Chapter iv PhD
Chapter IV PhD
Back to my Home Page - Chapter IV 2nd Part & Conclusion
CHAPTER IV
'"I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic.'
'There is no truth beyond magic said the king'"
The Magus
The Modern Faust
The third aspect of the Omni Power triangle is the resort to mystery, magic and supernatural elements. Through the practice of magic Faustus, as well as any other literary protagonist, tends to sever himself from the human milieu and is isolated within the strange realm of spirits, masks and even make-belief.
While Faustus is busy working in his study, analysing and contemplating he gives his clear definition of a magician: "A sound magician is a semi-god." (Christopher Marlow, Doctor Faustus, Cairo: Ang;o-Egyptian Bookshop, 1985, Act I, sc I, l. 61). Faustus's keen desire and ambition to reach the power of a deity would lead him to exploit all means even the detached incomprehensible state of magic. The thirst for knowledge is never satiated by normal or traditional procedures, thus man must exceed all boundaries and seek the unknown or rather the mysterious.
His venturing to make a perilous trip to the profane (hell) and back is the ultimate step towards magical domains never touched by human endeavours. The simple daily life is no longer acceptable; the pact with the devil inaugurates the quest for a different knowledge and awareness.
One of the famous novelists who was enchanted with this search for knowledge, power and identity is John Fowles. His novel The Magus maybe considered the modern version of Dr. Faustus, since it falls into the dark deep pit of mystery, suspense and magic. "Fowles's reputation as an important contemporary author rests on novels that combine myth and mystery with realism" (Daniel G. Marowshi, Jean C. Stine, ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism. July, 1982, Vol. 33. p. 158). John Fowles was born in the small English town Essex in 1926. During World War II, his family enjoyed setting down in Devon where he admired the lavish beautiful scenery and learned to take frequent strolls all alone. Later on he attended school at Bedford and acquired shill at learning different languages. From his early years, he resented the traditional and dull norms of life and turned to a revolutionary conduct seeking to attain freedom and new horizons. After school education he entered the university of Edinburgh, then he had his military service period in the Royal Marines, which added to his love of the sea and the sense of remoteness. His literary interest began at New College, Oxford where he graduated in 1950 with B. A. honours. He was attracted to the French authors, Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. Their writings appealed to his attitude and his urge to find novel ideas tending to the glorification of man and the pleasure of intellectual discovery. Fowles has given his own explanation of a writer's role saying "being a writer means being able to put your finger on the archetypal things in people's minds" (Same Source, An article by Patricia V. Beatty, 'John F's Clegg: Captive Landlord of Eden', in Ariel, Vol. 13, No. 3, July 1982, pp. 73 - 81. {p. 169}). One of the experiences that delighted him and was really memorable was his teaching English at a Greek school in a small village on the island of Fraxos. This event maybe the origin of his story of the Magus, which takes place on a distant Greek island.
Fowles took various teaching positions around London till the success of his first novel The Collector in 1963. this "allowed him to quit teaching, to become a full time writer. Two years later, The Magus was published 1965, after twelve years of writing and revision. Still not happy with it despite its good reception, he revised and republished it in 1977." (Frank N. Magill, Ed Critical Survey of Short Fiction. by Salem Press, New Jersey, n.d. p. 890)
John Fowles has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature for his various works that give a panoramic view of his age with all its contrasts, theories, philosophies, dilemmas, power, knowledge and above all the freedom to embark on any risk. Most of his works have been translated into different languages and he has been awarded several prizes (The Silver Pen Award in 1969) and chosen as an Honorary Fellow of the Modern Language Association, besides three doctorates from three universities. His novels are a constant search for freedom where man can cherish and exploit his intellectual as well as his imaginative capabilities. According to Fowles, the term freedom may be applied not only to certain individuals, but, to all humanity. "John Fowles's fiction has one main theme: the quest of protagonists for self-knowledge or wholeness." (Critical Survey of Short Fiction … p. 891)
John Fowles's fiction has been liable to various interpretations, controversies and criticism. Despite his wholly acclaimed aesthetic skill and greatness as a writer who provides a well-built structure; many readers and literary critics find difficulty in probing into his deep philosophy or acquiring a solution at the end of each novel. He has been interviewed by Carol M Barnum in his home in England on March 16th 1984. When asked about which novel he considered his best, he answered that:
The French Lieutenants' Woman is technically the best, Daniel Martin is a work he cherishes but The Magus, which is the first one I wrote still I think excites me more than the others. It still puzzles me how I could have written it. (An Interview with John Fowles by Carol M. Barnum; Modern Fiction Studies, ed. William T. Stafford, Vol. 31 - Spring 1985 - No I of F. p. 193)
As the interviewer asked him to explain further what writing or creating a work of art really meant or implied, he gave his own view of expressing or forming a literary work, saying:
I think I'd rather use the word obsession. Some aspect of your experience begins to obsess you and you have to seek some metaphor to express and to objectify it - a mood, a story, a character, a place. (Same Source, Interview…, p. 195)
Returning to The Magus, we may find a personal touch, since he used his experience on the Greek island as a source of inspiration "John Fowles's richly complex imagination yields fictional worlds that are firmly based in the real one" (John Fowles and the Nobel Prize For Literature - www.nominee.com). Most of his works reveal a daring, realistic self-conscious mind, since "they continually explore what it means to be human in an increasingly dehumanised world" (Same Source). Fowles lamented the ignorance of the essential interrelationships and the power to connect or even merely to communicate. The ability to belong and to comprehend should be enlarged to include the natural scenery, the atmosphere, the surroundings and the intricate web of reactions among them as well as their being closely linked to human psychology.
To accept ones limited freedom, to accept ones isolation, to accept this responsibility, to learn ones particular powers, and then with them to humanize the whole: that is the best for this situation. (The Aristos 1964, Subtitled, A Self Portrait in Ideas - www.classicsweb.com)
The Magus was a result of a long period of confusion and hard toil, Fowles considered it the product of twenty years of creation and artistic pangs. Fowles had worked for almost a decade in revising and changing the various drafts of The Magus "it has perhaps generated the most enduring interest, becoming something of a cult novel." (Home Page Biography of John Fowles). Reading a novel like The Magus allowed the reader to exploit his imagination, as well as exert an extreme effort to reach the real plot, and to unravel the mysteries that trapped the intellect for over six hundred pages. "While many critics found its labyrinthine structure disconcerting, the book was widely read by young adults." (Contemporary Literary Criticism, eds: Daniel G. Marowski, jean C. Stine, Vol. 33). In other words, the curious reading public enjoyed this challenge and impersonated its young hero Nicholas Urfe: "the novel is made up of a huge mesh of incidents." (Contemporary Literary Criticism, ed. Cerolyb Riley, Phyllis Carnel Mindelson, Vol. 6. Theodore Solotaroff in the New York Times Book Review Nov 10, 1974, {C.L.C. p. 185}). The novel is rich with symbols, conundrums, riddles, puns and labyrinthine twists of events since Nicholas is trapped in the machinations of a daring Omni power. The major element of Omni power rises from Fowles's complete dependence on myth illusion and magic, "In The Magus, Fowles worked gaudier effects: allegory, romance, black magic." (Same Source article by Lance Morrow, 'Shimmering Perversity in Time' The Weekly News Magazine, Dec. 2nd, 1974, p. 108 {C.L.C. p. 187})
Similar to the pleasures and exaltations of Faustus as he merges into the Satanic hell of the unknown and the trail of Mephistopheles losing every contact with concrete reality. The Magus follows the same trend as it:
operates simultaneously on two levels. The novel suggests that the very factors frustrating Urfe's desire to be authentic to live a full and rich life also undermine the reality of the fictional world he inhabits. (Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 31: 'Art Truth and John Fowles', by Fredrick M. Holmes,. Spring 1985, p. 48)
The young hero has an eager sense of wanting to know, and at the same time, to acquire power over the strange, the magical and the unconquered realms. His only source of power being his audacity and intellectual thirst, "It is the response of impotent, insignificant man attempting to cope with immense threatening and often mysterious force he can never understand nor control." (Modern Fiction Studies 'The Dialectics of Debasement in The Magus' by Frank G. Novak, P. 72). The novel takes the form of a serious game played on its young hero who is aware and proud of his mental potentialities and is ready to take any risk. The game has to be related to mystery and magic as the title itself suggests:
The word magus is related to the Magi of the Bible who were among the first to recognize the arrival of a new world of values… Others regard the Magi as an aboriginal tribe of sorcerers … The title in itself is a game of various interpretations among them the magician in the pack of Tarot cards. (20th Century Literature, John Fowles issue, Vol. 42, 1996, by Paul H. Lorenz, p.75)
As mentioned previously, the story depends on the period Fowles spent as a teacher of English on an island in Greece. The hero, Nicholas Urfe, has the same qualities of his author, he is twenty five years old, educated at Oxford, full of energy and at the same time attacked by a sense of boredom. "He is the typical Fowlesian protagonist, well born and bred, aimless and ripe for the quest." (Magill No. 3, p. 1203). This hero, like Faustus, was over ambitious, and in dire need for new experiences and novel knowledge at any coast, even his own peace of mind and soul. While travelling was a means of used by Faustus, it was an aspiration for Nicholas. Before leaving, he meets his young girl friend, Alison, whom he loved at the moment. Yet this feeling was not complete, it needed more testing and comprehension, since he has had various affairs and had filted many girls.
"On the island he is attracted by the voice of a girl, the song of a bird and some lines of poetry by T. S. Eliot." (Same Source, p. 1203). These first signs encourage him to go further on and "he crosses the yard and beautiful garden to enter the domain of myth at Bournai." (Same Source, p. 1204). He decides to plunge into the abyss of mystery that he hopes will lead to the wildest world of fancy and thrill. He is met by Maurice Conchis, or in other words, his Mephistopheles who creates a mood of expectation and begins to lure him through the most devastating tests. Conchis, as viewed by readers and critics, is the source of magic and hallucinations in what has been called the 'Godgame', which was the first title chosen by Fowles for this novel. Nicholas is the easy prey, the victim to the tests and traps: "Some he describes to Nicholas, others make Nicholas an observer and still others give him an active, sometimes frightening role".(Same source, p. 1204). The climax of his experiences is the trial scene where he is psychologically and physically strained and humiliated; then allowed to inflict punishment on his prosecutors represented by one of the twin girls Lily. He chooses not to flog the girl and since this is against all the mental reactions and evinces real self-control, he becomes one of the elect according to the member audience who witness his ordeal. By the end of his unique journey, he realizes that his beloved, Alison, had not committed suicide [part of the game to deceive him] and he looks for her. According to Fowles, it did not really matter whether he returned to Alison or not; but both author and hero are motivated to solve and understand the mystery of Conchis and the twins. The main issue is his journey towards wholeness. "Nicholas leads the reader into the mystery he was led into … behind Nicholas is the master magus Fowles". (Same source, p. 1205).
The major difference between the experiences of Marlow's Dr. Faustus and the one taken by Fowles's Nicholas is that with Marlow "the quester meets the usual dragons, which in modern terms, are presented as a series of challenges that he must overcome." (Same source, p. 1202). Each protagonist faces the riskes and dangers of his own age. The reader is enabled to witness the two realms in comparing the ordeal of Faustus and the dilemma of Nicholas Urfe.
What separates the journey of the Fawlesian hero from the journey of the medieval hero is that much of it has become internalised … the modern quester cannot see the enemy in front of him since it is often within him keeping him frozen in a state of inertia … The modern journey then can be seen in psychological terms, while the events are externalised. (Same source, p. 1202).
After this introduction and summary of the novel, a detailed analysis of the novel and its close link to the Faustian domain of omni power will be attempted. As previously mentioned, The Magus dealt with the process of a young English man Nicholas Urfe's growing up and maturing through various shattering experiences, verging on the supernatural and the exploration of magic. This ordeal may lead to the discarding of social norms, and even personal traditions and resorting to unaccepted codes. The most revealing comment on the theme of the novel has been given by Fowles himself in his Introduction to The Magus in 1998:
The real me in those dazzling early years in Greece, was a hopelessly complex, devious and naïve person, an enemy above all - especially in his failure to think things through - of himself. it would be best to view the Nicholas character, himself (or myself) here as a very self-damned person. My own odyssey was not only doomed psychologically, a bit like starting a long voyage in an already-holed hull and with sails in rags. I not only didn't quite know where I was going, but whether conceivable purpose or meaning there might be in my voyage. Where? And why, why … why? (Literature and Fiction - Amazon.com reviews, www.amazon.com).
This sense of loss may reflect the conflict of most young men who embark on this journey as Fowles explains. "Most young people know they don't know; and the not knowing in this ephemeral uncertain world, is generally the nearest we shall even get to the truth" (Same source - Amazon). The Magus clarifies the love for the past, present and even future culture of Greece as it is drenched in a pool of intricate and complex implications tending to the supernatural and unearthly.
Nicholas, the hero, is an active young man who likes to travel, but is in a maze in his quest for an essential meaning or a motive in life. He reaches Greece and starts his school teaching, and he faces the most extraordinary or rather hilarious experience. He falls a victim to an old wealthy millionaire named Maurice Conchis who traps him into a unique game. Conchis serves as a catalyst (Mephistopheles) or rather a furnace where Nicholas is exploited and trapped in such a puzzle that sets him on the move in a heavy must of suspense and confusion. At first he believes the old man to be a kind of magician playing games and setting riddles to be solved, but everything becomes mentally and even physically entangled. The result is his final awareness and maturity after passing various tests and tasks that needed more than human powers to decipher them. The background of the isolated island adds to the weird and yet beautiful scenery. The tricks and contrivances held by Conchis capture both protagonist and reader as they try to unravel the incomprehensive mystery and reach the truth, or a certain awareness of life with all its complexities - freedom, power, weakness, submission and maybe the repose of nothingness. The whole overwhelming atmosphere is that of the supernatural - the quest for magic.
In his foreword to the novel, Fowles explains many points concerning its theme and the choice of the Greek islands. In his own words he could "not abandon the myth … or the bizarre face of the imagination". (John Fowles, The Magus, New York: Triad/Panther 1979, Foreword, p. 5). He rewrote its drafts nearly three times in an attempt to communicate his experience. He called the final version:
a notebook of an exploration, often erring and misconceived into an unknown land … a far more haphazard and naively instinctive work than the more intellectual reader can easily imagine. (The Magus, Foreword, p. 5-6).
As for the Greek island, Septsai, which he portrayed after the World War, he was sure that through it must have changed immensely, it still must be a lonely, beautiful place with enchanting scenery and a classical touch, which would ignite any writer's fiery imagination. The vicinity of the villa seemed full of strange spirits amidst the rich forests; there was no boundary to hinder or limit the expectation of a strange happening as Fowles writes: "They gave the most curious sense of timelessness and of incipient myth." (The Magus, p. 8)
The impact of Fowles's stay on the island had its after effects he could not write his real impressions or create an artistic picture till he returned to England. The beauty and freedom of the place was deeply imprinted in his mind, and he had to yearn for it or suffer, as he says "withdrawal symptoms" (The Magus, p. 9), in order to produce a real work of art. This work would resemble an individual's conflict; the mingling of power and submission in his quest for a Paradise, an Eden. The hero tries his best to convey all these warring elements, ambitions and desires in this world of the conjurer The Magus:
Gradually my protagonist, Nicholas, took on, if not the true representative face of a modern Everyman, at least that of a partial Everyman of my own class and background. (The Magus, p. 9)
The Magus, as it author terms it, is a novel of adolescence which challenges the reader's various psychological and intellectual reactions. Conchis plays a game on Nicholas who begins his trip to Greece eager for knowledge and experience, yet he never expects such a breathtaking trap. "Nicholas is guided into this new world by Maurice Conchis, … he wants to win the godgame …, he thinks the game is an ego-satisfying competition for power." (20th Century Literature, J. F. Issue 'Herachtus Against the Barbarians, J. Fowles's The Magus', by Paul H. Lorenz, Vol. 42, Spring 1996 p. 74). Conchis exploits a variety of masks creating illusions of the supernatural, the mythical and the non-existent. Faustus's sense of glory and achievement does not conceal or hinder the truth that he will fall and eventually suffer in the same manner, "Conchis most consistently functions as a sadistic god who enjoys watching his victim struggle in the bizarre often degrading situations he creates for him." ('The Dialectics of Debasement in The Magus', p.74).
The power of Conchis is exactly like the grip of Mephistopheles over Faustus, he is able to destroy him body and soul after a long strife and an illusionary sense of achievement. The whole game is a devastating challenge:
Fowles creates in Maurice Conchis a substitute artist whose godgame constitutes an image of the novel itself … However pure his motivation Conchis's willingness to manipulate the actions and feelings of others and to expose them to psychological and physical dangers is potentially damaging. (Holmes, Vol. 31, Spring 1985, p. 46)
The culminating scenes of the trial and the execution resemble the final scene of Dr. Faustus where everything crumbles and where knowledge is paradoxically relative and absolute. There should be a compromise between soul and intellect. The belief in the celestial power of God curbs the individuals' vaulting ambition to be completely free and powerful on his own. Both Faustus and Nicholas maintain an extreme sel-confidence and audacity in their quest for power, knowledge, mystery, the untraditional and most of all the desire and the ability to be in full control of the present as well as the unknown.
The sports which they pursue are always played for the same reason … their objective is to form relationships in which they know they can dominate. (Modern Fiction Studies, 'Games and Godgames in The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman' by Ellen Mc Daniel, Same Issue, p. 33).
Faustus never faltered when he took steps towards his contract with Mephistopheles, and Nicholas Urfe felt completely confident and strong willed when he allowed himself to share in Maurice Conchis's mysterious and haphazard game. "Nicholas feels a uniqueness conferred on him as a member of the godgame. Believing that he may even become an indispensable part of its cast."(Same source, p.37)
Nicholas is similar to Faustus who delighted in his own game, in his yielding to Satan and acting out of his own devilish desires and free will. Maurice Conchis is the luring Mephistopheles or the irresistible Omni power; but certainly Nicholas is more than eager to plunge deeply into the whole experiment. "Nicholas can never be victimized as long as he assumes responsibility for his own choices and actions." (Same source, p. 39). Both Faustus and Nicholas pursue their future fate completely wide eyed and not blind-folded; this may be considered an aspect of their vaulting ambition, their self-destructive pride, arrogance and inquisition.
Throughout the novel, Nicholas is drawn easily into the intellectual psychological abyss and sometimes a physical labyrinth. This is the difference between the Middle Ages and the contemporary; since in the present times the mental and psychological pangs exceed the bodily pains, "a man is thrust into a game in which rational rules do not apply, no one can be trusted and the purpose is obscure." (Is the 1997 movie, The Game a Rip-Off of The Magus? By Bob Goosmann, www.moviecritic.com). The various tricks and plots exploited by the wizardly Conchis make Nicholas at times "less aware of what has to be going on than he should be." (Riley, Vol. 4. 1985 p. 173). Faustus has the constant desire to ask and the vain attempt to comprehend the maze of the unknown and take all the perilous risks. Nicholas also suffers the same conflict, "the effect of the godgame obliterates what little order had existed in Nicholas's life and substitutes chaos the confusion of unanswered questions and ambiguous purposes." (Novak, Jr. p. 74)
The novel starts with the background of Nicholas, his loss of his parents in a plane crash and his various desires to learn, as well as his interest in the works of existentialist writers. The main target of his anger and cynicism was the service in the army, as he resented warfare and could not comprehend its violence, his father left him in a poor financial situation and he felt at a loss especially due to his keen sense of revolt. "Handsomely equipped to fail, I went out into the world." (The Magus, p. 17). He worked as a teacher at a minor public school, but resigned after one year as he felt bored and needed an exciting experience. The chance was offered as he applied as an assistant master to teach English at Lord Byron school; Pharox, Greece. This was a prospect which suited his love of liberty and novelty.
On his arrival he was breath-taken by the beautiful scenery; but he also sensed something sinister. It was a certain feeling of awe, besides the awareness of the superiority of such an ancient place and the richness of its landscape. "None of the books I had read explained this sinister - fascinating this Circe-like quality of Greece; the quality that makes it unique." (The Magus, p. 49). One of the clear qualities of this Greek island was its silence, its primitive and historic atmosphere. It was a tough environment of solitude and the school itself was like a castle severed from the rest of the world and meant for hard work only. The children had no interest in English Literature, but were delighted only with new scientific information that linked them with the external world. Throughout his classes and outside strolls he has the feeling that it was all a haunted place, but this did not inspire fear since it was "haunted by nymphs not monsters." (The Magus, p.51). by nature, he always felt lonely, isolated and revolting and this island added the feeling of nothingness to all these "a metaphysical sense of being marooned." (The Magus, p. 53).
After sometime he caught a serious disease and was very sick that he thought of committing suicide but was too cowardly. This experience fortunately ended, and when he regained his health, his desire for excitement and freedom increased, and ultimately "the mysteries began." (The Magus, p.63). he ventured down the village towards the mountains, the ridge and the sea. Here Fowles exhibits his aesthetic powers in the use of vocabulary and a metaphoric rich style such as "Lizard flashed up the pine trunks like living emerald necklaces." (The Magus, p. 67). This prepares the reader for the coming events that will be as slimy and slippery as a lizard and yet attractive shining and valuable. The first sign that arouses his curiosity is the presence of a sole villa between the mountains and the sea. He reaches it and finds an opened poetry book with T.S. Eliot's revealing lines:
We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
Each in his little bed conceived of islands…
Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!
This sound came in the dark
First must thou go the road to hell
Knowledge the shade of a shade,
Yet must thou sail after knowledge
Knowing less than drugged beasts. (The Magus, p. 70)
There was also the lament of a nightingale warning him and yet luring and attracting him further on. On his return to school he inquired about the villa and its owner and heard various confusing stories about him: a retired musician, an atheist, a revolutionist who refused to execute certain resistance fighters, a multi-millionaire; but mainly a man who cherished privacy, did not mingle with others and who disappeared for long periods of time. This information filled him with suspense and a desire to meet such a character and unravel the mystery. The following Sunday he had his first encounter with Maurice Conchis; a strange figure of around sixty to seventy years, bald, brown, short and with a striking demeanour of authority. His eyes were:
very dark brown, staring with a simian penetration emphasized by the remarkably clear whites; eyes that seemed not quite human … . He was obviously a man who rarely smiled. There was something mask-like, emotion purged, about his face … suggesting experience, command, impatience with fools … He was slightly mad … He kept his ape-like eyes on me. The silence and the stare were alarming… as if he was trying to hypnotize a bird. (The Magus, p. 79-80).
Conchis's description is impressive as it suggests the evil or rather the strange omni power that would over rule, control and guide Nicholas from this moment till the end of the novel. The young man is entranced and has no choice except to fall into this trap. He is beguiled by the place, the mist of the unknown, but above all by this strange man; he is motivated to go through a unique experience. As he glanced at Conchis he felt that his loneliness and despair have dispersed into thin air as this man "had sprung almost overnight from the barren earth, like some weird plant …. Second meanings hung in the air, ambiguities, unexpectedness." (The Magus, p. 85). This first meeting ends by Conchis's inviting him to spend the next weekend with him in the villa. He is delighted and falls easily and as similar as Faustus's quick pact with Mephistopheles bearing in mind that Nicholas was already eager and thirsty for the mysterious and the supernatural to quench and water his parched arid life. In other words, he is willing to take part in what he calls " a psychological chess." (The Magus, p. 86).
The character of Conchis offers various interpretations, he is more like a spider whose intricate web catches easy preys. As Malcolm Bradbury in his article 'The Novelist as Impression: John Fowles and His Magus' explains:
Conchis is Prospero magician, psychopomp - the mysterious creator of mysteries, the symbolist of the world of the unseen, the agent of the supernatural, the psychic force that can lead us through to a new version of reality. (Rilly, Vol. 4, p. 173)
The author is the intelligent motivator who urges the reader to follow the suspense and to go on pursuing the events and reactions over six hundred pages of mystery and confusion: "Like Conchis Fowles is playing a godgame with the minds of his readers." (20th Century Literature. John Fowles's issue, Vol. 42, 1996, 'Herectus against the Barbarians, John Fowles's The Magus', by Paul Lorenz, p. 70). Another exploration applied to Conchis may represent the extreme abyss of the Satanic concept adapted by Faustus and facilitated by the agent Mephistopheles, Nicholas cannot cope with the different shapes and games;
Therfore, although in various roles and guises Conchis may embody different versions of divine power and purpose, he is ultimately a figure who represents the opposite, even the absence of God. (Novak, Jr, p. 75).
On Nicholas's second visit, the attraction increases as he realizes the presence of an unknown woman, a concealed being who might be as he wondered "a mistress, a daughter, a wife, a sister …" (The Magus, p. 89). He first notices a feminine glove, a towel and a "sweet womanish perfume." (The Magus, p. 89). The garden and the terrace were like a magic bowl full of colours, scents, details, and above all there was the ringing of a summoning bell to surmount the whole mystery. The relation between him and Conchis becomes more complicated as his host explains to him that he is very wealthy and showed him the genuine paintings that he possessed. The role of Conchis takes full swing as he manages to entangle Nicholas in a world of beauty, mystery, knowledge and a keen desire to understand at any cost. The reaction between the two men is powerful and there is no return or withdrawal; Nicholas moves on eagerly in quick anxious steps. Conchis tells him: "Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn. To live alone? To live with what you are." (The Magus, p.99)
Nicholas was led to his room to spend the night, he found by his bedside three ghost stories and a volume of 'The Beauties of Nature' that was full of appealing female beauty, this can be compared to Faustus's dream and desire to possess Helen of Troy. The house was still and dark and Nicholas tried to comprehend the maze he was set in, he explained it very plainly in a nut-shell:
I was increasingly baffled by Conchis … he impressed me - not only as a rich man with some enviable works of art in his house. And now he frightened me. It was the kinf of illogical fear of the supernatural that made me sneer; but all along I had felt that I was invited not out of hospitality, but for some other reason. He wanted to use me in some way … Something much more bizarre was afoot. (The Magus, p. 102)
Throughout the night he heard an owl's cry and the squeaking of doors, this filled him with apprehension a sense of weird pleasure and an increasing eagerness. The following morning he holds an interesting conversation with Conchis, and they probe further into the mysterious magical abyss of thought, as Conchis uses words in his own special style. He considers himself elected, chosen, unique and, consequently; Nicholas is chosen by him for a certain feat or test. He travels to other worlds and Nicholas inquires if he travels in flesh or in mind; and he answers: "If you can tell me where the flesh ends and the mind begins, I will answer that." (The Magus, p. 106). This again refers to the instinctive Faustian desire supported by stages of intellectual quest. They seem to be under the magic spell of reaching unknown realms at any price. According to Nicholas, it was:
It was like a dream I had been walking towards a closed door, and by a sudden magic its impenetrable wood become glass, through which I saw myself coming from the other direction, the future. (The Magus, p. 109).
The two participants of the game share the quality of viewing past, present and future. This is attributed to only a chosen few, the elected, who have a promotion of the coming events. They spend the whole day discussing the early life of Conchis, his interest in all forms of psychology, wars, life experiences, beauty, mystery and magic, till Nicholas feels that "something was trying to slip between me and reality." (The Magus, p. 121). Conchis relates to him how he defied the authorities and refused to kill the war regiment, and then he escaped their severe punishment. His motive was to recreate a reality, a truth of his own, where "living reality became a matter of technique, of realism gained through rehearsal … he had started wearing his web again, and once more I flew to meet it." (The Magus, p.127). Conchis cunningly proceeds with stories of the war, his courage, his forgery of facts sometimes and his utmost intelligence that he considers an accomplishment or a sixth sense. Everything would be a complete farce if it lacked a wise and analytic intellect; "because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself." (The Magus, p. 131).
Nicholas's stay at the villa was fruitful but hilarious, he dreamt of his girlfriend Alison whom he felt in England, he had a night full of hallucinations, hearing various songs and smelling foul scents. Then, it seemed that it was all in illusion as it dawned on him that he "had entered the domain." (The Magus, p. 134). He adds "I had become involved in something too uniquely bizarre to miss." (The Magus, p. 143). It was an inescapable psychic experience, where all the senses were exploited.
Conchis pretended to relieve all the mysterious past secrets and events, he even beguiled Nicholas into believing that his beloved had died and he lived on her memory. The extreme mystery lay in the presence of the girl he had not yet seen face-to-face. The girl would be later on a replica of Conchis's love Lily. Nicholas's eagerness to know and to explore led him on as he wondered "whether Conchis's cunningly mounted fantasies hid ultimately a wisdom or a lunacy." (The Magus, p.162). Nicholas was a victim as well as a partaker of all the weird steps of his conjurer, exactly like Mephistopheles and his student Faustus. The pleasures that Nicholas derived out of his gradual fall into the pit is just like the satisfaction of Faustus when instinctive desires were attained by any means. He was experiencing "a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues … I had no other chance or choice." (The Magus, p. 164). The sense of power and the feeling of exaltation was enough reward, it instilled the real aspect of omni power, the third angle of the triangle. He was supposed to yield without questioning and to enjoy every moment of what he called a private mosque. His expectation and suspense are ignited as he meets Conchis's female guest for the first time and shakes hands with Miss. Montgomery. She was twenty-three years old and was cool, reserved and very beautiful. Her cool hand was like the touch of a ghost. She was the first thread of the web that was secretly set for him and which he willingly moved into its centre. The game began and Nicholas felt that he really belonged to this atmosphere, "I found myself formalizing my speech … After all it was a masque, and I wanted, or after a very short while began to want to play my part." (The Magus, p. 169). While he enjoyed the young girl's company, he felt that Conchis was amused and interested and waited for the results of his gradual attraction. "Conchis's mysterious enterprise is always one step ahead of Urfe's rational speculations about it … Conchis deliberately counts the mysterious and unexpected, what he … refers to … as hazard." (Holmes, Vol. 31, .p. 49,53). This modern Mephistopheles can always exceed and overcome the limited scope of the Faustian power represented by the young enthusiastic Nicholas.
The motive of Maurice Conchis was to make the young man relive his own past, as he had already related to him his early love story and the death of his beloved Lily. The young girl was supposed to previously this dead figure. Nicholas had seen her portrait and observed that the young girl was an exact copy of her in shape and apparel. Conchis explains that of course this is not the copy of Lily but she has her own individual character. The masque or make belief was clarified as Nicholas explained "At once I had the impression that we were two actors with the same doubts about the director." (The Magus, p. 70). The relation between him and Lily becomes intimate as he feels that he loves and is deeply attached to this mysterious figure. The girl senses his confusion and promises to explain everything when Conchis is not around.
One of his hilarious scenes takes place on a very tense dark night, when he and Lily were sneaking to the seashore. Suddenly there is the sound of an uncanny horn that puts them on the alert. Lily asks him to remain quite still, to hearken carefully and to watch. He witnesses a faint light like a small torch, and near the pines, he is shocked to see the figure of a dark naked man, whom Lily called Apollo. The awesome shape inspired the Greek myths with its detailed description and the girl's adding to its halo of power.
On his head there was a glint of gold, a crown of laurel-leaves … facing us, with his yard-long horn, a narrow crescent … his skin an unnatural white … as if it had been painted. (The Magus, p. 181).
Lily watched quietly waiting for the rest of the performance, Apollo blew his horn and out of the dark grove of trees advanced another figure of a young naked girl running swiftly as if being chased. She ran towards the sea, then a third shape of a man in the form of a satyr appeared and all these naked figures ran along the seashore and the mountains in a hideous chase. Nicholas felt that it was disgusting obscene, and completely distant away from the classic appearance and clothes that Lily was wearing; she herself was smiling a cruel vicious smile. This was followed by a woman dressed up in a long saffron gown with long hair set in a classic style, she had a silver bow and "something in her stance, as well as the distorted face was genuinely frightening." (The Magus, p. 182). The woman aimed an arrow at the satyr and shot him in the heart, he swayed, fell down, and she walked to Apollo, they greeted each other and the beam of light was extinguished with "the farewell of immortals." (The Magus, p. 183), the actors were hastening to dismount this ghostly night stage.
This supernatural nocturnal act really terrified Nicholas, as the events were all uncanny, haunted by mystery and magic, a real masque of figures and deeds. He became certain that he also would have to play a role or become a part of this primitive unknown society. It was a hell or a place of omni power, which in spite of his fear, he yearned to have access to it. He represented another phase of Faustus in his search for a clue of knowledge or a solution to all these vague actions. He could not be chosen as a mere spectator; "People don't build cinemas for an audience of one, unless they mean to use the one for a very special purpose." (The Magus, p. 184). He was a participant whose role was beyond present comprehension.
Fowles takes the dramatic experiment a step further Conchis dispenses with an audience, and to some degree allows his performers to depart from his prepared scripts, but retains the traditional director's godlike control over the total scene. (Modern Fiction Studies, 1985, 'The Architecture of Revision: Fowles and The Agore', by James R. Lindroth, p. 57)
When he attempts to inquire from Conchis what all this meant, the latter gives him the choice of either taking the risk and remaining without explanation at least for the time being, or selecting the wiser and safer step of returning to his school. Nicholas, as a Faustian disciple stays under any conditions and accepts Conchis's terms. Conchis serves as the magician, the devil, Mephistopheles, or may even reach the power of a deity creating a microcosm of his own. He tells Nicholas "Why everything is, including you, including me, and all the gods, is a matter of hazard. Nothing else. Pure hazard." (The Magus, p.186). These two men's separation from the rest of the normal world is like the isolation of Faustus and Mephistopheles; all their transactions are private pacts.
Whenever Nicholas retires to his own room, he finds various pamphlets and papers dealing with, doctors, psychology, science, logic, knowledge, membership with several societies and finally an old, yellow paper on communication with other worlds. This paper ascertains that there are other planets, and that " in the cosmos there are beings who have evolved in the same way and with the same aspirations as ourselves." (The Magus, p. 190). The means of communication with such beings does not rely on the normal time span; but "thoughts were communicated at precisely the moment they were conceived." (The Magus, p. 190). The writer stresses this study and the interest in the experience of telepathy that he believes depends on medical science and psychic discovery. This modern view is equal to the supernatural magic and devilish milieu in Dr. Faustus; yet it is tinged with the spirit of knowledge, science and technology of the twentieth century. The pamphlet clarifies that:
a whole category of noble and beneficial mental behaviour … as good conscience, humane deeds, artistic inspiration … scientific genius, is really dictated by half-understood telepathic messages from other worlds. (The Magus, p. 191)
The idea of being psychic which was implanted into Nicholas on his first arrival has a clear purpose now as it prepares him for the experiment which will follow: the masque, the written manuscript which they were supposed to enact. Nicholas had formed nations about this coming performance; he made an attempt to interpret it according to the terms of the conjurer Conchis. He thought "that Conchis was trying to recreate some lost world of his own… I was cast as the jeune premier in it, his younger self … I had been shifted from quest to pupil." (The Magus, p. 192). As a pupil, Nicholas dreads and yet awaits eagerly his role, which began with the strange pamphlets and books that were left for him to read.
To add to his confusion and the power of creation and novelty, he discovers a twin sister to Lily; Rose, they both take turns in confusing and luring him. The second fearsome scene includes the twin sisters; a figure cloaked in black with a sinister mask, and horror magazine illustrations. The whole atmosphere was a second version of the previous scene, but this was at daytime. Nicholas considers it another "nasty twist in the masque … anything might happen … there were no limits in this masque, no normal social laws or conventions." (The Magus, p. 199). Although every scene filled him with anticipation, yet events were not continuous, there were many long pauses that whetted his curiosity, added to his feat of understanding and kept him on the alert for any sign of action.
The adventures between him and the twins, who later tell him their real names Julie and June; take various turns while he discovers secret places on the island with dark tunnels and ancient statues. They refuse to unravel the mystery, so as not to spoil the fun as they claim. The whole island, with Conchis's plot, is a unique experience, where no one can trust the others and everything depends on this wizard. He has means of hearing them and discovering all their secret conversations. They are all puppets and the strings are controlled and manoeuvred by this one Magus:
As the only 'God' Nicholas ever knows, Conchis assumes many guises, but provides no answers; he is a god as 'magus' who creates an illusory world but who deceives … leaving his victim in the abyss of chaos. (Novak Jr, p. 76).
As Faustus ended in complete failure rent by the devils, Nicholas reaches no answers or solutions and ends more astray spiritually and psychologically. "Conchis and the others recognize no humane or moral constraint as they prosecute the godgame." (Same source, p. 80). Conches attempts to impress Nicholas by theories on schizophrenia and psychiatry especially psychiatric analysis which he calls "situation therapy." (The Magus, p. 231). The whole experience is a maze, and Conchis avoids any direct answer or solution, the more he becomes entranced, mystified and ready to proceed till the final stage. He listens to Conchis's encouraging comments:
Mystery has energy. It pours energy into whoever seeks an answer to it. If you disclose the solution to the mystery you are simply depriving the other seekers … of an important source of energy. … I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution. (The Magus, p.235).
In other words, he is exactly like a magician who would never solve the riddle of his conjured trick to the wondering spectators and lose the gist of his performance.
Nicholas is an obedient student, he lies down as commanded and gazes at the stars unaware of all surroundings as though suspended between two worlds or hypnotized in the midst of darkness and sensation. He feels the inexplicable omni power of the ability to receive and to emit, at the same time, the original source of strength. This sensation remains for sometimes as Conchis has a complete control over all his consciousness, when he regains his awareness, he is in bed in his pyjamas and he is subdued,
I had a black plunge of shame, of humiliation, of having been naked in front of Conchis, of having been in his power … It was one of new danger, of meddling in darker, stranger things that needed to be meddled with. (The Magus, p. 241).
Nicholas receives a letter from his girlfriend Alison informing of her coming to Athens to meet him. He has a chance of breaking away from the world of the island, and thinking more clearly of the characters he had met throughout the experiment. They were more exciting than the shallow unreal characters of science fiction. He had been on a remote planet where Conchis maybe his Mephistopheles exposing him to knowledge and awareness, offering a mystery, and an unearthly weird realization of the presence of past, present and future; both physically and psychologically. He takes Alison to a beautiful quiet village, an ideal peaceful place, a repose to make him ready for a further resuming of the incredible magic like suspense. He relates to Alison some of the events on the island and she calls him a selfish intellectual who is never satiated and who desires to have his experience and to win too. They usually fight; she accuses him of not really loving her and not being ready to shoulder any responsibility. She departs quietly leaving a strange note to add to his dilemma:
Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and there was no old man, no girl any more. No mysterious fun and games. The whole place locked up forever. It's finished, finished, finished. (The Magus, p. 278).
He rushes to the villa, and they are still there with more complications and remarks uttered by Lily and Rose [Julie and June] concerning schizophrenia and how an individual can be split in two; besides Conchis asserting that "the unknown being the great motivating factor in all human existence." (The Magus, p. 288). Nicholas and twins try in vain to reach any conclusion, but no one trusts the other; the only clear notion is "the old man's determination to lure them into his game." (The Magus, p. 290).
The attitude of Nicholas is similar to the Faustian desire for knowledge, the eccentric search for the inexplicable, and the devilish quest regardless of the consequences. His experience with Conchis is another version of the pact between Faustus and Mephistopheles. It is a step that he takes willingly and eagerly without regret or pangs of conscience. The difference lies between the two ages, the sixteenth century, and the modern age with its technical scientific and artistic facilities. Yet in both cases we sense the supernatural, the mystery of conjuring and magic; Nicholas is completely aware of the whole situation as he comments at the end of chapter 44:
Up to this point in my life … I thought in terms of species, behaviours, observations. Here for the first time in my life I was unsure of my standards, my beliefs, my prejudices. I knew the man out there on the point was having an experience beyond the scope of all my science and all my reason, and I knew that my science and my reason would always be defective until they could comprehend what was happening. (The Magus, p. 308).
The performance that Nicholas will share in implies a possessive existence untouchable by time or space. "Everywhere in the masque, the interrelationships thread between circumstances … all that is past possesses our present." (The Magus, p. 311). The young man as well as the twin girls Lily and Rose [Julie and June] are standard on the island like prisoners held by Maurice Conchis to carry out his exquisite masque. Meanwhile, they are left on their own to suggest a sense of freedom; but they are closely watched and guarded. They were surrounded by strange figures, devilish apparitions such as the mute Negro, the satyr and the woman of no entity. Conchis's main motive was to exploit human beings as puppets expressing the idea of creation, one of the angles of the omni power triangle. All the strings were in his hands as he turned them into actors, a strange cast under his own spell. The old man was like a wild animal in his den enjoying his game and his coaxing and pulling the strings of his victims. Yet, Nicholas cannot be considered a victim, in fact, he enjoyed the whole experience with its fantasy and hazards, "there returned that old excitement let it all come … , so long as I might reach the centre, and have the final prize I coveted." (The Magus, p. 322).
The friendship between him and the twins allowed a few moments of friendship; but lacked any trust or confidence. The girls explain that Conchis lured them by his generosity and offered them a fabulous life on the island and the yacht in return for performing a Greek story 'Three Hearts'. It related the adventures of two English girls, the British ambassador's at Athens daughters who spend a holding on a Greek island during World War I. They meet a Greek poet who is very sick and dying, he falls in love with each one of them in turn and it all ends miserably with his death. Nicholas senses the frailty of this issue since Conchis can never be a mere film producer requesting a cast on this remote island. The whole idea is a complete farce, and at this point, which is almost halfway through the novel, Nicholas discovers that Conchis is a psychiatrist, who is no longer at his career, but who has written some researches on schizophrenia. He realizes that the fight is between him and this doctor and that certainly the scales are not balanced on his side. It is not a fair game as this psychiatric specialist desired to carry out live experiences on human beings or in other words guinea pigs. They would help "cross a frontier to a new world that was half art and half science. A unique psychological and philosophical adventure … an extraordinary voyage into the human unconscious." (The Magus, p. 337). This can be related to the Faustian idea of using man to serve supernatural purposes or to recreate a certain being through the strange and coveted knowledge.
Nicholas becomes thoroughly enchanted with the mysterious masque staged exclusively for him. He falls in love with the fictions the riddles, the play acting and the players … he wants to remain inside this fabulous domain. ('Games and Godgames in The Magus and the French Lieutenant Women', p. 37).
The actors or participants are enchanted following "mysterious voices through a forest of alternative possibilities." (The Magus, p. 338). Nicholas is the main protagonist of this intellectual and psychological game, "the chief guinea pig." (The Magus, p.338). The clash between him and Conchis is aggravated as he wishes to understand, while Conchis keeps everything concealed so as to preserve them in a constant state of suspense, wonder, fear and anxiety. This would enable him to observe and analyse every reaction physically, mentally, but mainly psychologically. Nicholas attempts to decipher any signs or symbols, but the more he ventures, the more he complicates and entangles the whole affair. It is obvious that he enjoys this maze [Faustus] and always returns to the villa to proceed with the ensuring steps. He says:
I began to review the miracle-mystery that had brought us together - Conchis and his purposes. If you have a private menagerie, your concern is to keep the animals in, not to dictate exactly what they do inside the cage. He constructed bars around us, subtle psychological bars that kept us chained in Bournai. (The Magus, p. 371).
On one of the very dark nights there is a reacting of a whole battle where Nicholas is supposed to be caught by the German soldiers and is tortured and humiliated as a war prisoner. Throughout his fear and helpless hopeless situation, he is aware that it is very well done. "I fell under the spell of Conchis the magician again. Frightened, but fascinated." (The Magus, p. 376). Conchis's scheme has no limits, it overflows with tricks, plots, deception, mystery, magic and the supernatural, or, in other words, anything that is beyond logical comprehension. Nicholas complains as he is accused of being a traitor. "Once more I was a man in a myth, incapable of understanding." (The Magus, p.381). Yet, he must continue this molesting game and endure the sadistic treatment.
It is a challenge to the young man, an experience that baffles and yet purges him leading to new realms of the psyche and the intellectual pranks. "I was being taught some obscure metaphysical lesson about the place of man in existence, about the limitations of the egocentric view." (The Magus, p. 386). Conchis was a man of various talents, the most prominent being his ability to deceive and to confuse people ruffling the innermost layers of the human psyche; he used strange means and symbols like a real magician. Nicholas says "I had an uncanny apprehension of a reality of witchcraft; Conchis's haunting broading omnipresence." (The Magus, p. 386). This magician differed from other people as he thought that all things should be dealt with according to his own personal creed, even the war is:
a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our fellowmen. Our relationship with our economic and historical situation. And above all our relationship to nothingness. To death … . (The Magus, p. 413).
Throughout the whole experience, Conchis tries to teach Nicholas his own philosophy, but without solving any mystery. He encourages him to confront life according to his own scheme of risk and an extreme daring and audacity. He criticizes Nicholas's passive apprehension telling him; "You watch and you despair. Or you despair and you watch. In the first case, you commit physical suicide; in the second moral." (The Magus, p. 438). The twin girls are more informed than Nicholas but they obey their master and are afraid to break any of the rules of his game. Then, one day they decide to clarify certain clues concerning Conchis.
June explains that his field of speciality has been the "delusional symptoms of insanity." (The Magus, p. 477). As a hard working diligent psychiatrist he has been interested in the conflict between facts and illusions and wished to prove that they can co-exist. He needed educated people like Nicholas to carry out and to verify his experiment; but it was essential that he should not be aware of any of the mysterious attempts to delude him.
Psychiatry is getting more and more interested in the other side of the coin - why some people are sane, why they won't accept delusions and fantasies as real. Obviously it's very difficult to explore that if you tell your same guinea pig, … that everything he's going to be told is an attempt to delude him. (The Magus, p. 477).
She solves another riddle, which is the choice of false names for her and her sister. Apparently the names Rose and Lily add to the notion of Conchis's being a magician, a game maker; they are symbols used on one of the playing cards. The Tarot pack has one card called the 'magus' or the 'magician' and conjuror and the picture has two traditional symbols; the rose and the lily, Conchis borrowed them to increase the implication of mystery. The reader may realize that it is Fowles who is now commenting when the whole situation became muddled, he is trying to help his hero as well as the reader out of this dark pit. Fowles has the aesthetic skill and the ability to make the reader share, explore, and even reach a climax of confusion, this requires a brave novelist.
Nicholas thinks that is cruel to object the individual human mind in such a manner and to make him move in a number of directions without guidance, but she explains that every pride should be crushed in order to reach the ultimate or the sense of beyond. "The apparently sadistic conspiracy against the individual we call evolution. Existence. History." (The Magus, p. 479). It is as if "Fowles therefore leaves the reader with the sense of having reached a nucleus of humanity and freedom." ('Games and Godgames in The Magus and the French L. Women', p.41).
The climax of the novel is close to the end of the narrative in Chapter 59, which is the trial of Nicholas in a fearsome atmosphere. He was having an affair with one of the girls when suddenly she leaves him lying down naked and a number of men dressed all in black seize him, cover him with a bed-spread, tie him with ropes and gag him. He becomes furious, scared, humiliated and outraged especially when he sees Conchis dresses like them and leaning over him like a surgeon. Then he sedated with a syringe and asked not to panic, but to sleep. The whole place was "Flames, devils, hell-trial… they were all mad." (The Magus, p. 489).
Nicholas, in the last moments before the sedation worked, tried to grasp any meaning. "I tried to realize what I had got into: a world of people who knew no laws, no limits." (The Magus, p. 490). He remained unconscious for nearly three days and when he recovered his only desire was to revenge, to vent his rage on Lily who fooled him and on Conchis who seemed to be punishing him for no reason at all. He felt that they have "crashed through everything that made the world customary and habitable and orientated." (The Magus, p. 497). The irony lies in the fact that he himself had felt bored with the traditional world and desired excitement and more knowledge.
In an attempt to protect his ego against this dehumanising and terrifying nihilism in a defensive if not logical way. ('The Dialectics of Debasement in the Magus', p. 72).
The ordeal was not over yet; two guards immediately took him to a huge underground room. There was a throne at the end of it three tables, and twelve chairs all covered in black. There were also benches like those of the jury box, and a wheel was placed on the throne. Projectors lighted the place, he was led to the throne that was a mere stage equipment painted in black, with black columns and a crimson cushion. He remained hand cuffed and gagged and could not move or speak, he just watched. Nicholas called it "a court of injustice." (The Magus, p. 498). The room seethed with weird shapes and unearthly magic signs, terrifying figures and emblems. Then Nicholas was shocked by the sight of a gigantic man all in black with white eyes and nostrils and with a huge stag head. This head formed an evil mask that seemed too heavy to carry. The fear of magic and mystery that appalled the middle ages Faustian spectators varied here, Nicholas explains:
in our century we are too inured by science fiction and too sure of science reality even to be terrified of the super natural … but of what lay behind the mask. The eternal source of all fear, all horror, all real evil, man himself. (The Magus, p. 500).