Let's sing the praise of "the magus"

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...by John Fowles! I've just finished reading it and it's a great, great piece of literature... Maybe the central part is a bit too long but that's the only flaw, really!

ALSO: what are you reading right now? I'm about to devote myself to Murakami ("Hard-boiled wonderland...")

― Simone O., Sunday, 11 May 2003 08:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm, never read anything by Mr Fowles, I guess I'll have to look him up. I see the library here has a few books by him, some in the original language too, yay!
The ones they have in English: "The ebony tower", "The French lieutenant's woman", "The collector", "A maggot" and "Mantissa
Any opinion on these?
I honestly don't know anything about the author, but is he a pulpy one or a "serious"(yeah, I know, that sounds more negative towards the kinda pulpy ones than I actually am) one?

Murakami's pretty neat; I've only read The Wild Sheep Chase so far, and have recently bought "Norwegian wood".

Anyways, I just started reading the collected works of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, at the moment having started with the book "Synnøve Solbakken".
This is basically classic Norwegian stuff. I've not come far into it yet, thus I can't say much of my personal opinion yet... So far it's great though.
I figure it's about time I go through most of the truly big classic Norwegian literature, as the little I've read over the years (mostly Ibsen) has all been wonderful.

― Øystein Holm-Olsen (Øystein H-O), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I've read all of Fowles: he's a clever English PoMo author who gets a bit boring at times. There were two versions of The Magus published, at different times, one a sort of director's cut, and I can't remember which I read, but it might well be his most interesting. The only dreadful one is The Aristos, a book of philosophical thoughts. The French Lieutenant's Woman was made into a successfully glossy and romantic film.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i read 1 fowles bk ages ago (not that one), i guess it was ok, doubt i'll ever read another. & more recently ditto ditto murakami ditto ditto ditto, what's the big deal about this guy? (rhetorical qn., ans. if you want to tho).
now reading : bulgakov, "master & margarita".

― di smith (lucylurex), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

(btw that wasnt "di smith" it was me)

― duane (lucylurex), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

could you tell?

― duane (lucylurex), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:46 (twenty-two years ago)

sort of

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Peter Sellars once said he wldn't change a thing abt his life, except he wouldn't watch 'The Magus' again.

I've only ever read 'The Butterfly Collector' by Fowles - clever (but not clever-clever) narrative strategy in that bk.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Sunday, 11 May 2003 10:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I got completely sucked into The Magus -- one of those compulsive reading experiences, couldn't put it down, couldn't get any work done until I finished reading it, etc. I was a little let down by the ending, but I think it would have been hard to really end the story satisfactorily -- the pleasure of the book was in its mysteries, so when they were "solved," it wasn't quite as much fun. The only other Fowles I've read is "A Maggot," which I enjoyed but not as much.

The only Murakami I've read is "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," which is mind-bendingly great. One of those rare books that actually affected the way I saw the world while I was reading it -- I had dreams about it.

― JesseFox (JesseFox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I was totally engaged by this book about three years ago, read it daily, but didn't finish it, after I found out that the David Fincher film "The Game" was heavily inspired by (or ripped off) the book, and I guessed how it was going to end and lost steam. Now I kind of want to finish it but I can't remember what the hell was happening or what page I was on.
I own a lot of his books but have only read and finished "The Collector" (which is completely awesome and was apparently made into a film w/terrance stamp; the cover of some Smiths 7" is a still from this film).

He seems to be an author who lives in a weird area critically speaking; many seem dismissive of him, or at best, grudginly respectful. From a "collector" standpoint, he's easy to buy because there isn't a huge demand for his work, so you can find first editions of almost everything fairly cheap. I expect he'll die and there will be a huge revivial and everyone will hail him as a genius. From my experience with his work, he may be a little too serious, a little too pretentious for these poMo times, which may be coming to an end soon anyway.

― kyle, Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

PoMo as the enemy of England's most PoMo novellist? How does that work, exactly?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

It's post-modern!

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I tend of think of most post modern novels coming with a dose of irony or a sense of humor, and his work (from what I've read) has almost none of either. But then, I also think of most postmodern work being american in origin.

― kyle, Sunday, 11 May 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, if you're in NYC and want this book, I happen to know there's a copy at the used paperbacks section (waaay in back, by the staff-only entrance) at the Strand. How do I know? Because I was there thumbing through it last week. Looked very interesting but I didn't even have the $3-4 it cost. Go on and get it!

― justin s., Sunday, 11 May 2003 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

the magus half-rocks. it's great for the first two-thirds or so and then goes massively downhill, as i recall. it's definitely gripping up til then, though.

for some reason i group it with the secret history in my mind, though i'm not entirely sure why - the magus is one of those books which really keeps you guess, whereas the secret history isn't iirc (haven't read either in years).

― toby (tsg20), Sunday, 11 May 2003 19:21 (twenty-two years ago)

my ex was obsessed with "the magus" and it informed his behaviour throughout his 20's in all kinds of negative ways. i think it's the archetypal "young man's novel", and am fairly suprised this thread was started by a woman cos i've never met a woman who really liked it before. i think it reads like a distillation of everything fowles knew at the age of 23 or whatever he was when he wrote it, and quite clever in bits and quite silly on the whole.

the film is hilariously bad!

i recommend "french lieutenent's woman"...i think this is regarded by the bloom brigade as the fowles novel that most fits in with their definition of a high-literary text. tho' he does seem to have a serious problem with endings!

fowles is incredibly ill, by the way, both physically and in the sense of dementia setting in. apparently he has a harem of adoring women looking after him down in lyme regis. i think of these women in roughly the same way as those women who write to rapists on death row....eugh!

― jeannot, Monday, 12 May 2003 09:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I like JF, but "Daniel Martin" was such TOSH.

― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 12 May 2003 09:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh man that book put me off him BADLY. I think it was the first book I ever didn't finish, since then there's about 15 lying around w/bookmarks 60 or so pages in (all really long. Should I get back to Harold Brodkey "The Runaway Soul"?) and I blame him. "The Magus", though, I read it YEARS ago (more than 10 I think) and remember nothing except it was really good and set on an island. How annoying is it to realise you'll never read all the books you own? A bit, it could be worse

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Is the Magus actually about a Magus - i.e. a practitioner of occult magic? If so I might read it sometime.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:18 (twenty-two years ago)

As I remember, DV, no.

Jeannot, I wonder if there is a good thread to be had on the weaknesses of ending in PoMo novelists? I've talked to Mark S about this (I think we were talking of Pynchon and David Foster Wallace in particular), and it is a widespread problem in novels generally (more good novels than good endings), but I think it's extra big in Postmodernist fiction, and I think there are some reasons for this. Most centrally, the term 'conclusion' doesn't just suggest stopping, it also suggests arriving at some final resolved meaning and/or message, which is rather contrary to PoMo ideas. Also the encyclopaedic ambitions of many PoMo writers (Pynchon and Wallace among them) make this tying up even harder - I think I had just read The Broom Of The System before that talk, and that just throws everyone together in the most fake way imaginable and more or less gives up.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:36 (twenty-two years ago)

John Barth's first two novels have great endings, as I remember. They're kind of unusual in that, and EASIER TO RECALL due to it.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

They're also not Postmodernist, it is generally agreed.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Most centrally, the term 'conclusion' doesn't just suggest stopping, it also suggests arriving at some final resolved meaning and/or message, which is rather contrary to PoMo ideas.

is Peter Ackroyd PoMo? certainly lots of my friends give out about him in the same breadth as they do about Fowles. his book "Hawksmoor" would be one of the best novels I've ever read IF he'd bothered his big fat arse to write a proper last chapter for it.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 12 May 2003 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

surely pynchon can and does do endings? admittedly i can't remember what happens at the end of v and vineland, but the other three have good endings.

you've got a point with foster wallace though (although the broom of the system is generally pretty rub anyway, i think).

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

i would like to say something really pertinent and knowledgable in a literary-kind-of-way about the magus, but i cant. i read it, my ex loved it, i found it annoying.
in fact, i could put it down with ease to go hang the washing.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 06:07 (twenty-two years ago)

The Collector's one of those books that I absolutely loved yet have no desire to ever read again. It's the most claustrophobic, suffocating, relentlessly horrifying book I've ever read. When I turned the last page I felt like slitting my wrists. Take that as a recommendation, I guess.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 06:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Toby, the conversation wasn't suggesting that no PoMo novels have good endings, we were just talking about it as a widespread problem, especially in these books. Also, anything on here is my summary from a vague recollection, and I know some of it would at least get a frown from Mark, because he frowns whenever I use the PoMo word.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 11:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Reading the Magus I kept having this nagging sense of dissonance: okay, this eccentric billionaire puts on the show of a lifetime, turning a whole island into an artwork, victorian hotties, nude gods, hypnotism, swedish holy men, nazi reinvasion (for that spielberg thrill). This is a drag how? It hated fun, and so did its protag (I guess that's the "lesson" he learns, sort of). I kept wanting to read the same book written by Eco or someone.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

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