/lit/ - Literature

WHEN READING THE MAGUS I COULD NOT HELP BUT FEEL LIKE THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN TO SEEM SELF-IMPORTANT WITHOUT IT ACTUALLY SCRATCHING PAST THE SURFACE OF DEPTH, VERY ADOLESCENT.

I am extremely fond of The Magus. I amn't all that interested in the psychoanalytical elements - which, I concede, are simplistic and largely superficial - but the characterisation is, I think, so appealing that it compensates for the text's thematic weaknesses. Urfe is a perfectly detestable evocation of the graduate coming to terms with his insignificance, the pseudo-Existential-poet ejected into the real world and forced to deal with the absurdity of his pretentiousness. The women are appealing, but entirely false - the desirable conceptions of an educated male mind. For me, The Magus represents a very articulate consideration of the impotence of the Humanities student; people often criticise Fowles for allowing his egotism (or, perhaps more accurately, self-importance) to shape the text, but I really believe that is a strength of his writing, rather than a weakness. Fowles is channeled through Urfe, and this - as was so often the case with Lord Byron, to whom a school is dedicated in The Magus' Phraxos, and his Byronic heroes - imbues the character with a brilliant vividity.

Hoo boy, here we go.

First I'd like to thank Caracalla for posting a well-written and considered OP. You haven't just gone out and insulted the writer and his readers, you've discussed what you dislike about the reading and why. The board could use about four more threads a day like this one. Bravo!

I don't think there's any reason to disagree with what you're saying about Fowles being an egocentric. I'd go ahead and say his work isn't for you based on this alone. Not a judgment on character or ability mind you. Additionally I'm not going to frame my response as an argument to change your mind but rather to present an alternative reading of the man / his work to the board.

Forgive me if I seem off here, I'm trying as an apologist and the book is several years behind me at this point. In The Magus I see the Freudian imagery as more puppetry, drapery, images, props in what is really just a mixed thriller cum bildungsroman. I see a lot of deeply inventive, true, but paradoxically fantastic scenes where a selfish man is rising to the lesson of his life. With singular authors like Woolf, Mann, Fowles: I believe if they have fringes that overlap, if their work is occupied by similar flora and fauna, they remain distinctive entities; worlds unto themselves. Maybe Fowles is a smaller country in this sense. Maybe some people will enjoy the landscape more in his work. It's up to the diverse reader to look into it briefly on their own terms than take my word for it.

>>1738735
>mfw part of my response contains something that isn't allowed to be posted

>>1738739
http://pastebin.com/meJXUu9S

>>1738742
When he cuts himself out of the The French Lieutenant's Woman it isn't to be a gimmicky man, or to snark premeditated; it happens when something draws him out of that trance, that act of trying to create the characters and see what they'd do in his understanding of the Victorian Lyme Regis. In the writing of that story, and later in A Maggot, these books drew themselves out of singular images, dream scenes in his mind's eye that come unbidden, and are thought out with little pre-structure. (Daniel Martin seems a bit more deliberate, but then that isn't something I'm going to go into here.)

I can't really speak for the metafictional merit of The French Lieutenant's Woman in contrast to maybe At Swim-Two-Birds (haven't read it) but I am sure that it brought the idea of this kind of movement in a book to a wider audience than O'Brien did.

Thanks again for the podium Caracalla.

>>1738712
>WITHOUT [...] ACTUALLY SCRATCHING PAST THE SURFACE OF DEPTH

Forgive the light-hearted gibe caps but this seems a bit hypocritical coming from you.

>>1738742

Also if someone could explain to me what part of that post is hitting 4chan's word-filter I'd be appreciative. What a thorn in the side!

>>1738743
BUT I DON'T WRITE BOOKS OR TRY TO COME OFF AS AN INTELLECTUAL. SO COMPARING MY REMARK TO MY PERSONALITY DOESN'T REALLY MATTER, I KNOW I TOO AM ADOLESCENT.

>>1738712
Interestingly enough, Fowles concedes the book is pretty adolescent in its stylings in his preface to the revised edition. As in the idea of the subconscious being a separate existential plane, perhaps slightly transcendental in nature; this is, perhaps, the sort of thing an adolescent would seek in that sort of adolescent quest for heightened experience (poorly expressed i know).

>>1738735
Well, I have to admit your reading, 3rd, is quite convincing, considering the ending where perhaps in going back to that girl he had rejected, he is acknowledging the limits of experience and growing up as a character . And yes, maybe I did read too much into the Freudian thing; I concede it could be considered more of contextual element/motif.

>>1738743
And hell, I might give the French Lieutenant's Wife a go sometime in the future.

Addendum: /litclub book club is starting The Ebony Tower, the short story collection by Fowles, this month (my selection). If anyone is interested in joining in there will be some conversation going on about it at some point.