Reviews

The Magus by John Fowles

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irynaqxx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

suzzeb22's review against another edition

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3.0

The Magus definitely drew me deep into a novel. The writing is very competent and the subject matter ranges from banal and bizarre to shocking and odd. Good book for dredging up scenarios of what would you do? and a stunning Greek backdrop as well.

monkeyboystiff's review against another edition

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2.0

Weird book. It started out intriguing and I was wondering where it would eventually go. Then I got a bit bored by all the bluffing and double bluffing. Then it just went completely mental at the end. What was the point of the whole endeavour?! And how could they have planned what was going on in such detail? What did the antagonists get out of it? I felt there were lots of subtleties and intricacies that I didn't understand. Definitely a book that could be studied and analysed as per any school A-level course. But not very satisfying to read. It should have ended a lot earlier IMO, it really dragged out.

Initially I thought it was a load of shit once I'd finished, but actually I did think about the book quite a lot once I was done.

ORIGINAL REVIEW ON FIRST ATTEMPT (first started reading 7/7/13)
(Couldn't really get into it. The writing was very thick, full of words I didn't know and couldn't be bothered to look up. Nothing much had happened, although everything was sumptuously described. I assume Conchis's "games" get weirder and weirder but was getting a bit bored with the gentle pace. Keen to finish, think perhaps wasn't the frame of mind)

Got to page 192