Books About Greece: The Magus

This was my latest book about Greece and possibly my favorite yet: The Magus by John Fowles.

In an earlier post, I said that it's practically a law that all writing about Greece must include a passage about "Greek light." Here's Fowles:

I fell totally and for ever in love with the Greek landscape from the moment I arrived. But with the love came a contradictory, almost irritating, feeling of impotence and inferiority, as if Greece were a woman so sensually provocative that I must fall physically and desperately in love with her, and at the same time so calmly aristocratic that I should never be able to approach her.

None of the books I had read explained this sinister-fascinating, this Circe-like quality of Greece; the quality that makes it unique. In England we live in a very muted, calm, domesticated relationship with what remains of our natural landscape and its soft northern light; in Greece landscape and light are so beautiful, so all-present, so intense, so wild, that the relationship is immediately love-hatred, one of passion. It took me many months to understand this, and many years to accept it.

It's hard to imagine a more perfect description of Greece. Fowles spent two years in Greece teaching English on the island of Spetses. The book is clearly set there (though he calls the island Phraxos). Fowles' language and descriptions are so beautiful and well-crafted that every page feels like an insight into life here. 

As for the plot, it's got more twists and turns than any book I've ever read. The plot is roughly that Nicholas Urfe, a young British man who considers himself a writer and a poet graduates from Oxford and isn't sure what to do next. He's drifting through life when he meets an Australian girl named Alison. She's the first woman who he's been able to truly communicate with and he's not able to pull his usual womanizing tricks on her. They start dating and just as it gets serious, he accepts a job teaching English in Greece.

On the island of Phraxos, Nick is bored and isolated from the world. He's unable to communicate with his fellow teachers or islanders and starts taking long walks around the island to alleviate the boredom. One day, he meets a millionaire, Conchis, who lives in seclusion and mystery on the other side of the island. Conchis begins to tell Nick the story of his life and puts on an elaborate theatrical spectacle, which turns from entertaining to disturbing as Nick realizes he's unable to escape it. 

From there, the book goes from interestingly strange to what on earth is happening territory. I won't spoil it all, but suffice it to say that Fowles' is a talented enough writer to make the book well worth the read even if I'm not entirely sure how it ends.

I definitely recommend this book. That's not to say it doesn't have its downsides. The book was published in the sixties and it shows in some of the dated psychology references and a weird free-love undercurrent at some points. And, like I said, the ending is confusing. Apparently, the movie version was much, much worse. Woody Allen famously said,"If I had to live my life again, I'd do everything the same, except that I wouldn't see The Magus." 

I'm not planning on seeing the movie anytime soon, but I thought the book was a great read.