The Magus by John Fowles (1966) — novel #251

Creepy! Creepy and suspenseful. I couldn’t put it down.

The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed. ~ Maurice Conchis, who is, the magus.

• The Magus by John Fowles
• Postmodern novel, mystery, suspense
• Published: 1966
• Revised version: 1977 with a foreword by the author
• Little, Brown and Company (eBook)
• Setting: England and Greece, 1953
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): The French Lieutenant’s Woman; The Collector

 

 

Novel 21 of 50 of The Classics Club Challenge Round IV and my “spin” book for The Classics Club Spin #43

 

My rating 4/5 stars

 

 

I said it was creepy. At first it is rather pedestrian back story. But that doesn’t last long. When the story moves to Greece, it gets creepy fast. Then maddening, then terrifying, all the while confusing, and when I’d almost given up, perhaps…redeeming?

 

Nicholas Urfe is young, middle class, English: his father is a brigadier, and according to Nicholas… 

my mother was the very model of a would-be major-general’s wife.

Nice! See what he did there?

 

Nicholas is a decent chap, Oxford grad, bit of a cavalier with the ladies, bored and without direction. He doesn’t precisely rebel against his parents or England, but he wants something different, and decides on a position in Greece, teaching English at a boys school on the fictional island Phraxos, (actual island Spetses). In his wandering, he discovers the secluded estate of a wealthy Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis. Colleagues and locals warn Nicholas away, and tell him Conchis is unapproachable, yet the first time Nicholas approaches the estate he is welcomed as if expected. The host, Conchis, is mysterious, charming, and intelligent. According to Nicholas…

He was obviously a man who rarely smiled. There was something mask-like, emotion-purged, about his face.

Conchis is highly intuitive, claims to be psychic, and seems to be playing mind-games with Nicholas. God games actually, and Nicholas’ life begins to spin slowly out of control.

 

It took me right up until the end to decide that I liked this book. Though, I was hooked at Conchis first appearance. I knew he was creepy, perhaps dangerous, but he was fascinating. And then there is a cast of characters: literally characters playing parts for Conchis. Nicholas knows they are, usually acting, but are they willing minions, coerced dupes, hypnotized subjects, paid actors, or maybe even schizophrenic? One of them happens to be a beautiful young woman, Lily, or Julie, or Vanessa. There are actually two beautiful young women, the other being Lily's twin. But Nicholas is only obsessed with the Lily, whatever her name is. Time and again, Nicholas confronts them, the twins particularly, and they seem to come clean. Nicholas, along with the reader, exhales a giant sigh of relief, and then…WHAM! Another bizarre turn.

 

Near the end I was getting a bit fed up with Fowles. I’m OK with a brilliant madman character, even a brilliant evil madman, but I was far from certain Conchis was any of that and as a spectator, I was hooked on the drama, but I couldn’t imagine the author’s point. Very near the end, when the God game is very nearly done, when Nicholas and the reader thinks it IS done, Conchis tells Nicholas...

Learn to smile, Nicholas. Learn to smile.

Nicholas should have punched him.

 

But I didn’t yet understand. I don’t approve of Conchis’ methods. You have to believe that the end justifies the means to approve, and I don’t. But I can accept that Conchis believed that. I’m not certain Fowles does. He called The Magus a “Rorschach test in psychology”. That seems about right. He also said “…there is no given ‘right’ reaction.”

 

I wouldn’t recommend it for young readers. There are a few spots that would definitely be "R" rated. If you like psychological terror or suspense, you might love this. If you dislike ambiguous endings, you may not like it, although…

 

I definitely recommend the 1977 revised version. Fowles responded to complaints about the ambiguous ending. In the foreword to the 1977 version he explains: 

I accept that I might have declared a preferred aftermath less ambiguously…and now have done so.

The ending is still ever so slightly ambiguous. However, I am convinced that what happens next is exactly what the reader is hoping for, and the end that in Conchis’ mind justified his means. It ends with a French saying, that can be translated:

Let those love now who’ve never loved;

Let those who’ve loved, love yet again.

Sort of an aside: Nicholas has three girls that he “loves” in this book: Allison, he carelessly breaks her heart before leaving England; Julie on Phraxos; and Jojo back in Jolly Old England. I doubt Nicholas would say he ever loved Jojo, but I say he did. He never slept with her, though she was willing. He unburdens himself on her, rehearses the recent follies of his life. Nicholas says of Jojo… 

She was the strangest priest to confess before; but not the worst. For she absolved me

I enjoyed this novel very much, more than my other reads of Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Collector. Have you read The Magus? Fowles? What did you think.

 

BTW, I've changed my review format. Feedback is appreciated. 

 

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A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (novel #207)

…he [Mr. Biswas] had thought profoundly and with
despair of the future.

 

Mohun Biswas is the son of Indian immigrants in Trinidad. The story begins with his birth, probably late 1920s, early 1930s. The story doesn’t begin well. A Hindu pundit gives a not very promising prophecy about the child, and it is considered a bad omen that he is born breech with an extra finger.

 

It never gets much better.

 

The story is set in Trinidad, but it feels more like India, as Mr. Biswas and his family keep pretty well within the Indian community in Trinidad. (Mr. Biswas is reportedly based on Naipaul’s father.)

 

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this review. I didn’t care for this story. There isn’t one admirable person in it. A few are pitiable, like Mr. Biswas, who is never contented, never happy. Life isn’t working out for him, and it’s always someone else’s fault.

 

Blech!

 

Mr. Biswas tries to rise above his lot in life, but he does it so foolishly that it never works out, and it’s hard even to feel too sorry for him. He is married, almost by accident, to a woman he nearly despises and lives with her family, where he is constantly reminded of his worthlessness and dependence on their patronage.

 

He could go to Hanuman House whenever he wished and become lost in the crowd, since he was treated with indifference rather than hostility.

 

He had spent all his life among people without even thinking that he might be afraid of them.

 

He tries several times to build or buy a home of his own. He eventually succeeds, but it is poorly constructed, not worth what he pays, and more than he can afford. He still isn’t happy.

 

Living had always been a preparation, a waiting. And so the years passed; and now there was nothing to wait for.

 

I don’t think I comprehended Naipaul’s message unless it was contempt for his people.

 

This is the first time I’ve read A House for Mr. Biswas. I’ve read one other work by Naipaul, A Bend in the River, which I didn’t love either. I’ve read that Naipaul’s early works were “wistfully comic.” I hope that doesn’t refer to this one. Wistful? Perhaps, but not comic. He does write well. For that, I give A House for Mr. Biswas…

 

 

My rating:  3 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

This novel satisfies Black, Indigenous, Person of Color Author category in the Back to the Classics 2022Challenge.

 

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Deliverance by James Dickey (96 down, 4 to go)

There was a kind of comfort in knowing that we were where no one – no matter what issues were involved in other places – could find us… ~ Ed Gentry

 

You might call Deliverance a tale of man vs nature, or perhaps man vs man, but truthfully, I think it is man vs himself – the limitations of his own body and mind.

 

It begins innocently enough, with four men, Lewis, Ed, Drew, and Bobby who set out for a weekend canoe trip down an extremely remote section of the Cahulawassee river in northern Georgia.  They are respectable family men – city men – and looking to get a glimpse of near wilderness before the entire river valley is flooded with the construction of a dam. Only one of the four, Lewis, is fit for this type of trip.

Ed knows Lewis better than the other two. He likes and admires Lewis, but he thinks him a bit fanatic. Lewis is a survivalist, not the bomb-shelter type, but a man who trains his body and mind to overcome. During the drive to the launch site, Ed explains his own more comfortable philosophy:

 

I am mainly interested in sliding. Do you know what sliding is?

No. You want me to guess?

I’ll tell you. Sliding is living antifriction. Or, no, sliding is living by antifriction. It is finding a modest thing you can do, and then greasing that thing. On both sides. It is grooving with comfort.

 

Ed, Drew and Bobby, are trusting Lewis to get them through any difficult challenges. But they don't anticipate the life and death struggle against the forces of nature and other forces more sentient and malignant they will face.

 

Dickey seems to believe that modern men have sublimated their primal instincts and have become what Lewis describes as “lesser men”. Dickey, via Lewis, seems to believe that most men will be unfit to survive if tested.

 

Oh and by the way, Lewis is badly injured and incapacitated. It is up to the others to find their primal strength – or perish.

 

It is riveting. Ed, the first-person narrator, describes the wilderness so beautifully, that in spite of the danger, I wished I was there. He describes the charm and mystique of the locals with delicacy, and the urgency of survival crisis with terrifying effect. It is troubling, but also hopeful in a most unusual way. Deliverance is the call of the wild for humanity.

 

My rating 4 ½ stars

 

 

My edition of deliverance, is one of my most prized books: a Franklin Library, leather bound, autographed Edition (not signature facsimile…genuine autograph).

 

 

Another excerpt:

 

What I thought about mainly was that I was in a place where none – or almost none – of my daily ways of living my life would work; there was no habit I could call on. Is this freedom? I wondered. ~ Ed

 

Film rendition: there is a very good 1972 film, starring John Voight (Ed), Burt Reynolds (Lewis), Ronny Cox (Drew), Ned Beatty (Bobby)…and a small role by Dickey as the local sheriff. It is very true to the book, perfectly cast and portrayed. It was nominated for numerous academy and golden globe awards, though it didn’t win any. Marvelous little clip from the film HERE

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Money by Martin Amis (65 down 35 to go)

"It seems that, whatever I do here in this world I’m in, I just get more and more money…" ~ John Self

This is the first time I’ve read Money or Martin Amis, though I have read Lucky Jim by Martin Amis’ father Kingsley Amis. Father and son have a similar style: satirical, first person narrative, with the main character actually speaking to the reader at times. Money is also reminiscent of Lucky Jim as a contrast of the main characters. Lucky Jim is a hapless fellow, but as the name implies, everything turns out splendidly in the end. Whereas John Self, the main character in Money, leads a charmed life, money seems to rain down upon him, but it all goes bad in the end. There is another major difference. I liked Lucky Jim – but Money – not so much. In fact, the best thing I can say about it, is I finally get to use a 2 STAR Rating.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

 

I’m not a doctor, but I think John Self has attention deficit disorder (ADD), making his first-person narrative rather difficult to follow. Think stream of consciousness by someone who is ADD. John Self also indulges in nearly every vice known to man. He is alcoholic, chain smoking, junk food eating, occasional drug using, womanizing, pornography addicted, self-gratifying, wise cracking, hot headed, violent, and a spendthrift.

But believe it or not, he’s sort of likeable. I think it is because he is brutally honest with himself and the reader about his abundant flaws. He even thinks about trying to change, but life is moving rather fast and he never makes a serious effort. The novel centers around a movie John is to direct – his first, though he is a highly successful director of television commercials. He lives in London, but is half-American, and of course falls into association with people in the movie industry. It takes place in the early 1980s and switches between London, New York, and Hollywood. The movie, originally called Good Money is changed to Bad Money, but things never get very far. Most of the time is spent placating the fussy stars and their ridiculous demands for the script. They each have a perception of their own persona, and want their roles to reflect it, even though it is entirely contrary to the plot. John Self also encounters writer Martin Amis, and employs him to rewrite the script.

The plot of the film, is hedonism – as is the plot of the novel – if you haven’t guessed.

I suppose it might also be an exposé of the film industry. Amis did direct a film and there seems to be some parallels he may have been alluding to in Money. But I think it would still be an exposé of the hedonism of the film industry.

I can imagine, if a person has been involved in the industry, Money might seem a brilliant and biting satire, but for me, the subject was just too esoteric. Ordinarily, I enjoying learning about a world outside my own experience, but I don’t really feel like I learned much of about the film industry for having read Money.

Money contains some pretty coarse language and adult themes. Definitely rated R. The narrator, John Self, is not at all delicate.

Money is subtitled A Suicide Note. Don’t take it too literally, but don’t dismiss it entirely either. That almost sounds like a tease, like I’m trying to get you to read this novel that I didn’t really like. I can’t go quite so far as to recommend against it. Although I didn’t really care for it, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to give it try.

Excerpts (all by the main character John Self):

It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You’re given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour, you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how hard, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.

It seems that, whatever I do here in this world I’m in, I just get more and more money…And more stress.

Selina says I’m not capable of true love. It isn’t true. I truly love money. Truly I do. Oh, money, I love you. You’re so democratic: you’ve got no favourites. You even things out for me and my kind.

References to other great novels:

A friend of John’s tries to get him to improve his mind and gives him Animal Farm, 1984, and Catcher in the Rye.

And a bit later, an associate mentions that he liked The Sound and the Fury, but John did not realize he was talking about a novel.

John is watching television coverage of the royal wedding of Charles and Diana, and he notices one of their gifts is a first edition of Little Women.

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A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (64 down 36 to go)

I could no longer submit to Fate. My wish was not to be good, in the way of our tradition, but to make good. ~ Salim 

 

This is the first time I’ve read A Bend in the River or V.S. Naipaul. The book is a post-modern novel set in Africa in the early to mid 1960s.  It is the first-person narrative of Salim, an ethnic Indian Muslim and lifelong resident of Africa.

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel satisfies square B3 of 2015 Classics BINGO Classic of Africa. This completes the 2015 Classics Bingo challenge, as I have completely blacked out the Classic Bingo card.

 

Salim grew up in an unnamed East African country, but in his early twenties, he buys a small business in an unnamed country in the interior, in an unnamed town – identified only as being at the bend in the river. He buys the business on the cheap, as the country has recently been through a violent revolution that wasn’t good for anyone except of course the new powers that be. There is relative peace and stability now, so Salim hopes the fortunes will turn and the town at the bend in the river will flourish as it did before the revolution.

 

And for a while, it does. But then, well then post-colonial Africa happens.

 

I’m not going to say much more. Naipaul’s writing is superb and his characters are all marvelously flawed – perfectly believable.

 

But I didn’t really care for this novel much, though I may very well be biased. Out of respect to a living author, I’ll just say, that based on what I’ve read about V.S. Naipaul, I don’t care for him much. It's quite possible that tainted my opinion of his novel.

 

Speaking of bias, I had a very distinct feeling that Naipaul’s narrative about Africa is not completely reliable. I’m no historian, and a historian of Africa even less, so on most points I must defer to Naipaul’s knowledge, but I reserve the right to be a bit dubious about an indistinct ethos he creates.

 

Meh – sounds like rubbish. I just didn’t care much for this novel, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend against it.

 

Excerpts (all thoughts or words of Salim):

 

Even hypochondriacs sometimes have real illnesses.

 

But what had happened was not new. People who had grown feeble had been physically destroyed. That, in Africa was not new; it was the oldest law of the land.

 

When we wanted to speak of the doers and makers and the inventors, we all – whatever our race – said “they.” We separated these men from their groups and countries and in this way attached them to ourselves.

 

But the airplane is a wonderful thing. You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart.

 

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American Pastoral by Philip Roth (63 down 37 to go)

You’re craving depths that don’t exist. This guy is the embodiment of nothing. I was wrong. Never more mistaken about anyone in my life. ~ Nathan Zuckerman’s thoughts regarding Seymour “Swede” Levov 

This is the first time I’ve read American Pastoral or Philip Roth. American Pastoral is a post-modern novel, one of the more contemporary on my list, published in 1997, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. It is the story of an all American boy and the American dream.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

This novel satisfies square O1 of 2015 Classics BINGO: Literary Prize of My Country

The story begins in 1995 with Nathan Zuckerman attending his 45 year high school reunion. Zuckerman appears in several of Roth’s novels and is an apparent alter-ego, as Zuckerman is also a published author. Zuckerman, the Swede’s brother Jerry Levov, and other classmates naturally reminisce and through them the reader learns of the legend of Seymour “Swede” Levov and his mystique. The high school and community in Newark, New Jersey, is predominantly Jewish, including The Swede who earned the nickname by his uncharacteristic blonde hair.

Seymour Levov, known as Swede to his friends and neighbors, is a three sport hero in high school, destined for greatness. He is admired by everyone and seems on a fast track to the American dream, or quiet, comfortable, American Pastoral until his only child commits the unimaginable and plunges Swede into the indigenous American berserk.

Swede is quiet and unassuming. He is a pro-prospect in baseball, but shortly after graduating in 1945, he eagerly does his duty by joining the Marine Corps. This is the Swede’s life. He does the right thing, the admirable thing, the expected thing, and continues to win everyone’s respect and admiration. The respectable life seems to be the one driving force in Seymour’s life.

After Zuckerman frames the story at the reunion, Roth switches to an omniscient narrator and flashes back to narrate the Swede’s life, also using a good deal of stream of consciousness by Swede and other characters. After his stint in the Marines, the Swede enters his father’s successful glove manufacturing business. The business thrives, Swede becomes rich, marries Miss New Jersey, buys a stone house in the country, has a daughter, and is living a perfect pastoral life.

But then a few threads in the exquisite tapestry begin to unravel. His daughter Merry develops a stutter and grows obese. A bit inconsistent with the façade, but nothing the unassailable Swede feels will not be overcome. And then, Merry becomes increasing belligerent, rebellious, and even hostile in her disgust with American involvement in Vietnam. Again, exasperating to the Swede, but likely just a phase.

And then – she does the unimaginable, something there is no dismissing, something there is no recovering from. Considering his and his wife’s parenting Swede wonders:   

How could their innocent foibles add up to this human being?

The daughter who transports him out of the longed for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral – into the

...indigenous American berserk.

I felt bad for the poor guy. I’m rather a straight and narrow sort myself and could sympathize when it all unraveled. He kept looking for answers, what he did wrong, what his wife did wrong – and for the most part coming up with nothing.

And – in my opinion – nothing did explain it. They weren’t perfect parents, but they did the best they knew. At some point, kids will make their own life, for good or for bad.

At the very end of the novel, the Swede and his wife host a dinner party, still trying to reclaim the pastoral.  The guests include Swede's parents and several friends. It falls on the very day Swede encounters his fugitive daughter for the first time in years. She is living in squalor, but a life of her own choosing. He tells no one at the party, puts on a respectable façade, and learns of yet more human folly in his loved ones. He wonders: 

What kind of mask is everyone wearing?

He had been cracking up in the only way he knew how, which is not really cracking up at all but sinking, all evening long being unmade by steadily sinking under the weight. A man who never goes full out and explodes, who only sinks…

This is a complex novel with numerous themes: The American Dream, the Jewish-American pathos, blended families (Jewish and Catholic in this case), anti-war activism, respectability, and the “sub-stratum of the mind”. It’s a bit depressing, but also a keen insight.

There are a few pages that would be rated R, though most of the book is PG-13.

Other excerpts:

Perhaps by definition a neighborhood is the place to which a child spontaneously gives undivided attention…

One price you pay for being taken for a god is the unabated dreaminess of your acolytes.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach – that it makes no sense.

References to other classic literature:  Zuckerman quotes Tolstoy and The Brothers Karamazov, and later the narrative refers to a minor character as having escaped his Dostoyevskian family.  I guess Roth likes the Russian authors.

One last excerpt that particularly amused me, and came with an odd experience of synchronicity.

At the dinner party, Swede’s father, who is outspoken and opinionated, possibly a bit senile, and who usually turns every discussion to the glove manufacturing trade, describes Jackie Kennedy:  

Thank God in 1960 Jackie Kennedy walked out there with a little glove to the wrist, and a glove to the elbow, and a pillbox hat, and all of a sudden gloves were in style again. First Lady of the glove industry. Wore a size six and a half. People in the glove industry were praying to that lady.

At the very instant I was reading this, I was on a treadmill at the gym. The treadmills have TVs, but I wasn’t watching, obviously because I was reading. But when I glanced up briefly to turn the page, who was on the TV but the exquisite Jackie Kennedy. I had the sound muted, so I don’t know what was said, but it was a news channel, and the story was definitely more about Jackie than President Kennedy, and I’m fairly certain it had something to do with her impeccable taste. She wore gloves in the news footage.

Film Rendition: 2016 with starring Ewan MacGregor is pretty good, and pretty faithful. It didn't do well at the box office though.

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