8/10: Definitely one of the best recommendations I've received (Thanks, Rob West).
Brilliant prose and excellent pacing, the book takes off fast and continues an incredible pace. The mysteries are compelling and the romance captivating. The only weak point was part of the plot. The ending relies on all readers agreeing about The LOVE, which I clearly didn't. Not a big point and the ending still works.
Definitely recommended for you, by me... ( )

A fascinating book where everything not as it seems or is it. A play within a play and layers within layers. ( )

Brilliant! one of my favorite books.. The Magus is one of those novels that you will either love or hate! 😛
A young British graduate Nicholas, unhappy with his unfulfilling daily routine, decides to move to Phraxos, a small Greek island. When leaving England, he calls to mind how he needs more mystery in his life... and guess what, you get what you ask for.
He instantly falls in love with the Greek landscape and in hate with his job as an English teacher. One day, while trying to escape his own feelings, he runs into a local eccentric millionaire Conchis, who is into ancient culture, hypnotism and psychological manipulations. Ever since meeting the old guy, `rich in forgotten powers and strange desires`, Nicholas gets a lot more confused about how life works.
Events start to take increasingly bizarre turns, which finally result in Nicholas' being kidnapped, confronted by a costumed tribunal and told that he has been the subject of a complex psychological experiment.
‘The Magus’ is a novel written by John Fowles and it is 600 pages filled with mystery, poetry, metaphysics and the occult. As Shakespeare once said, ‘ all the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances’.
“The Magus” is a cross between the “Lost” series and Freud’s psychoanalysis, and such a pleasure to read. It takes you to the places of your mind that you never knew existed, makes you want to dive deep into classical civilizations and keeps you up at night.
‘Let the one love tomorrow who has never loved, and let the one who has loved love tomorrow.’

This book can enrich the life of anyone who reads it.. It is a world that makes us reflect, attempt to understand the human condition, to understand life..❤️🙏🏼 ( )

One of my favorites. Read it back in '97 when I was 21. Awe-inspiring. A lot of it probably went over my head, but I was enthralled. Kindle version will finally come out late in 2012. Seems like a good excuse to re-read this classic. Since so many of the literary, historical, and other allusions were meaningless to me, can't wait to read it again, with 15 years of life experience - and a smart phone in hand! ( )

"The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself."

First written in 1965 and revised by Fowles in 1977 'The Magus' is a psycho-sexual fantasy. The story is told by Nicholas Urfe, a 25 year-old English man who takes a job as a teacher on the Greek island in 1953. Once on the island Nicholas encounters Conchis, a Greek millionaire, who ensnares him into a set of psychological games, masques and mysteries, where nothing and nobody is what they seem forcing Nicholas to question everything he has accepted about himself.

I realise that Nicholas isn't meant to be a sympathetic character but I found him so shallow and selfish that I didn't really care what was done to him next. This is a real problem when the story is written in first person, on one hand we are asked to believe that Nicholas was insightful whilst also being amazingly insular and ineffective.

Whilst I enjoyed reading about Conchis's back story, in particular during the Occupation, the introduction of Lily shifted the focus of the tale from him on to Nicholas's 'romance' with Lily just as it was getting interesting. I also found the ending unsatisfactory. Not whether Nicholas and Alison get back together again or not but rather what really was the point of it all, Nicholas certainly wasn't cured by the experience come the end.

"Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society."

This is a story that twists, turns and tantalises, is full of abstraction and some darkly disturbing images, often centring around sex, but personally I felt that it's lack of clarity only confused me so ultimately left me frustrated and disappointed. ( )