The Magus by John Fowles (1972)

Big Listen 2023 

The Magus

Written John Fowles. Read by Nicholas Boulton

Published - 1965 (revised1977) Audible – 2012

Audible / digital download

   Let’s start with a slight confession. I don’t like large books. That is to say; I don’t like books with large page counts. Anything much past 200 pages is going to stretch my patience and good will.  This is probably because I read quite slowly, although quite thoroughly, and unless it’s got a high ideas to page ratio then its going to get put down about two weeks in.  I will always promise to pick it back up again soon but there are books that are now almost 10 years pending!  This has become more pronounced the older I get and seems to be centred around fiction rather than biographies or factual books.  That means there are a lot of novels that I’ve always wanted to read but their size dictates that I will almost certainly never get round to them.

   Now The Magus has been on my TBR list since the early 1990s, when I started working in my first bookstore and was exposed to the entire top selling fiction back catalogue. I think I was first drawn to this one by its enigmatic title, an arcane word for a magician. Not in a Paul Daniels kind of way but rather more like John Constantine in the Hellblazer comics.  It also came very recommend to me by a colleague, whose tastes and appreciation of authors like J G Ballard and Ian McEwan matched my own.  But nothing happened back then because it’s a brick of a book. And with a back cover blurb that only teased the general direction of the plot, rather than offering a clear indication of the story, it just kept getting passed over.

   And then I got audible. And it popped up again, free to members at the time and its 656 pages seemed somehow less intimidating when presented as a 27 hours listen.  Yes that’s still a lot of time but daily chores melt away with a good book in your ears and there’s a never-ending supply of that.  So, I finally gave it a go and I’m very glad I did. The Magus may not only be one of the finest written books I’ve ever encountered but it may also be the most beautifully narrated as well.  I’m actually grateful that my own dithering has meant that this is how I first encountered the story.

   So, what is it about then? Ok, the back of a fag-packet plot is this. Nicholas Urfe, a young and arrogant misanthrope, reluctantly takes a teaching job on a small Greek Island in order to escape England and himself.  While there, he becomes entwined in the psychological gameplay of Maurice Conchise, a wealthy recluse and enigmatic trickster figure.  A chess game of discovery begins, and the stakes get progressively higher as the truth becomes more obscure. Beyond those mechanics, it’s really about relationships and identity, truth and belief but nothing is dictated only ever left for the reader to pick up on… or not.  There are some folks that will tell you it’s boring, nothing happens and the ending in inconclusive. I’m very much of the opinion that its sublime and encapsulates life. It’s also just a little bit meta, which I’m always drawn to.  Its powerful stuff on the page but in the ear it becomes something much more magical.

   At which point I better now call out the narrator; Nicholas Boulton, because his is a contribution way beyond simply reading the words.  His voice is authentically that of Nicholas.  He makes him real and so makes the experience of listening feel like an actual conversation between the fiction and the reader

   And here’s my justification for that statement.  I started listening to The Magus in England and then took it on holiday to Menorca to finish it off. I thought the complementary climate would add to that of the story’s and bring a little something extra to the experience.  But after only a couple of days I had to stop and read something else as it actually became all too heady a brew.  That first-person narrative, written so eloquently by Fowles and embodied so perfectly by Boulton, placed the thoughts and motives of Nicholas Urfe directly in with my own. And so sitting in the immersive heat with the dry air, the smells and noises of the island all around me, the walls of reality began to feel just a little too porous. The anger, confusion and general emotional state of the character began to mix with my own.  I’ve been emotionally engaged by books before but this felt like a possession.

   I finished it in the airport and on the flight home, surrounded by plastic, air-conditioned cool air and hundreds of other people.  I still felt like I lived the end but at least the experience was only one way.

Steve.