DIVING INTO THE DEPTHS...

of the Magus.

"a grim realization of new depths of treachery"

I have read few books that have confounded my sense of reality as much as this novel. At several points during my reading, I thought that I had finally grasped the underlying message behind the text. Time and time again however, this grasp on the plot's events was shattered and I was forced to re-evaluate the situation. Upon completion of The Magus, I was so overwhelmed by the story that I decided it would take some time to arrive at any sort of conclusion about its veiled implications.

It is the kind of literature that captivates your imagination, and does not release you until you are done reading. The plot is like a never-ending spider web, except that some of the strands are false, and if you walk upon them they will break. Like Mr. Urfe, I sometimes felt that Lilly could finally be trusted, yet time and time again her testimonies were proven false.

I found "Julie"'s unveiling to be the most simultaneously provoking and engaging passage of the novel. At that point I finally felt as though had an idea of the direction of the plot's ending, but her abrupt departure from the bedroom quickly ended that assumption. This is one of the few events in the novel that made me feel true sympathy for Nicholas. He had totally given his trust and love to Julie, only to be brutally brought back into the reality of deception.

"My eyes began to fill with tears of frustrated rage and humiliation. I realized at last what Julie's final look at me had been like. It was that of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation successfully; peeling off the rubber gloves, surveying the suture. Trial, flames... they were all mad, they must be, and she the most vicious, shameless, degenerate...."

It is with this passage that Fowles completely captivated my attention and evoked sympathy for Nicholas. It is hard to imagine trusting someone so completely, only to have it stripped away in a matter of moments. Once I gave it some thought however, I began to see through the primary occurrences of the scene and understand some of the motives behind the experiment. In a way, it appears as though this passage could be viewed as an ironic commentary on the way Nicholas treated Alison. He fell in love with Julie, became obsessed with her, was finally united with her, only to have it all taken away. Perhaps  Conchis used this as a way to show Nicholas the gravity of his selfishness and the way he has hurt his past lovers.

Hopefully tomorrow's discussion will be apocalyptic and shed some light on the ending of this complex novel.