The Magus (novel)

The Magus ( Original title: " The Magus ") is a 1965 published novel by British author John Fowles.

" The Magus " is the first novel by British author John Fowles, which he, however, only after the success of his novel "The Collector " (Eng. The Collector ) published. Fowles began the novel in the 1950s and worked for a autobiographical experiences that he has made as an English teacher on the Greek island of Spetses. He wrote and revised the novel about twelve years before it was published in 1966, and although he was enthusiastically received by both the critics as well as by the readers, he worked on the novel again and again, until 1977, was published a revised version. " The Magus " was a bestseller, not least because Fowles reflects the sense of time in the 1960s and the contemporary interest in the philosophy of existentialism, in psychoanalysis and philosophical mysticism appealed. The novel is considered Fowles ' masterpiece. He is one of the most important British novels of the 20th century and was instrumental in that Fowles was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. The German language translation by Walter Schürenberg first appeared in 1969 Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. 1992 brought the publishing house out of an extended Martin Kluger translation.

Content

In the center of the story is about a young intelligent, but life inexperienced Oxford graduate Nicholas Urfe, who started a relationship with the Australian Alison. When the relationship is more intense than the immature Nicholas is loved, he takes a job as an English teacher on the Greek island Phraxos. This offers him a welcome opportunity to escape the binding to Alison. In the state of absolute boredom, depressed, disillusioned and overwhelmed by the Mediterranean island, he undertook a suicide attempt, but begins to treat yourself afterwards with long walks. He meets the wealthy Greeks Maurice Conchis, who seems to live alone on his island land and is reputed to have a mysterious past as a Nazi collaborator.

Nicholas is initially fascinated by the paradoxical belief of the Greeks of his mysterious persona and his eccentric masks. Nicholas is getting deeper psychological manipulations and productions drawn into Conchis that he does not see through as such. Unwillingly and without his knowledge, he is a protagonist in the novel " God Game " (English godgame ) above, created especially for him parallel world. The scenarios are arranged so intense that Nicholas can no longer distinguish what is real and what is not. In the end he is with the real players who have initiated the God game behind Conchis, face and realizes that the events of the Nazi occupation, the absurd games in the spirit of the Marquis de Sade and the obscene parody of a Greek myth nothing with their lives have to do from Conchis, but with his own.

Filming

The novel was in 1968 under the same name: filmed ( dt " Evil Games") by Guy Green. The main characters are Michael Caine played as Nicholas Urfe, Anthony Quinn as Maurice Conchis, Anna Karina as Alison, Candice Bergen as Lily / Julie and Julian Glover as Anton. The film was shot in Mallorca. The film adaptation failed despite the star-studded cast on the complexity of the novel. Michael Caine said this was the worst film in which he's ever played, because no one had understood what it was all about. Notorious, the film was a quote from Woody Allen: "If I could live my life again, I would do it all again the same way, except that I The Magus ' would not, see it again. " " The Magus appeared " despite this devastating judgments in 2006 on DVD.