The Magus

OK, I like Fowles' ideas about writing, but this book? Not so much.

The 60s are so far away and this book dates itself, I think. Too much like a Fellini movie. I got about a third of the way through, and gave up when in one scene a mysterious man wearing a jackal's head mask appears and mysteriously disappears. We have satyrs and nymphs cavorting in the woods, Victorian ladies strolling on the beach (in the 1950s), talk of telepathy...you get the picture. It sounds kind of interesting, but was quite boring to me after a bit. I think I am jaded by the reality of now v.s. the 60s when this kind of thing was quite new and surprising (especially in film).

Well written, it is the story of a bored young Englishman who goes to an isolated Greek island to teach school and gets involved in the machinations of a local wealthy recluse. It sounded like something I might like but the fantasy aspects just turned me off.

I prefer literary realism.