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Fowles is able to bring the island to life, with the sense of somnolence which pervades it and the unfettered beauty which surrounds it

In fact it is easy to get distracted by the unreality of Nicholas’s experiences on Spetses and lose focus on the core theme of the novel which is that of a man who is forced to confront the most unsavoury aspects of his personality the stage-show of the novel is Nicholas’s mind and not the various mythical and historical scenes which are enacted during the novel.įowles’s lyrical descriptions of the idyllic island of Spetses are the strongest parts of the novel. In fact in many ways ‘The Magus’ is about the gradual unravelling of Nicholas’s personality, from his meetings with the odious Mitford who acts as a caricature of Nicholas’s worst excesses, to the surreal and somewhat ridiculous performances which punctuate Nicholas’s time on Spetses and which act as an exploration and dissection of Nicholas’s id and ego.

‘The Magus’ is a psychological thriller where a number of themes, from mysticism to war, are explored via the perspective of Nicholas Urfe, a somewhat feckless charactter who in many ways acts as a pastiche of the conceited, feckless antihero who is so wrapped in a sense of ennui and existential angst that his self-absorption shields him from those around him and his impact on them.