Return of The Magus
Thursday. Goodbye to Paros. An island I would like to explore properly one day. I was dreading going back to Athens. I had no idea what to do there. I guessed that I would think of something. I did. The cost of two days in Athens would not be much less than the cost of an airfare and cheap accommodation on a nearby island. In Athens I just couldn't sit and watch the scenery for two days. On an island I could.
I looked at the timetable. The crazy idea began to make sense. I went to the "same day reservation desk". It was good to feel confident about knowing one's way around. The girl said that she could give me a flight to Skiathos later in the afternoon with a return late the next day. Excellent. I would have preferred an earlier flight out but the rest was fine. I took it.
The matter of losing six or seven hours was not too difficult. I had bought John Fowles' 'The Magus' on Kos this time last year - probably, although I could not remember exactly, on the very same day and, even less likely but just as probable, it would turn out to have been at the same time of day - but I had been unable to finish it because I was half way through when I had met Theresia in 1983. The parallels were extraordinary. Not so much in the wheres and whens but I distinctly recall being positively unnerved by the book - or by my recalling its story after meeting Theresia.
I had the Kos copy at Woodland St Mary. Anne had a copy at Shepherd's Croft (which I hadn't known when I had bought mine). It seemed stupid to buy a third. But there it was. One copy on the bookstand at the Olympic airport in Athens. I was faced with a mental dilemma. Common sense said buy a different book. There was one by Isaac Asimov whom I respected greatly. Anne had said some time ago that I should not continue to read the book when I had mentioned to her that I had started it. I had deliberately stopped. Something intrigued me, though, and would not let me rest until I had risked finishing it. If one can term finishing a book a 'risk' then I had to take it. I bought it and felt a sense of satisfaction at having done the right thing, took myself across, yet again, to the bar over the road, and started to read.
Maybe I was searching for an answer, guidance from somewhere, I don't know. The fact was that I read non-stop until it was time to check in and then continued on the plane.
I couldn't remember precisely where I had stopped before but by the time I went to sleep that night I had passed that point. The story itself is difficult, by its very nature, to précis and it is the feeling that it imparts that I felt most relevant. To help the reader, though, unfamiliar with the novel, it concerns a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, who goes to a Greek island to teach at a school there.
He leaves behind a girl to whom he is physically attracted and with whom he is, possibly, in love. She appears not really to love him but actually does, very much. On the island he becomes part of, or a subject of, a dramatic play in which each action and reaction is governed by his own action. He meets another girl, Lily, who seems to be as much a pawn in this game as he. He finds her very attractive and she begins to pre-occupy his mind, gradually totally doing so. The 'drama' is controlled, or directed, by an elderly European gentleman, doctor, psychologist, magician, director, we don't know which for sure, and it develops in a sequence of disturbing scenes in which Nicholas finds himself in a state of flux between belief and doubt in the girl and others taking part.
He meets Alison for a couple of days in Athens and finds in her and in himself many of the sparks of love but he is still overwhelmed, or influenced, by his feelings for Lily and events on the island. In a silly row at the end of an otherwise lovely couple of days Alison storms out and Nicholas is left alone.
As the 'drama' continues Nicholas reads that Alison committed suicide shortly after their meeting. She loved him so much and couldn't bear to see him fall for another.
He is torn with anger and real grief and blames both himself and the incredible events being stage-managed on the island. But he still has Lily and now needs her more than ever. But he loses her too. Near the end he finds that she, together with all the other 'actors' in the events seem to be psychologists of a very dedicated sort and that in one sense he has been a 'study', in other ways a 'hazard' that they could control only to a point and which they could use as a catalyst to the other actions they wished to assess. He finds himself in the position of a judge of their actions and is offered the choice between taking revenge upon Lily and just walking away.
Lily had been shown also in the embrace of men performing acts with her which were totally abhorrent to him. He had been forced to watch. His whole belief in her was shattered. His real need for her and his love for her became like water falling through a sieve.
It was, to him, like punishment for Alison's death - he took no revenge. He walked away.
Later he was to learn that Alison's death, too, had been 'invented'.
He sought her and eventually met her again. The story ends in a silent quotation, following a paragraph which describes them looking at each other, not really knowing what to do. Nicholas wanted her back but maybe felt that if he would again find something greater then he might hurt her once more. Was his 'love' just a combination of certain other needs being fulfilled by her? Had he been intoxicated by Lily? It had made him blind to others and to his responsibilities.
One is left feeling that Alison would turn and walk away or, at best, that they would gradually begin to understand each other and maybe, just maybe, grow together.
The quotation, which the author declares in his introduction as being the key is in Latin and is not easy to translate definitively:
"Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet"
My own school Latin of 1963 and a 'Teach Yourself Latin' book of a similar vintage interpreted this as:
Tomorrow he who has never loved may love
and he who has loved may love tomorrow
I struggled with the words and with the tenses. I knew that, just as this was the key to the story, there was a message for me there too. Again and again I tried to write down exactly what it meant. I got hold of Peter Simmons, the linguist I had met so briefly on Lesbos. He helped tremendously but still I could not grasp completely that special meaning which I sought.
Then slowly it began to dawn on me. All the trials and all the miles had brought me to this point, today.