myth presentation

Perhaps this family tree will help y'all to follow some of the happenings in the cycle of events mentioned in this paper

         On page 626 of my copy of The Magus (which is the copy that the book store sold, for those of you who are wondering if it is the same pagination as your own book), Lily de Seitas tells Nicholas "Every answer is a kind of death," which, in my humble opinion, justifies the ending of the book entirely, making it perhaps the most important quote in the entire book, certainly top three if nothing else. See, if there had been a more definite ending (that is, if it had told us what happened with Nicholas and Alison, or with Conchis, and the next year's godgame) then the entire world that the novel created has an ending, and it is dead, like the Latin language. The way the book ends keeps the characters alive in the reader's mind. Instead of wondering about what happened to the characters after this last moment as if it were some past event that history recorded, which could be looked up, and recounted, I felt as though I was wondering what the characters were doing at this moment, in 2011, and how they were fairing after this whole "godgame" business. That is the power of this quote. Instead of providing a moment in which the godgame is clearly finished, and the relationship between Alison and Nicholas takes a definite route, in one direction or another, the moment, the situation is left in the open for us to ponder. It's not as though the author were preserving the last moment, as if it were the flower under the bell jar (Beauty and the Beast reference) never to die because it was frozen in time; rather, the immortality comes from the fact that the moment was fleeting, it was only one small part of a series of moments that comprised this interaction, and it was presented as such; as though what happened next truly happened next, but was none of our concern. Fowles planted a seed in those last moments, which may have bloomed any type of flora, and it was left up to each reader to decide what that seed would produce, and to come back to that seed later on, and examine it. It was never meant to be appreciated right away. Just as one cannot appreciate a garden until the flowers start to blossom.
             Does the last quote not make what happens next obvious? No. Who is to say whether or not any of these characters have loved? Who is it that truly needs the chance to love tomorrow for the first time? And furthermore, assuming (as I, and I'm sure most people did) that the target of the quote was Nicholas, who knows whether or not his next chance at love will be with Alison? Nobody (I would guess that even Mr. Fowles never knew, because it was never the important thing). 
             I would've rather not posted any of this in all honesty, because anyone who didn't consciously realize this for his or her self, probably did have the same feeling, but didn't realize it, and sooner or later they certainly would have realized it, and understood, and they would have grown to love the book for its lessons in time. But as it stands, I've quite possibly ruined this little piece of self realization for the people who fall into this category (if any in the class do), and I've cheated them out of ever being able to love this novel as much as I do. Much like Nicholas himself, the reader is driven to certain self-realizations, upon finishing the book, which offer a very gratifying sense of introspective knowledge. In other words: sorry if you didn't like the book, and you feel as though you already understood the gravity of this quote, because chances are that you understood the quote, but didn't fully appreciate it's weight, and now I've spoiled everything even further for you. I think that this miniature "life lesson-ette" is more what the quote is about than the actual literal significance of the words themselves, and so, by explaining the quote, I've actually taken away it's true meaning, so that it can never fully be explained, unless one already understood it entirely in the first place. Bummer.

I just finished The Magus, and I don't understand why everyone gets so upset about the ending. What more would you have asked for?...

            I've gotten through 496 pages of The Magus, and I cannot get over the way in which this book has constructed a total mind-maze! I mean, usually it's incredibly easy to see through a book's plot; to end up where you suspected you would end up, even though your resolve in your initial intuition may have been shaken a bit from time to time. But this book is different. It's different because, even if you know what is going to happen, you never know how much is laid out for you to see through, and you never know how much deeper each little vein of the plot really goes. Just like Nicholas in Conchis' masque. It's really very well constructed for that reason; it puts the reader in the situation of the main character, and not just because of the first person perspective, nor simply because you have a mystery to figure out along with the character, but because you too must feel the indignant sting of having been wrong in a conclusion, and you too must feel betrayed every time Nicholas feels betrayed, and because you are forced to sympathize with a man who you do not want to admit is really quite similar to yourself in many ways. Am I assuming too much about your personality? I should think not. Nicholas is like all young people I know, my friends, my "enemies", and my self. I say so because he starts out with too much confidence in what he wants to do (this is not everyone, but it is one large group of people), then he realizes that he detests the conditions he's in (change of major?) and decides to pursue something a bit different, thought I will admit, going to Greece is not quite the same as switching from a pre-med major to an anthropology major, or something of the like. Nicholas also has a relationship that he isn't fully invested in, but that tugs at his heart strings a bit every time he's getting a little lonely (at first anyhow). This is kind of a slap in the face for some people, who would think "Oh, I've never been nearly such a pig!", but just give it some thought. Maybe our cases haven't been nearly so extreme as the relationship between Alison and Nicholas, and maybe we've even resisted the urge to use somebody to temporarily patch up a hole in our lives until we've found something better, but we've all had that little thought. Even if it was just the shade of a notion that you labeled as a demon right away, Dionysus has possessed you for one or more seconds at some point in time and said, "Maybe, just for a night or two, you could..."
             Anyhow, I would hate to sympathize with a character I don't much like any longer. But how could I avoid talking about what seems to be the ultimate betrayal against him? Alison is dead, and proven (in his mind) to be so, and yet "Julie/Lily" still makes love to him with apparent amour, only for us to see that it's truly been done with the callous of a hooker! If you don't feel bad for the man at that point, you're even more hard hearted than he had ever been toward Alison. Elle ne l'aime pas du tout! The poor sap. But now, truly, I am done sympathizing with this man.
             I have postulated theory upon theory about what might be happening. Most of them have become rubble strewn at the base of my final plausible conclusion to the book (which I can't possibly write in my blog, just in case people are not so far into the book), but I will say this. If the pattern of my theorizing continues, in two or three chapters, my final plausible theory will be in the same state as all my others. In fact, I wouldn't hardly claim this theory out loud if someone asked me, because it is so outlandish, but only because everything which is not outlandish is refuted the page after it is conceived. And furthermore, the book has a way of making you doubt your own sanity to a degree, or rather, I think I might known what happens, but the book doesn't particularly suggest it, so I feel the characters of the book staring at me through the pages saying "that's what you think is going to happen? No way man, you're miles off." And since I can't get my footing on what may or may not happen next, I have to accept the roll of Nicholas, of the bystander who cannot escape the masque, and so must let its natural current whisk him along, until finally, battered and bruised I have reached the natural conclusion. And the foreboding notion that everyone hates the end of this book certainly doesn't assuage the feeling I have that the natural end to this current is something analogous to a waterfall.
                 I also feel almost like a character who has made it yea far in the masque, because when I hear which page others are on, all I can do is smile and think "have fun", and then laugh to myself in that menacing chuckle that denotes some sort of dramatic irony. In other words, I am the ancient stone bust on Conchis' silver platter, and I have that wry smile that you cannot decode any more than you can escape it. So, to all of you who are not so far into the book, have fun.