The Magus : : a Revised Version

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Originally published: Boston : Little, Brown, 1978.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Great! submitted by m_go_blue82 on December 29, 2011, 3:51pm A truly great psycho-mystery, rife with occult symbolism, Jungian psychology, and pre-Sexual Revolution sexuality. Fowles sets the reader up in a sense, using the first half of the book to get them to really identify with and feel for the main character, then spends the second half of the book tearing him down so effectively that you wonder what it says about yourself that you identified with him at one point. Not an easy read, I think I spent half of the time I was reading this on Wikipedia looking up references to Greek mythology or other things, but I like books like that.

I enjoyed the writing style, I would say the sentences tend to be longer on average with an almost stream-of-consciousness feel to a lot of the writing. There's a fair amount of thought-within-a-thought-within-a-thought that happens throughout, so not exactly light bedtime reading, but worth the effort.

I read this as part of my quest to read some of the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, and definitely agree with it's inclusion. Easily one of the 50 best books I've read...