Loosely translated, the Latin reads: “Tomorrow let him love, who has never loved he who has loved, let him love tomorrow.” While this suggests that Fowles wanted the frequently callous Nicholas to love again, the lingering question I had after finishing The Magus was whether Fowles even cared about people. Some takes on these closing lines, repurposed by Fowles from The Virgil of Venus (3rd century AD), can be found at the most definitive online place for all things Fowles. If a novelist leaves his volume open-ended, does he not have some duty to know every aspect of his characters as he knows the back of his hand? On the other hand, if Fowles led his narcissistic schoolteacher Nicholas Urfe to a specific point, perhaps he’s off the hook for anything beyond these final words: And I tend to react as people want, or don’t want it - if they’ve annoyed me - to end.” But Fowles’s story after the story does have me wondering about the novelist’s responsibility. Fowles replied, “Yes.” In 1986, Fowles would tell a dull interviewer seeking literal-minded answers, “I tell that story because that’s how I feel - I don’t know the answer. The lawyer asked the same question, but, unlike the woman, informed Fowles that he enjoyed the book. Fowles wrote back and said, “No.” He received another letter from a New York attorney dying of cancer in a hospital. The woman asked Fowles if two of the novel’s characters got together at the end. The then bigshot author once received a letter from a woman who didn’t care for his book. Over the course of several interviews, John Fowles enjoyed recycling one particular anecdote concerning The Magus.

(This is the eighth entry in the The Modern Library Reading Challenge, an ambitious project to read the entire Modern Library from #100 to #1. Pamela Paul, The Gray Lady’s In-House Transphobe.An Angry Copy Editor on a Lonely Wednesday Night.

The magus book john fowles