[vc_row heading_color=”primary-1″ padding_bottom=”100″ margin_bottom=”0″][vc_column][grve_title title=”The Magus by John Fowles” heading_tag=”h1″][vc_column_text text_style=”leader-text”]On the far side of the village there was another harbour, used exclusively by the local fishermen. It was avoided by everyone from the school, and by everyone with any claim tο social ton in the village… There were three tavernas, but only one was of any size. It had a few rough wooden tables outside its doors.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row heading_color=”light” bg_type=”image” bg_image=”11717″ bg_image_type=”fixed” pattern_overlay=”yes” column_gap=”5″ padding_top=”100″ padding_bottom=”100″ font_color=”#ffffff”][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1526461068008{padding-top: 3% !important;padding-right: 3% !important;padding-bottom: 3% !important;padding-left: 3% !important;background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.8) !important;*background-color: rgb(0,0,0) !important;}”][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][grve_title title=”John Fowles”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1526461137826{padding-right: 3% !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][grve_single_image image_mode=”medium” image=”11707″ align=”left”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1533650875138{padding-right: 3% !important;padding-left: 2% !important;}”][vc_column_text]British Novelist
After leaving Oxford University, Fowles taught English at a school on the Greek island of Spetses, a sojourn that inspired The Magus,[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row heading_color=”primary-1″ padding_bottom=”100″ margin_bottom=”0″ padding_top=”100″][vc_column][vc_column_text]Once before, coming back from one of my solitary winter walks, I had gone there for a drink; I remembered the taverna-keeper was loquacious and comparatively easy to understand. By island standards, and perhaps because he was an Anatolian by birth, conversable. His name was Georgiou… On Sunday morning I sat under the catalpa and he came up, obsequiously delighted to have caught a rich customer. Yes, he said, of course he would be honoured to have an ouzo with me. He called one of his children to serve us… the best ouzo, the best olives. I let him ask the usual questions. Then I set to work. Twelve or so faded carmine and green caϊques floated in the still blue water in front of us. I pointed to them.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”5/6″][vc_empty_space][grve_quote]It’s a pity you do not have any foreign tourists here. Yachts.[/grve_quote][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][grve_quote]Ech.” He spat out an olive-stone. “Phraxos is dead.”
“I thought Mr Conchis from Bourani kept his yacht over here sometimes.”[/grve_quote][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][vc_column_text text_style=”subtitle”]From The Magus, by John Fowles, c. 1966, Vintage classics 2004, pp. 387-388[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row footer_feature=”yes” margin_bottom=”0″ padding_bottom=”32″][vc_column][vc_column_text]Maurice Conchis is a mysterious personality, whose psychological games, eccentricity, and paradoxical views on life turn him to the magus of the novel.
The narrator, Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on the island, mixes with the magus and believes that he is also a special person. The story is fascinating, full of references, among others, to Greek mythology.
Coming from London, Nicholas says “Phraxos was beautiful, not just pretty, picturesque, charming – it was simply and effortlessly beautiful. It took my breath away when I first saw it, floating like a majestic black whale in an amethyst evening sea.”
It is amazing how Fowles intermingles the plot with the physical setting of his novel, in a way that the latter becomes the plot itself. If I were eloquent I would say something very similar about the fictional island of Phraxos and the actual Spetses, an island very close to my heart.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
L. V. Paidoussi
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
