a magician

John Fowles has died, at age 79.

I remember reading his book The Magus in 11th grade English class. Most of the students like it because it was “the dirty book” but this writer sucked me completely into his labyrinthine plot, and the complex, devious characters responsible for creating the maze. I must have read this book five or six times, and recommended it to scores of friends. It’s the first book I read written in the 20th century that I can remember truly LOVING. It definitely taught me that the types of books I like are not just “the old ones” or genre novels — that there was a literary life for me beyond Penguin Classics.

I thought of The Magus when I saw The Game, when I read Salamander and when I visited the island school on Spetses where Fowles set this most intriguing novel. It’s about history and sex and race and class and psychology and politics and detachment and love and mystery and action — in short, everything I like in my novels. At the time, I didn’t realize that the obvious next step would be to search down his other works. I know better now, a decade later.

I haven’t read the book in years. My copy was lost to a friend who never returned it. I think I’m going to buy another this afternoon, or maybe pick up The French Lieutenant’s Woman or another work I have not read.

Thank you, Mr. Fowles, for writing me such a wonderful book. Thank you for opening the door to everything I learned as a result of reading The Magus, and thank you for whateverinfluence you have had on my development as a writer.

Ave et Vale.