На еден зафрлен грчки остров, младиот Англичанец Николас Ерф се спријателува со еден мистериозен човек и тоа пријателство полека се претвора во кошмар со неочекувани димензии. Реалноста, фантазијата, митологијата и уметноста одеднаш се испреплетуваат во низа шокантни и таинствени епизоди и младиот Ерф се претвора во човек кој очајно се бори да го зачува здравиот разум, но и својот живот. Преполн со симболи, лавиринтска нарација и шокантни изненадувања, Волшебникот е тензичен, провокативен, повеќеслоен и исклучително сложен роман. Затоа, според мислењето на многумина, токму Волшебникот е едно од најдобрите остварувања во современата литература. Волшебникот
Characters Волшебникот
5 cinematic, psychosexual thriller stars !!
6th Favorite Read of 2018
This is a book that can be easily dismissed when we are guarded, cynical, fearful or imperious. I started this book at a remote location with very small font that hurt my trifocal vision....and yet....amidst mosquitoes, overheating and copious amounts of food I returned over and over until my vision gave out and I fouind a larger print Anita Brookner to round out my week. I returned to an e-copy on my return.
However this book was forever in my imagination and entered my dreams on those sultry nights while I heard the loons calling over the lake. I started by resisting this book and I was guarded, cynical, fearful and imperious towards it just as the protagonist was as he went through a most profound personal transformation from self-absorption to self-awareness.
A middle class Englishman (Nicolas Urfe) is without family or prospects. He is handsome and breaks women's hearts particularly Alison a sensual and earthy Aussie. He moves to an island in beautiful Greece to teach at an Academy and becomes embroiled in one of modern lit's most interesting psychodramas headed by a high priest of manipulation Conchis and his acolytes or actors or fellow therapists or clergy. In fact, we never really find out who they are or what they want with our Englishman. He is driven mad by sexual desire by two twin sisters while Alison haunts him from back home. He confuses selfishness with love, desire with necessity, sexuality for spirituality.
He is psychologically tortured, manipulated, hurt and reborn by a series of incidents that lure him deeper into Conchis' web. We never find out what is real, what is supernatural, what is hypnosis, what are lies ? As we read our own defenses come down and we are stricken to our core by some psychodynamic magic or perhaps the power of Ancient Greek Gods and Godesses.
The book is filled with religious, philosophical, erotic and artistic content and we begin to drown along with our hero into both death and rebirth. The prose is both profound and contrived, both elegant and farcical, both beautiful and obscene. Unless we make peace with dialectics we will never make it out of this labyrinth.
A remarkable feat of 1960s ornate psychosexual grandeur !!
772
یک هوس باز حرفهای به ندرت، انسانی قابل ترحم است.|ساد
نمیدانم این رمان را از چه زاویهای تعریف کنم؟ نمی دانم آن را در چه دستهای قرار دهم؟ روانشاسی؟ تغزّلی؟ عرفانی؟ راز آلود؟ جنایی؟ اخلاقی؟ مجوس همهی اینها را در خود دارد و پیچیده در لایههایی مبهم و رازآلود است. اما چیزی که با یقین میتوانم بگویم این است که مجوس یک رمان استعاری است. و احساسم نسبت به عکس بالا، احساسی است شبیه به احساسم نسبت به رمان مجوس.
مرکزِ پنهانِ این رمان به گمانم در همان اولین جمله ای که به نقل از ساد آورده است، خلاصه می شود.
فاولِز نویسندهای بسیار تواناست. هم به جهان پیرامونش اشراف دارد و هم به لایه های پنهان روانش آگاه گشته است. او توانسته روانِ خودش را حتّا بهتر از یک روانکاو بشکافد و سرچشمهی امیالش را بشناسد. و برای همین است که توانسته تحلیل هایی بسیار درخشان از روانِ هنرمند و از روانِ جمعیِ انسانِ قرن بیستویک به ما عرضه کند. رمانش را با دقتی تامّ نوشته و در آن هیچ چیزی را بیهوده نیاورده است و روایتش عاری از هرگونه زیادهگویی است. داستانش بسیار پرکشش است و مانند بعضی از رمان های حجیمی که در میانهی آن، کنجکاوی خواننده افت می کند و داستان ملالآور می شود نیست.
تحلیلِ و نقدِ این رمان، متنِ خودِ رمان است و باید خوانده شود تا خوبی یا بدی آن فهمیده شود. هر کس بنا به جهانبینیاش میتواند از آن برداشتی متفاوت داشته باشد. این رمان دارای تعلیقهایی چند لایه است و می تواند برای هر خوانندهای، یا بهتر بگویم، هر خوانندهی دیوانهای جذاب باشد. مخاطبِ مجوس چهکسی است؟ کسی که اسیر بیبند و باریای فطری میباشد و در زندگیاش بیشتر از آنکه پیرو اخلاق و عُرف باشد، پیرو هوسهایش بوده است. مطالعهی این کتاب برای کسی که نمیتواند از لذتی که در پیروی از هوس نهفته است چشم بپوشد، بسیار لذتبخش خواهد بود.
بهروز شده در تاریخ: 98.01.25 772 this book fucked me up. i suppose it could be defined as a psychological thriller but its very jungian, steeped in metaphor and symbolism and eroticisim and mythology and shakespeare. its also an intense love story of sorts, the main character is a completely fleshed out, real, flawed person who you relate to and fear for and empathize with. the premise is that this british guy gets a teaching job on a small island in greece soon after WWII ends and becomes intwined in the lives/mind games of this man and his crew...just when you (meaning the protagonist) think you know whats really going on with these people, it all changes and youre left more baffled and curious and invested than ever. in addition to being all of those things its a really fast read (despite its 700 pages) and a really interesting commentary on europe after the war (especially brits). 772 Here on Goodreads, rather than judging a book by its cover, it is always handier to judge a book based on what your friends and people you are following had to say about it after it had passed under their beady eyes.
I have 91 friends here on Goodreads and follow 6 people and of the 12 friends and three people I'm following, only one (Kingfan30) wrote a review. Even the more loquacious members of the group have chosen to remain silent - Karen, Mike and PetraX - not a jot or a scribble (yet). I can see all the ratings but around the book itself there is a sphinx like silence. It is fair to say that the silence surrounding this book speaks volumes.
I on the other hand, am loud and shouty and even though I did not finish this book or understand it in the slightest well, I am going to have my say.
So here goes...
What the hell happened there then?
I have got no idea what happened.
Can anyone explain what happened?
Did John Fowles even know what was going on?
Is everyone else confused?
Good.
This book is on the 1001 Books to Read Before you Die list. I am proposing they move it to the 1001 Books to Confuse the Living Baby Cheesus out of you Before You Die and Even After You are Dead You Might Still be Wondering Exactly What The Hell That Was All About list.
Principally the story of commitmentophobic Oxford graduate, Nicholas Urfe, who runs away from his girlfriend and gets a summer job teaching on a picturesque Greek Island. With the unwitting sixth sense that only the public school educated seem to possess (see The Secret History by Donna Tart) he immediately finds the seedy underbelly within the seemingly sunny and simple island living. Embraced in the dark clutches of the mysterious Maurice Conchis, possible Nazi/wizard/pedlar of hallucinogenic drugs/madman, Nicholas participates in a parade of obscene vignettes, masques and midnight alfresco romping. What does it all mean? Damned if I know! What happened in the end? Dunno. I gave up because I am a quitter but I am sure if I had carried on reading I'd have been none-the-wiser anyway. 772 Una de las muchas preguntas que el libro contiene, expresa o tácitamente, es aquella que dice ¿Qué es lo que bebes, el agua o la ola? Pues bien, yo me bebí la ola como con meses de sed atrasada. Un texto brillantemente escrito, como me tiene acostumbrado el autor, capaz tanto de conducirte con ligereza y suavidad a hermosas e idílicas playas, como de voltearte hasta la desorientación o estrellarte contra las rocas de la sinrazón, y ello sin abandonar la elegancia, sin perder esa capacidad de perturbación que te sostiene fascinado a lomos de esta ola de casi setecientas páginas.
En el prólogo a la segunda edición inglesa revisada en 1977, Fowles habla de un libro que le influyó a la hora de escribir el suyo, El gran Meaulnes, de Alain Fournier (realmente cita dos más, Bevis, de Richard Jefferies, y Grandes Esperanzas, de Dickens) y del que quería copiar esa capacidad de proporcionar una experiencia que va más allá de lo literario. Doy fe de que Fowles lo consiguió conmigo.
En esta grandiosa y absurda caja china que es en parte esta novela, he experimentado vivamente la atracción y el rechazo del protagonista ante una experiencia tan desestabilizadora, ante un personaje tan tirano y seductor como es el mago y (en este caso y a mi criterio) el autor de la novela; he sentido como mía su confusión, su desamparo; he sufrido su rabia ante las humillaciones y la impotencia ante su insignificancia; he compartido sus anhelos y padecido sus decepciones; he comprendido sus errores, sus malos pasos, su vileza.
¿Y el agua? Pues del agua puedo decir de todo. Durante gran parte de la lectura he bebido a morro, con ansia, quizás por ello parte del agua discurría a veces por fuera de mi boca, mojándome sin aplacar mi sed, mientras otras veces se me atragantaba y hasta ha habido momentos en los que he llegado a escupirla con cierta repugnancia. Un agua muy revuelta en la que por encima de todos los conceptos reinaba ese tan existencial de la libertad y, junto a él, la responsabilidad y, en contra de él, el fatalismo. Pero había muchos más: la verdad y la ilusión, la ética y la estética, la naturaleza y la educación, los hechos y la ficción, el amor y el deseo, el misterio y la seguridad, el suicidio, la pérdida, la traición… Una amalgama de temas no siempre claros pero siempre expuestos con inteligencia y, lo que es aún mejor, de forma estimulante.
Como dejó dicho el autor:
«Si el Mago tiene algún verdadero significado, será un significado del mismo orden que el de los test psicológicos de Rorschach. Su significado es la reacción que provoque en el lector, cualquiera que sea, y por lo que a mí respecta no creo que exista ninguna reacción correcta.»772
The Magus is a stunner, magnificent in ambition, supple and gorgeous in execution. It fits no neat category; it is at once a pyrotechnical extravaganza, a wild, hilarious charade, a dynamo of suspense and horror, a profoundly serious probing into the nature of moral consciousness, a dizzying, electrifying chase through the labyrinth of the soul, an allegorical romance, a sophisticated account of modern love, a ghost story that will send shivers racing down the spine. Lush, compulsive, richly inventive, eerie, provocative, impossibly theatrical--it is, in spite of itself, convincing. Thus wrote Eliot Fremont-Smith in his New York Times book review when this magnificent novel was first published back in 1966.
For me, this novel counts as one powerful literary experience - not only did I read the book but I also listened to the outstanding audio version read by Nicholas Boulton. Stupidity is lethal. One of the many musing from first person narrator Nicholas Urfe, a dashingly handsome twenty-five year old Oxford educated Englishman on the Greek island of Phraxos during a conversation with Conchis, a much older wealthy recluse, a man imaginative enough to remind him of Pablo Picasso and mysterious enough to remind me of Aleister Crowley.
This 660 pager begins with Nicholas Urfe recounting his background as an only child of middle class parents, stickler brigadier father, an officious military man down to his toes, a man forever trotting out words like discipline and tradition and responsibility to undergird his position on any topic, obedient housebound mother, public school education (what in the US is called private school), short stint in the army during peacetime and then reading English at Oxford. When one day at Oxford he receives word that both his mother and father died in an airplane crash, Nicholas feels a great relief since he no longer is obliged to carry around a huge sack of family baggage. Ah, family!
However, after Oxford, there’s one person who exerts a profound influence on Nicholas prior to his traveling to Phraxos to teach boys at the English-run Lord Byron School - Alison, a gorgeous, graceful Australian gal who moves in with Nicholas in his quaint apartment facing Russell Square. And that’s influence as in emotional intensity, as in red hot passionate lovemaking, bitter heated arguments and nearly everything in between, as if their relationship is a primer for the Dionysian frenzy and chaos Nicholas will eventually encounter in Greece.
When leaving England, Nicholas calls to mind how he needs more mystery in his life. Well, he certain gets his wish when he meets old Maurice Conchis and is initiated in unexpected ways into the atrocities of World War I and then the Nazis, the vitality of Greek theater and mask acting, isolation and religious fanaticism, hypnotism and mysticism, Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian archetypes, ancient pagan religions inexplicably mingling with science and humanism.
Pulled into the vortex of the brutality of recent European history and pushed out to hidden spiritual realms with a dose of romantic love thrown in along the way, Nicholas is forced to confront his basic philosophic assumptions: How free are we? How much influence does our culture and historic epoch have on our values? Is there a universal foundation of morality beyond social convention? What is the connection between truth and beauty? Does love conquer all or is this merely a hackneyed cliché?
Toward the end of the novel, we as readers join Nicholas in asking: Ultimately, what was the real intent and purpose of Maurice Conchis and his so called godgame? Was all of what he as a young Englishman lived through at bottom a madman’s desire to manipulate and control, so much so it would it be more accurate to label Conchis’ inventive masque a congame rather than a godgame?
Turning the novel’s pages, we are right there with Nicholas as the suspense mounts – for every mystery that appears to be solved, two corollary mysteries pop up to take its place. Are we delving deeper into the mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of a detective novel, or both? No wonder Eliot Fremont-Smith called “The Magus” a stunner. I couldn’t imagine a more apt one-word description. I can also appreciate John Gardner’s judgement when he wrote, Fowles is the only writer in English who has the power, range, knowledge, and wisdom of a Tolstoy or James.
772 Voi încerca să spun foarte pe scurt ce cred despre acest roman.
1. Maurice Conchis, milionarul excentric și, probabil, paranoic din insula grecească Phraxos, a trăit cîndva o experiență limită. În timpul celui de-al doilea război mondial, un ofițer german l-a pus în fața unei dileme maligne. Era primar al insulei: „ofițerul l-a silit să aleagă [deși alegerea e imposibilă pentru orice om cu judecată, n.m.] între executarea de către germani a optzeci de ostatici și lichidarea cu propria mînă a trei luptători din rezistență. Conchis n-a putut ucide și ostaticii au murit”. Consecințele pot fi văzute mai jos...
2. Evenimentul i-a sugerat milionarului să inițieze un joc cvasi-dement: să-i pună și pe alții într-o situație la fel de aporetică [fără soluție]. Are mijloace nelimitate: transformă insula într-un teatru imens, plătește actori, inventează personaje. El va fi regizorul-dumnezeu și îi va supune pe ceilalți la o încercare „similară”. Victima lui este tînărul profesor de engleză Nicholas Urfe. Mă opresc aici. Nu voi spune dacă eroul reușește să treacă proba. În principiu, n-ar trebui să poată. Nici să poată să poată :)
3. În concluzie, romanul stufos și inegal al lui John Fowles pare, în esența lui, un „roman de ucenicie, de inițiere”. Nu știu dacă această interpretare e nouă, nu cred și nici nu contează...
4. Dacă Goodreads ar fi existat în 1997, i-aș fi dat cărții, fără să ezit o secundă, 5 steluțe. Entuziasmul meu a diminuat simțitor. Facultatea de a admira se tocește. La o recitire, îți dorești zadarnic să retrăiești plăcerea inițială. Nu mai citești cu sufletul, citești cu mintea. Pl��cerea a dispărut. Firește, nu e vina lui Fowles: e vina cititorului. Și-a pierdut naivitatea, privește critic, analizează. Cînd ești tînăr, te iluzionezi ușor și chiar îți dorești asta. Mai tîrziu, devii sceptic și prudent. Te usuci. Și, fiindcă puterea de seducție a cărții a scăzut, începi să judeci și să discriminezi. Din păcate. Observi, astfel, abia acum, defectul principal al romanului: e construit pe o analogie greșită. În pofida părerii lui Shakespeare, viața nu e o scenă...
Un extras din prefața cărții ne-ar putea ajuta să-i înțelegem mai bine mesajul:
„Nu apăr hotărîrea pe care Conchis a luat-o în faţa plutonului de execuţie, ap��r însă existența dilemei. Divinitatea şi libertatea sînt concepte perfect opuse. Oamenii cred în zeii lor inventaţi pentru a nu crede în conceptul opus. Acum sînt la o vîrstă care-mi permite să-i înţeleg”.
P. S. M-am grăbit. Probabil de asta nu mi-a ieșit o notă mai scurtă... 772 Ανήκει στην κατηγορία των βιβλίων που δεν θα ξεχάσεις ποτέ όταν το διαβάσεις. Έχει μια μυστηριακή πολύπλοκη και πολυεπίπεδη γοητεία που διεισδύει στο μυαλό και σε παρασύρει σε μια δοκιμασία αυτογνωσίας.
Με ολοφάνερη την αγάπη του συγγραφέα για την Ελλάδα της απόλυτης γεωφυσικής και πολιτιστικής θεϊκής κληρονομιάς της, μας μεταφέρει σε ένα ελληνικό νησί όπου συντελείται το μυστήριο-φαντασία-πραγματικότητα,απόκρυφη ανθρώπινη φυση-ελευθερία και αυτοπραγμάτωση- διαλογισμός.
Ο φλεγματικός Άγγλος καθηγητής φτάνει στην Ελλάδα στο μυθικό νησί μας για να διδάξει στο σχολείο Λόρδος Βύρωνας. Η προσωπικότητα του έρχεται σε αντίθεση με την μεταπολεμική Ελλάδα αλλά η άγρια ομορφιά του νησιού εξημερώνει τα πάθη του.
Γνωρίζει σχεδον τυχαία το Μάγο,έναν κοσμοπολίτη,πλούσιο, παράξενο και ιδιόρρυθμο επιχειρηματία, που έχει μια υπέροχη βίλα στο πιο απομονωμένο σημείο του νησιού. Ο Μάγος προσκαλεί τον καθηγητή να περάσουν μαζί το Σαββατοκύριακο και εκεί αρχίζει η παράνοια.
Ο οικοδεσπότης στήνει στον καθηγητή ένα θεοπαιγνιο. Ένα θέατρο του παραλόγου με σκηνικό τη βίλα πάνω στη θάλασσα και αρχίζουν να συνυφαίνονται το ψέμα και η αμφισβήτηση με την πραγματικότητα και τον έρωτα.
Στόχος του Μάγου σκηνοθετη μας ειναι η συνειδητοποίηση των εσωτερικών δυνάμεων του εκλεκτού καλεσμένου του και φυσικά η βαθιά συνειδητοποίηση της ελευθερίας σε ολες τις εκφάνσεις της.
Το κυρίαρχο στοιχείο σε αυτή την υπέροχη γραφή ειναι η ταύτιση του αναγνώστη με τον πρωταγωνιστή του παιχνιδιού που έχει στηθεί και την συναίσθηση όλων των ψυχολογικών του μεταβολών. Απο την απελπισία και την απογοήτευση στην κρυφή μυστηριακή χαρά του πάθους και της ελπίδας.
Ειναι ένα όμορφο και ανατρεπτικό βιβλίο. Ξεχωριστό και πολυδιάστατο. Με πολλα στοιχεία ψυχολογίας και ανθρώπινης διάστασης στη σχέση θύτη και θύματος που δεν ξεκαθαρίζεται ποτέ αυτή η ειδοποιός διαφορά. Ποιος ειναι το θύμα και ποιος ο θύτης. Ξεκινά με ένα υπέροχο τροπο περιγραφής και εξελίσσεται σταδιακά και γρήγορα στην ανατροπή μέσα σε δευτερόλεπτα της αλήθειας σε ψέμμα και αντίστροφα.
Όσο ο καθηγητής-θύμα αδυνατεί να κατανοήσει τον ηθικά διφορούμενο Μάγο-θύτη και περιπλέκονται πρόσωπα-φαντάσματα, μυθικές-πραγματικές ιστορίες και δοκιμασίες πνεύματος και μυαλού ανάμεσα σε φαντασία και αληθινή ζωή, τοσο και ο αναγνώστης απολαμβάνει αργά και βασανιστικά αυτή την γοητευτική διαδρομή - με άπειρες στροφές- που οδηγεί στην αναγκαιότητα της απόλυτης ελευθερίας ή της λογικής μέσα απο την ελεύθερη σκέψη.
Η αλήθεια... κάπου στη μέση. Τα συμπεράσματα ειναι προσωπικά για τον κάθε αναγνώστη.
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς. 772 We gravitate to mysteries… The great unknown calls us…
The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?
Straight from the biblical times temptation is the main moving force that pushes humanity to seek knowledge. And who cares if our knowledge is a set of misconceptions?
Living is an eternal wanting more, in the coarsest grocer and in the sublimest mystic.
We live and we learn but there always is something that is left outside our cognizance so there always is a desire to come to the edge of the world and to look down into the abyss. 772 My students like to use the made up word, unputdownable. I always laugh at this. I can always put down a book, I can even put down this one. The problem is, I can't seem to stop picking it up again.
We are thrown, whether we like it or not into the addled frantic mind of Nicholas Urfe, a man in the middle of a suspenseful psychological experiment. The only problem is, without telling us, Fowles turns it into a suspenseful philosophical experiment as well. We are left never fully knowing what is to come next, what is real and what is unreal. And we become so attached, so dependent upon Urfe, his reactions to the moments, his arrogant assumptions about what is true and what is false, that we become as mentally addled as he is and as incapable of leaving the invented world of the magus behind as he is.
My mother managed to put it down and leave it down. I drove on, like Urfe, deeper and deeper into the tormented abyss that is compulsion and an inability to accept freedom. All the while questioning everything I knew about love, about obligations, about intelligence, trust, truth, fiction, theater, and of course freedom.
I don't know if I fully understand the book, just as Urfe doesn't fully understand the experiment. But I knew I wouldn't stop, that I was free to stop, but that, rather than feeling obliged to finish or understand, I exercised my freedom to explore and discover.
Rather than repeating the unputdownable line, I think this book can best be described as a Niel LaBute play put into prose (or rather, LaBute is Fowles put into the theater). You are never sure of your footing, never confident in your stance, and sure, that no matter how you love the journey you will receive a wicked kidney punch in due course. And that love, and freedom, means that you are willing to accept the kidney punch, if that's what it takes to understand. 772