Friday, November 18, 2005
THE MAGUS IS GONE
John Fowles is dead. It's hard to describe the impact that John Fowles' writing had on me as a young man. I encountered his masterpiece, The Magus, at precisely the point in my life that I think his book was aimed. I was young, romantic, over-educated and self-absorbed, just like the protagonist of the book, and just a few years younger than that character. The blend of art, philosophy and eroticism that he created in that novel were the exact recipe by which I was living my life at the time, and thus it was one of the few books that I re-read immediately after finishing. I must have been about 19 or 20 at the time.
If I re-read the book today, I don't doubt that I would detect the pretentiousness that has been described by some reviewers in the aftermath of his death. But when I first found it, The Magus hit me like a thunderbolt, among the two or three works of fiction that had the most profound effect on my life.
It's sad to know that the real Magus is gone.
GB
posted by Greg 7:27 AM
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