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Beth's Reviews > The Magus
The Magus
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I had no idea what this book was about. The prose style was nice, but the plot was completely unfathomable. I decided about a third of the way through the book that it was one of the worst things I had ever read. But, due to some strange self-flagellatory compulsion, I told myself there was no way I was going to let it beat me, so I slogged through, teeth clenched, until the end. I found out later that they actually made a movie out of it. About the film, Woody Allen is to have said, "If I could live my life over again, I would do everything the same except for seeing 'The Magus'". As for the book, I couldn't have said it better myself, Woody.
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Finished Reading
June 12, 2007
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Hmmm. As I was reading this I often thought it might make a good movie. Sorry to hear the movie was made, and badly, but can't wait to go to IMDB and see who was in it.
michael Caine and Candac Bergen, maybe?
Right you are. I read some of the comments at IMDB, and I'm not alone in picturing Jude Law in the leading role (though he may have aged out of it by now). 1968? No wonder it was bad - it would need to play up special effects to make up for the unappealing characters and vague plot. Maybe it would it would just make a bad movie again!
Vague plot? It's dead concrete from a certain perspective. Too bad you didn't see it from there. As they say:cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet
Woody Allen was right, the movie was terrible. But that doesn't mean the book was. If Woody had read the book, he might have liked it.
The movie sucked. - the book is one of my top 5 books of all time
And mine. I read it on Spetses, where John Fowles taught and where the book was set. It mesmerised me then and I have reread it since. I have never read anything quite like it.
I read it as I travelled around europe last summer and since then have probably thought about iy everyday, one of the greatest things about it is that you cant fully understand it, even if u know everything about Jung and Classics, that is the key to its brilliance.
I couldn't agree more! Even though the beginning looked primissing soon after I experienced the same auto fagellatory feeling and just wanted to get to the end of it. The words of Woody Alen are the most exact! :)
The movie being bad doesn't necessarily say anything about whether the book was bad
To Dan: You know what I've heard "them" say: "They who post unrelated latin quotes without providing an english translation are pretentious pricks," And what the fuck does "dead concrete from a certain perspective" mean? sounds like an oxymoron to me... if its open to interpretation its not really "dead concrete" is it? (I usually don't go about posting angry comments but that post really pushed my buttons).
Nik wrote: "To Dan: You know what I've heard "them" say: "They who post unrelated latin quotes without providing an english translation are pretentious pricks," And what the fuck does "dead concrete from a cer..."Hi Nik. Haha, i'm sad and glad your buttons got pushed. You got provoked, perhaps not perfect. But at least you didn't get bored :)
First, it was four years ago i wrote this. But i'm bringing it back in focus right now.
Unrelated quote? Have you even read this book? The last lines of the book, is this quote. So i reckon John Fowles must be a "pretentious prick" as well, since he posted no translation :)
http://www.fowlesbooks.com/ourjohn.htm
"It's dead concrete from a certain perspective." The plot for the protagonist (main character), and the reader, is a labyrinth. But once it is unveiled that he is part of a "play" directed by this psychologial / theatrical group of people; it is for me at least clear that the man through mentioned experiment was taught a lesson. A lesson that could not be learned any other way but through experience and emotional pain. Sure it can be interpreted in many ways. But the plot was still clear cut.
Peace // DAN
Ps. How about 'oxymoron'; is that meant to clarify or flatter? Ds.
hahaha...genius comment by Woody! totally agree with your perspective Beth, thank god I'm not alone in this...I still have no idea what this book is about and I struggled to finish it, and kept telling myself maybe it's something I do not understand...
I first read The Magus 53 years ago (yes, 53!), and I found it as fascinating and intriguing as before. Fowles is a modernist/post modernist, a master of plot and metaphor and in this book keeps the suspense tingling to the very last line. What a writer.
I first read The Magus in 1969 not long after seeing the movie. Woody Allen may be good at having sex with his young relatives but he was way wrong about the movie. To be sure the movie, starring Anthony Quinn, .Michael Caine, and Candace Bergin, was inferior to the book; but it was certainly an interesting and intellectually challenging way to spend two hours. I was privileged to carry on a short, but in my mind interesting, correspondence with John Fowles in the mid 1970:s. He had rewritten the ending of The Magus, something he later regretted. In any event the New York Times voted The Magus the 93rs of the 100 best novels written in the entire 20th century.
Beth, I'm grinning at this review, especially you forcing your way through it, "teeth clenched". Also, great Woody Allen quote :)
It wasn't Woody but Peter Sellers.
That's a good Allen quote, too, BTW.