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The Magus
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The Magus
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The Magus
Audiobook26 hours

The Magus

Written by John Fowles

Narrated by Nicholas Boulton

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

John Fowles’s The Magus was a literary landmark of the 1960s. Nicholas Urfe goes to a Greek island to teach at a private school and becomes enmeshed in curious happenings at the home of a mysterious Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis. Are these events, involving attractive young English sisters, just psychological games, or an elaborate joke, or more? Reality shifts as the story unfolds. The Magus reflected the issues of the 1960s perfectly, but even almost half a century after its first publication, it continues to create tension and concern, remaining the page-turner that it was when it was first released.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 1, 2012
ISBN9781843796343
Unavailable
The Magus

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Reviews for The Magus

Rating: 3.9240506005063294 out of 5 stars
4/5

395 ratings59 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I perhaps read this book when I was too young, only 19. Initially I found it intriguing and strange and enjoyed the mood. Roughly half way through I grew frustrated and fatigued by all the complexity and ultimately gave it up. I will try it again as that was 20 years ago and I may have more patience with it now.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a towering edifice of a novel - not in that it's unstable or even hard to attack, just in that it is expertly constructed and that the fact of its existence gives me faith in human ingenuity and intelligence. This is a book that every sensitive and intelligent young man (and there are more than meet the eye) should read.The fact that it was smarter than me (in that I was unable to see what was going on) let me absorb its lessons much more readily. It raised my personal bar (and pointed me in the right direction) for any novels that I may write.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    this book left a pungent cloud of unease and strangeness about me for at least a week; rather like Murakami, the mans a wizard.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    It has been several years since I read it, but all I can recall is that I disliked it intensely. I'm not sure why I finished it ...
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is like walking through a hall of mirrors, confusing and disorientating. You, along with the main character, have no idea who to trust, who's real and who's not. Just when everything seems clear, another layer is peeled off and the whole thing is turned on its head again. I found this unexpectedly readable right from page one, and though the outings with the girlfriend around about the middle section were perhaps a little boring, mostly the pace was good throughout.Don't read this if you like books where everything is explained and everything fits neatly into place by the end page without a wasted syllable. It's not like that. Normally I'm not very forgiving of books that fail to explain themselves properly, but for some reason with this one it was different. I wish I could go back to the beginning and be baffled for the first time all over again!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Pretty good book although not my standard fare. I metaphysical mind freak set on a beautiful Greek Island.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed Fowles' way of writing a disaffected and aimless youth. The protagonist's internal monologue worked well for me, and I liked the way he drifted through life. In contrast to this, I quite disliked the lengthy dialogue with our Magus, and disliked (or simply didn't care about) the multi-layer experiential mystery that Urfe finds himself in. The idea of time passing differently (more slowly) on this island than in a populous city was interesting, and I also quite enjoyed the over dramatic love affair with the mysterious Australian woman.I didn't really enjoy the last third of the book, but the ending left a good taste in my mouth.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My English teacher told me I was ready for this when I was 15. It changed my life in so many ways and without my realising, pushed me into the career that I'm in. I've visited it again and again so many times. Men as Gods; Gods as men. The magic of the Mediterranean and travelling and how we sometimes need to go away to come closer to understanding ourselves. Has always informed my dreams and still does. This book truely became a part of me.Deep down, I have always been Nicholas and I want Conchis to play with my mind as well. Leant my first copy to my best friend 20 years ago and he's still got it and hasn't read it! Leant my second copy to an ex-girlfriend who never gave it back. Leant my third copy to someone who covered in with suntan lotion (you know who you are!).Now, I wait with impatience for the day when my child becomes 15 and I say: I think you are ready for this now.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is maybe the most popular of Fowles - an Oscar movie being written after it (Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn).A maze of unanswered questions and unexpected happenings, that could drive anybody crazy; a game of a diabolic mind... with some twin sisters and a guy, on an exotic island in Greece. Another masterpiece of psychology, but a very captivating story in the same time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How hard it is to rate this book. I read it when I was 19. I desperately wanted to like it, to understand it, to succumb to it, to be initiated into something or other. Perhaps I succeeded, at least at times. I read it in the bathtub, in the park, on the bus, so I must have been carrying it around with me whereever I went. To show off, in some way? I knew the book was better than the movie. What I couldn't figure out was whether it was actually any good as a book. I still don't know. There's been a revised version, issued in the late '70's. I wonder. Life is short, but maybe not too short.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A classic as soon as it was published, I read this twice before Fowles released his revised version with the changed ending. I prefer this version, because and not despite of the greater ambiguity.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    the book is fun and i must admit today it grabbed me to the point where i could not put it down until the end. until a point, it was really nice how how each time the protagonist thought he got hold of the reality, he would discover that there was another meta-level at which what he thought was true was actually not. after a while however, this game became a bit boring... also the end is kind of a putdown since not too much is resolved, and what is resolved, is predictable ... i would daresay that the last part should be rewritten somehow :)nevertheless, it was an enjoying read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    For the first half of this book I thought it was pretty much the best thing ever. Now it ended and I’m in a bit of shell shock.I strongly believe that this novel would appeal to those in the Da Vinci Code set. It’s plot-driven and stretches one’s credulity until it kind of breaks. One desires, no, one feels that one must understand what is going on. It’s fascinating, well-written and had philosophical moments that had me–sadly indifferent to most philosophy–on the edge of my seat (well, bed, usually, that’s where I read), almost reaching for a highlighter (those who know me know I also don’t do this either).It postures itself to be about humanity, reality and the search for identity, but in the end I found that I was still burning with anger on the protagonist’s behalf, not satisfied, and dully, dumbly confused.Fun times were had with the onslaught of literary, historical and artistic references. Have at; hope you’re better-read than I am!Update: I read this book just over a year ago, but I cannot stop thinking about it. It informs my metaphorical sense of things. For this reason, I'm upping my rating to 5 stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A friend recommended this book to me with a wink and a warning that I would be thoroughly shocked about two-thirds of the way through it. This is a pretty good psychological thriller with wildly surreal situations in it. It's also highly sensual and convincing. I never saw the movie adaptation of it, having been advised not to by that same friend, although I can visualize this story and piece together Nicholas' rapidly deconstructing reality. The most interesting aspect of this story is the complete lack of a convincing "why" - why did these things happen to Nicholas and for what reason? Fowles offers a few plausible explanations, yet moves the story along, forcing the reader to rethink those lines of logic. In the end - and I loved the end, as it felt like a curtain going down on an incomplete scene - readers are still left with that nagging question. A bold gamble, given the scope of this novel. But quite fitting. I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in psychological suspense/thrillers.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A painfully frustrating read. Beautifully written and often suspenseful and engrossing. I think some of the philosophizing is less than it appears and seems somewhat dated. But what really bothered me was the frustration of the continual lies that Nicholas is told. The effect on the reader is like a night-long bad dream where you 're trying to get somewhere -- or get away from someone -- and you keep running into obstacles, and the dream gets sidetracked into something else, and you run into obstacles there, too, and on and on and on, until you wake up, exhausted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first read this novel many years ago and was in a different world when I was reading it. Illusion vs reality.It was my favorite novel for many years which I recommended to many. Recently, I read it again and it didn't have the same impact,It still is one of my favorite novels.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    One of the weirdest books I have ever tried to read, I am still not sure what happened!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This book drove me crazy. It started out so well. A shady man with lots of money lures single men to his estate on a Greek Island for the purposes of psychological experimentation. There is a strange woman and silent servants and odd occurrences. Truth takes a vacation and the man is surrounded by lies. What is real and what is fantasy? A great set up. There are a couple of violent interludes where the man is attacked and forced to participate in strange little vignettes. Exactly what this is all supposed to mean is still hidden. The man realizes that he's being manipulated and lied to, but still he puts up with it. The mystery of why is palpable and as we find out that everyone is in on the plot, we're astonished at just how far-reaching this wealthy man's influence goes.All fine and good - but then it goes too far. It leaves the bounds of plausibility behind. The dupe at the center of all this puts up with a great deal more than he ought. He's repeatedly attacked and lied to and when his former girlfriend kills herself and that event is taken into the whirling plot that surrounds him, he still believes the things people say to him. He still puts himself in situations beyond his control even knowing they will end badly. I can't imagine any sane human being putting up with this for as long as this guy has been. As if that wasn't enough, but now the author repeats scenes over and over. The twin girls (that mysterious woman wasn't one person, but two, another little creepy aspect) seem to come clean and reveal the truth, but then are found to be duplicitous liars. There are tears and sex and strange kidnappings. Not once. Not twice. Three scenes like this. All ending in violence and the man's assertion that he won't fall for it again. But we know he will. He always does. He's an idiot and I really don't care what happens to him. Besides that, the plot now has gotten so convoluted with all of the deceit and the liars backpedaling and forgetting their own lies. I can't keep track and I don't really care to. Which is a shame because I really wanted to like this book. Everything I've heard about it is positive, but now I am mystified as to why. Bah.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved the tricks this books plays as it sucks you in deeper and deeper. One of my all time favs.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love it when I first read this back in the 1970's. Would have been in a commune in Shropshire and working on a beef rearing farm-whose wife was vegetarian and a founder member of the local CND. Wonder if the marriage lasted? Don't read this if you want naturalistic fiction, this is a Tempest rather then a Richard 3rd read
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I finished reading The Magus yesterday. It was... interesting. I can see both why my mum liked it, and why my dad hated it, weirdly. I liked it most of the way through... parts of it reminded me of Lost and of other things I can't quite place, and it was quite fun, trying to work out what was real and what wasn't, got you to feel some of what Nicholas must have been feeling. But I wasn't really keen on the ending. I'd have stopped it about 20 or so chapters earlier, before all the stuff with the trial and so on... less annoying, less ridiculous, but still the same ambiguity. Well, never mind. I've read worse things.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book this summer past (2006). It had a profoundly moving, almost spiritual effect on me. I would easily rank it as one of my favorite books of all time. The storyline? Self-centred Nicholas Urfe catches the attention of the wealthy and excentric Maurice Conchis (the magus of the title), who proceeds to play games with Nicholas's head. The Magus is psychological thrill at its best. As Nicholas gets further and further embroiled into Chonchis's twisted "godgame", the reader is compelled to follow. Stylistically, the book flows well, both dialoge and narration are snappy. The Magus raises numerous questions about personaly responsibility and (im)moral action. The story twists and turns on itself numerous times, and provides no clear conclusions, especially with regard to Conchis's motivation for his highly dubious actions.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    "The smallest hope, a bare continuing to exist, is enough for the anti-hero's future; leave him, says our age, leave him where mankind is in its history, at a crossroads, in a dilemma, with all to lose and only more of the same to win; let him survive, but give him no direction, no reward..."- The Magus.This is the story of Nicholas Urfe, a loner from Oxford who spends a year teaching English on a remote island in Greece. On this island he meets a mysterious cast of characters set on teaching him a moral lesson through dramatics and trickery. This is the worst book that I have read in my life. The characters are flat stereotypes and wholly impossible to like. The plot is an absurd stringing together of amateur sex scenes designed to please the teenage boys that are the obvious target audience of this piece of nonsense. From the countless descriptions of azure water, to the corny junior high school stock characters such as the young, blonde, nymphet identical twins June and Julie, to the comical pseudo-intellectual babble- this book was pure juvenile tedium.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I first bought this book after reading a comment on it by someone in a magazine who said they read it every summer. I wondered how anyone could read the same book over and over again every year! I've now read it 3 or 4 times and I still love it. It captures a moment in time so well, and you can feel the cool water of the Mediterannean and taste the ouzo and olives when you read it. The mind games are fantastic and it's a great journey. Definitely on my highly recommended list!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I could not stand The Magus! It may be the only book that I actually hate. Those pompous nitwits running around that stupid island playing games with each other! And all the time spouting humanistic gobblygook about the death of God, or whatever they were prattling on about. It has a cult following, but I thought it was overwrought nonsense.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Although I read this many years ago I have held onto it as a key addition to my personal library. A love story set on a Greek isle involving mysterious people and events. Very well written and memorable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved/hated this book, or should I say loved/hated the characters. The plot twists were frustrating and made it hard to put the book down.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    John Fowles genius is evident in his pacing and style. The overall characterisation is deep and utterly believable. The book is brilliantly read, the narrator even pulling of a convincing Scottish accent for one passing character (being from Scotland 'I know' my Scottish accents).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved it then. Loved it again. A true classic. Great narration an unexpected bonus.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great narration. The book itself is great as well and will require more listenings.