The Magus

Critical reception

  • "A major work of mounting tensions in which the human mind is the guinea-pig ... Mr. Fowles has taken a big swing at a difficult subject and his hits ... are on the bull's eye" (Sunday Telegraph)
  • "A deliciously toothsome celebration of wanton story-telling ... Before one quite realises what is happening, one finds oneself no less avid for meanings and no less starving amid a plethora of clues than is Nicholas himself" (Sunday Times)
  • "A splendidly sustained piece of mystification ... such as could otherwise only have been devised by a literary team fielding the Marquis de Sade, Arthur Edward Waite, Sir James Frazer, Gurdjieff, Madame Blavatsky, C.G. Jung, Aleister Crowley, and Franz Kafka" (Financial Times)
  • The novel was featured on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels: It ranked as No. 71 on the Readers' List and No. 93 on the Critics' List of the top 100 novels.[2]

This content is from Wikipedia. GradeSaver is providing this content as a courtesy until we can offer a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it.