The only other example I could think of was that episode of Community with double crossing after double crossing after double crossing ad nauseum until it finally resolves in an anti-gun PSA, and of course, that one actually has a climactic resolution, so it doesn't quite count as a pure example.Īnyway, would love to hear peoples' thoughts. After working on it for many years, he finally released it for publication in 1965. I wanted to open discussion about The Magus to see if other people have had similarly positive experiences with the novel, observed the same thing re: the structure of twists, or if they knew of other novels that worked in similar ways. The Magus was the first novel Fowles wrote, although not the first that he published. Every chapter seems to have at least one or more twists-many contradicting previous ones, and most completely out of left field-that disorients you in a way that other book don't. Well, I kept reading, and the every trick kept adding up until by the end you truly have no idea what's actually happening. This had me excited, but when I opened it, I found that the twists in the game and the tricks Conchis is pulling were all too obvious and didn't provide the kind of slipstream of reality I was hoping for. It was the first novel written by Fowles, although it was not the first that he had published. The basic plot outline-as it's typically advertised-is that a man from England (Nicholas Urfe) goes to Greece and gets caught up in an increasingly elaborate game orchestrated by a mysterious and wealthy man (Conchis), and as he gets deeper into the game, the difference between game and reality becomes harder to define. The Magus The French Lieutenants Woman John Robert Fowles(/falz/ 31 March 1926 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernismand postmodernism. The Magus is a 1965 novel by the British author John Fowles. I read The Magus about a year ago and fell in love with it after being skeptical for the first 100 pages or so.

The Magus by John Fowles