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680 pages of dull foreplay, baked in redundant plot twists, conveniently unreliable narration and superficial notions of theology, sociology, philosophy and psychology, without the remote shadow of a meaningful climax.
The blatant abuse of deceit as a narrative instrument did not build up my sense of curiosity or invigorate the search for clues or hidden meaning, instead it slowly and irrevocably eroded how much I cared to find out. Given how antagonistic all the protagonists are it was soon of no consequence to me to disentangle lies from truth. The narrator suffered for the entire length of the novel, in the prison of its own ego, selfishness and masochism, to absolutely no avail.
I cannot say what The Magus actually stands for, its protean nature allowing a large number of interpretations, but it is a shame that in the end I simply do not care to find out.
The blatant abuse of deceit as a narrative instrument did not build up my sense of curiosity or invigorate the search for clues or hidden meaning, instead it slowly and irrevocably eroded how much I cared to find out. Given how antagonistic all the protagonists are it was soon of no consequence to me to disentangle lies from truth. The narrator suffered for the entire length of the novel, in the prison of its own ego, selfishness and masochism, to absolutely no avail.
I cannot say what The Magus actually stands for, its protean nature allowing a large number of interpretations, but it is a shame that in the end I simply do not care to find out.