“We read for worlds, worlds — I’m not just saying this, this is coming from a lifetime of reading — we read for WORLDS” said Frank Conroy, banging the table toward the end of his life in a workshop I attended in late 2004. That’s something I thought about a lot when reading this. I was completely immersed in this world for three weeks and saw it and believed what I saw and had just enough to think about while seeing and believing to keep the many pages turning — not formally interesting but a fine example of a novel that uses conventional form to convey elaborate unbelievable unconventional ideation.
The host of a New Year’s Eve party I attended, last hour or so of 2022, mentioned that her favorite book was The Magus by John Fowles. I had heard of Fowles, sure — The French Lieutenant’s Woman was a popular movie when I was a kid although I haven’t yet seen it. And then I heard The Magus recommended by a few guests on the excellent Beyond the Zero podcast. For these reasons I prioritized it, and like East of Eden, which I read in November 2022, it seems like these days I’m jibing with these long, clear, formally conventional novels.
The novelistic equivalent of contemporary streaming series, The Magus would make a fantastic Netflix series. Apparently the film version is the worst thing ever, with Woody Allen famously saying he’d be happy to live his life over again other than the hours he spent watching “The Magus.” It’s a literary psychological thriller/mystery, for the most part set on the same Grecian isle where they filmed the recently released “Knives Out: The Glass Onion.” Oh how I would love to cast a younger Ben Kingsley as Conchis. It’s so cinematic, and would benefit from a few seasons of hour-long episodes to really get it right, totally faithfully.
But then again this is also a novel filled with long passages of analyzing, questioning, hypothesizing, doubting, scheming, double-thinking — the impression for the most part of so much of the book’s innards involves Nick scuttling up or down arid prickly hills falling off to glorious blue sea en route between his school and Conchis’ estate, and so many of those passages I felt like could’ve been reduced or even cut after a while, reducing this one’s girth, but I never skimmed, at most accelerated my pace somewhat through the long passages of analysis of the preceding psychodrama at play, a manifestation of Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty, whatever the hell’s going on up there with that weird little Egyptian-ish rich dude and those lovely English twins, the phallic figurines, the high art on the walls, the Jungian set design, the menacing mute “Negro” (definitely felt myself tighten up reading some of those initial passages, before the black male character took on some complexity despite nevertheless surely seeming “problematic” as we would say now — and from a contemporary PC perspective the whole conceit is pretty crazy, really, all this effort to rewire the superficial low-key womanizing ways of some Oxford-educated orphan who is apparently fairly intelligent, good looking, well-endowed — “so big” — etc — plus the author’s diaries apparently include some not particularly positive bits, something that I thought about somewhat throughout). As a “godgame” (see also “the holy game” in Joseph and His Brothers) that is not a game and is played in a God-less world, the overall conceit is totally crazypants but my disbelief was totally equivalently suspended thanks to Fowles’ storytelling mastery.
It’s totally linear, with vivid intense WWI- and WWII-related backstory by Conchis in regularly provided long passages of dialogue — all of it absolutely visible, see-able, seen, with flowing considered intelligent language, scenes and dialogue balanced with sections of summary and introspection/analysis of recent occurrences. The few instances of sexy-time, especially the session involving manual manipulation to conclusion at night in the water, were well-done, but also really nearly all the characters seemed alive and in motion, right to the end with Jojo, the young dirty “Beckettian” Scottish woman.
Liked the references to Kafka, Beckett, Artaud, Shakespeare, Homer, here and there, which underscored the reality of all this stuff also occurring in a novel, and characterized the narrator. Thought at one point early on that Fowles had read The Invention of Morel and then decided to rewrite it as a proper British novel. (Very much preferred this one to that one.)
But generally my reading experience was completely immersive. I looked forward to settling down with it for fifty pages a night. I considered taking a personal day to spend a cold rainy January day in bed drinking coffee reading it. I appreciated it on a formal level, its conventionality, accessibility, scenic clarity, intrigue, pacing, characterization, etc, allowing it to convey such a crazy “experiment” and make it seem quasi-probable/believable. It succeeded as an investigation of a young man’s sexual/relationship-related morality that could probably be deemed “relatable” to young male participants of the dating-app era.
Also loved the hypnosis/psychedelic of some sort-induced mystical experience complete with airborne particles bearing consciousness (something like noon with an umlaut that I looked up and the citations in English only pointed back to the book), the vocabulary throughout (eschar), the scenes in Athens, the scenes toward the end in London driving around in an old MG, trying not to look at hotties in cafes etc, and the conclusion, that Nick and Allison will most likely reconcile but will enter into a deeper relationship thanks to everything in the preceding 656 pages.
Really just an immersive, intriguing reading experience — should’ve read it when I was 20 but now 250% older it seemed like the right book at the right time, the setting (Greek island sea and sky) functioning like the episode or two of White Lotus I saw around Xmas, exotic summery climate populated by alluring humanoid figures.
Will read more Fowles this year for sure.
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To support the kind publishers who have taken a chance on my writing, please acquire a copy of Chaotic Good, Neutral Evil ))), and/or JRZDVLZ (all from Sagging Meniscus). Or my translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador. Or Thanks + Sorry + Good Luck: Rejection Letters From the Eyeshot Outbox directly from the publisher. Or even a copy of The Shimmering Go-Between directly from me (the publisher is kaput).