![]() ![]() The lure of it, even as a remote possibility, was too strong to be resisted. If there was a Phraxos somewhere, existing as Fowles had described it, it would be Greece Quintessential - untainted magic. ![]() Greece has that effect, that elusive quality which invests the most commonplace scenes and incidents with a newness and a strangeness that implacably draw one onward. Its story of an effete young English poet manqué who meets a mysterious Greek millionaire and is lured by him into a baffling labyrinth where reality and unreality intertwine was strongly reminiscent of my own experiences. Perhaps that was why “The Magus” had made such an impression on me. Of course, living in Italy, I had been to Greece several times, had experienced for myself that strange visceral stirring evoked by its occult blend of priapic energy and Apollonian reserve. It took my breath away when I first saw it … and it still takes my breath away when I shut my eyes now and remember it…. There was no other adjective it was not just pretty, picturesque, charming-it was simply and effortlessly beautiful. THUS spake John Fowles in his mesmerizing novel, “The Magus,” and as a devout mesmeree it was inevitable that along about my fourth reading of the book I would start wondering-like Fowles's supercilious protagonist Nicholas Urfe-whether the island of that name was real, symbolic or simply an illusion conjured up by a sorcerer in novelist's clothing. ![]()
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