The Magus by John Fowles

[jpahmad]

Has anyone read this book.  It is very enigmatic and beautifully written.  It deals a lot with the issue of freedom.  I wonder if someone can analyze the book from am anarcho perspective. 

[pipeline_mike]

I read it. and The Collector too. Both because girls suggested them to me. Beautifully written, sure. But there is something I find frustrating about John Fowles, that I can't put my finger on. 

[jpahmad]

I read it. and The Collector too. Both because girls suggested them to me. Beautifully written, sure. But there is something I find frustrating about John Fowles, that I can't put my finger on. 

 

Please indulge me.

[pipeline_mike]

They leave you feeling disoriented. Like, fish prefer to be near the bottom of the water body or near some sort of structure. It gives them a frame of reference with their environment. In Fowles' books, it seems like he goes out of his way to make the reader doubt any concrete reference points or narrative anchors.  You never know which way is up, not even at the end. Instead of having 1 big twist/shift like in Fight Club or Ender's Game, Its one small twist after another. 

[J-William]

They leave you feeling disoriented. Like, fish prefer to be near the bottom of the water body or near some sort of structure. It gives them a frame of reference with their environment. In Fowles' books, it seems like he goes out of his way to make the reader doubt any concrete reference points or narrative anchors.  You never know which way is up, not even at the end. Instead of having 1 big twist/shift like in Fight Club or Ender's Game, Its one small twist after another. 

 

Ah, perhaps he's one of those wonderful Subjectivists... when they believe in freedom it's not the freedom that you or I want, they want freedom from objective reality. Do you see that in his writing?

 

I think Ayn Rand called it a cult of death or something, because freedom from objective reality is death. There is no other realm or plane of existence. Anyhow I haven't read any of these books, or indeed know the author, but I think it is endlessly fascinating the worldview that is revealed by what a writer writes and how.

They leave you feeling disoriented. Like, fish prefer to be near the bottom of the water body or near some sort of structure. It gives them a frame of reference with their environment. In Fowles' books, it seems like he goes out of his way to make the reader doubt any concrete reference points or narrative anchors.  You never know which way is up, not even at the end. Instead of having 1 big twist/shift like in Fight Club or Ender's Game, Its one small twist after another. 

 

Ah, perhaps he's one of those wonderful Subjectivists... when they believe in freedom it's not the freedom that you or I want, they want freedom from objective reality. Do you see that in his writing?

 

I think Ayn Rand called it a cult of death or something, because freedom from objective reality is death. There is no other realm or plane of existence. Anyhow I haven't read any of these books, or indeed know the author, but I think it is endlessly fascinating the worldview that is revealed by what a writer writes and how.

They leave you feeling disoriented. Like, fish prefer to be near the bottom of the water body or near some sort of structure. It gives them a frame of reference with their environment. In Fowles' books, it seems like he goes out of his way to make the reader doubt any concrete reference points or narrative anchors.  You never know which way is up, not even at the end. Instead of having 1 big twist/shift like in Fight Club or Ender's Game, Its one small twist after another. 

 

Ah, perhaps he's one of those wonderful Subjectivists... when they believe in freedom it's not the freedom that you or I want, they want freedom from objective reality. Do you see that in his writing?

 

I think Ayn Rand called it a cult of death or something, because freedom from objective reality is death. There is no other realm or plane of existence. Anyhow I haven't read any of these books, or indeed know the author, but I think it is endlessly fascinating the worldview that is revealed by what a writer writes and how.

They leave you feeling disoriented. Like, fish prefer to be near the bottom of the water body or near some sort of structure. It gives them a frame of reference with their environment. In Fowles' books, it seems like he goes out of his way to make the reader doubt any concrete reference points or narrative anchors.  You never know which way is up, not even at the end. Instead of having 1 big twist/shift like in Fight Club or Ender's Game, Its one small twist after another. 

 

Ah, perhaps he's one of those wonderful Subjectivists... when they believe in freedom it's not the freedom that you or I want, they want freedom from objective reality. Do you see that in his writing?

 

I think Ayn Rand called it a cult of death or something, because freedom from objective reality is death. There is no other realm or plane of existence. Anyhow I haven't read any of these books, or indeed know the author, but I think it is endlessly fascinating the worldview that is revealed by what a writer writes and how.

[jpahmad]

Yeah, but then you have to go back and re-read them.  Eventually a frame of reference does form and you begin to see the narrative as something with shape and direction. 

 

The first time I read The Magus, I just sort of read it on a superficial level and sat back and enjoyed the ride with all its twists and turns.  The writing is rich enough to be able to enjoy the book just through its prose.  But it did leave me confused about the ending and I felt that maybe Fowles's was just trying to be provocative or enigmatic for the sake of being enigmatic.  Kind of like the television show "Lost." 

 

But after reading analysis of the book by other people, learning a bit about existentialism and what it means to "live authentically", I began to see the structure.

 

After I found free-domain radio however, I am able to see how the idea of freedom absolutely saturates the novel.

But not just freedom, but freedom and all the responsibility that comes with it.  This is the lesson that Nicholas Urfe needs to learn.  And this is the ultimate purpose of the Conchis's theater.

Essentially, the book has the classical structure of the "heroes quest."  Urfe's disposition to live is one way, then he goes on a journey (the island), is transformed into something else, then returns home in the end (when he's waiting around for Alison) 

 

If you think about Nicholas's pompous, arrogant, almost nihilistic attitude in the beginning, you can recognize that he embodies just about everything that people on the FDR forum despise.  Because he has no principles, no sense of responsibility for his own life, Conchis is able to just tool with him and lead him around on a wild goose chase for the duration of the book.  He essentially looks like a pathetic loser the entire duration of the novel.  I think in the end, he realizes that without principles, life would just be one meaningless wild goose chase that makes fools of everybody. 

This is how I interpret the novel.  There are many other themes I suppose, but I just mostly focus on the one I brought up.  I do want to add though, even though Alison is regularly seen as portraying the female victim (which is annoying), I don't think she has that much of a significant role in the novel.  It's like, she is just a place holder for "normal life", or something that is "knowable." 

 

I'm sure a lot of women read this book as some kind of romance novel, but that's just ridiculous.  It's very easy for someone to read the novel and say "you see, Nicholas got taught a lesson and should have been faithful to Alison."  As far as I'm concerned, Alison is just as much of an idiot as Nicholas. 

[pipeline_mike]

@j-william. 

 

One is about a lottery winner who kidnaps a girl and keeps her in his basement. Its told from both characters' perspectives.

 

The other is like the movie "Eyes wide shut", but actually pretty good. 

 

Come to think of it, I did not like "Eyes wide shut", but loved a similar Cruise flick: "Vanilla Sky." They produce the same kind of disorientation, but I ended up feeling very different emotions as a result.  I wonder why. Maybe because the former leads the protagonist away from reality and towards madness, while the latter story is about the protagonist gradually 'waking up' from delusion.