68)
    charlie68: Also a book with dark undercurrents leading to a fantastic ending
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 17 mentions

English (88)  Hebrew (1)  Spanish (1)  All languages (90)
Showing 1-5 of 88 (next | show all)
8/10: Definitely one of the best recommendations I've received (Thanks, Rob West).
Brilliant prose and excellent pacing, the book takes off fast and continues an incredible pace. The mysteries are compelling and the romance captivating. The only weak point was part of the plot. The ending relies on all readers agreeing about The LOVE, which I clearly didn't. Not a big point and the ending still works.
Definitely recommended for you, by me... ( )
  MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 |
A fascinating book where everything not as it seems or is it. A play within a play and layers within layers. ( )
  charlie68 | Oct 22, 2022 |
Brilliant! one of my favorite books.. The Magus is one of those novels that you will either love or hate! 😛
A young British graduate Nicholas, unhappy with his unfulfilling daily routine, decides to move to Phraxos, a small Greek island. When leaving England, he calls to mind how he needs more mystery in his life... and guess what, you get what you ask for.
He instantly falls in love with the Greek landscape and in hate with his job as an English teacher. One day, while trying to escape his own feelings, he runs into a local eccentric millionaire Conchis, who is into ancient culture, hypnotism and psychological manipulations. Ever since meeting the old guy, `rich in forgotten powers and strange desires`, Nicholas gets a lot more confused about how life works.
Events start to take increasingly bizarre turns, which finally result in Nicholas' being kidnapped, confronted by a costumed tribunal and told that he has been the subject of a complex psychological experiment.
‘The Magus’ is a novel written by John Fowles and it is 600 pages filled with mystery, poetry, metaphysics and the occult. As Shakespeare once said, ‘ all the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances’.
“The Magus” is a cross between the “Lost” series and Freud’s psychoanalysis, and such a pleasure to read. It takes you to the places of your mind that you never knew existed, makes you want to dive deep into classical civilizations and keeps you up at night.
‘Let the one love tomorrow who has never loved, and let the one who has loved love tomorrow.’

This book can enrich the life of anyone who reads it.. It is a world that makes us reflect, attempt to understand the human condition, to understand life..❤️🙏🏼 ( )
1 vote kseniiiag | Apr 14, 2022 |
One of my favorites. Read it back in '97 when I was 21. Awe-inspiring. A lot of it probably went over my head, but I was enthralled. Kindle version will finally come out late in 2012. Seems like a good excuse to re-read this classic. Since so many of the literary, historical, and other allusions were meaningless to me, can't wait to read it again, with 15 years of life experience - and a smart phone in hand! ( )
2 vote usuallee | Oct 7, 2021 |
"The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself."

First written in 1965 and revised by Fowles in 1977 'The Magus' is a psycho-sexual fantasy. The story is told by Nicholas Urfe, a 25 year-old English man who takes a job as a teacher on the Greek island in 1953. Once on the island Nicholas encounters Conchis, a Greek millionaire, who ensnares him into a set of psychological games, masques and mysteries, where nothing and nobody is what they seem forcing Nicholas to question everything he has accepted about himself.

I realise that Nicholas isn't meant to be a sympathetic character but I found him so shallow and selfish that I didn't really care what was done to him next. This is a real problem when the story is written in first person, on one hand we are asked to believe that Nicholas was insightful whilst also being amazingly insular and ineffective.

Whilst I enjoyed reading about Conchis's back story, in particular during the Occupation, the introduction of Lily shifted the focus of the tale from him on to Nicholas's 'romance' with Lily just as it was getting interesting. I also found the ending unsatisfactory. Not whether Nicholas and Alison get back together again or not but rather what really was the point of it all, Nicholas certainly wasn't cured by the experience come the end.

"Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society."

This is a story that twists, turns and tantalises, is full of abstraction and some darkly disturbing images, often centring around sex, but personally I felt that it's lack of clarity only confused me so ultimately left me frustrated and disappointed. ( )
2 vote PilgrimJess | May 28, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 88 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Fowles, Johnprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Cartanega, SoledadForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Haglund, ErkkiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Peterson, MartinTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

Belongs to Publisher Series

Is a retelling of

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
I was born in 1927, the only child of middle-class parents, both English, and themselves born in the grotesquely elongated shadow, which they never rose sufficiently above history to leave, of that monstrous dwarf Queen Victoria.
Quotations
I acquired expensive habits and affected manners.  I got a third class degree and a first class illusion: that I was a poet.
Men see objects, women see the relationship between objects. ... It is an extra dimension of feeling we men are without and one that makes war abhorrent to all real women – and absurd. ... War is a psychosis caused by an inablity to see relationships.
This is true of all collecting. It extinguishes the moral instinct. The object finally possesses the possessor.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Please do not combine the revised version of The Magus with the original version. There are some differences between these two versions of the book. This is the revised version.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Nicholas Urfe accepts a teaching post on a beautiful, remote Greek island, in order to escape an unsatisfactory love affair. He meets the enigmatic Maurice Conchis, who introduces him to the exquisitely lovely Lily, his ideal of the perfect woman.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.94)
0.5 5
1 28
1.5 8
2 70
2.5 14
3 177
3.5 41
4 324
4.5 63
5 387

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 202,657,664 books! | Top bar: Always visible