John Fowles: The Magus (unabridged)
read by Nicholas Boulton
- Release Date: 4th Sep 2012
- Catalogue No: NA0108
- Label: Naxos AudioBooks
- Series: Complete Classics
- Length: 26 hours 24 minutes
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John Fowles: The Magus (Unabridged)
Part 1: Chapter 1
At least, along with a group of fellow odd men out at Magdalen…
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
When I came back, she was standing with a glass of Scotch in her hand.
Alison knelt beside me.
Chapter 4
For days, afraid of Maggie…
I couldn't see her face.
One day she said, 'I've got to go for my interview tomorrow.'
Chapter 5
'I waited hours for you.'
The next morning, my last but two…
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
This lack of open water meant also that there were no wild animals…
Another letter came from her the next day.
Chapter 8
One kind of person is engaged in society without realising it…
The day before term ended I felt the balance tip.
Chapter 9
Part 2: Chapter 10
The sun beat down on my back.
Chapter 11
The leading estiatoras of the village…
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
I bit into my first kourabie, and gave an appreciative nod.
As I walked behind him, I said…
His head turned on me with a snakelike swiftness…
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
'Do you like this?'
He picked up a book and slapped the dust off it.
He sat against the parapet with his back to the view.
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
I swilled the last of the ouzo round in my glass.
'I came to Phraxos looking for a house to rent.'
Chapter 18
'You see the child I was.'
'No obstacles except those of propriety…'
'I felt like a small boy beside her.'
Chapter 19
'The madness of it, Nicholas.'
He stood up.
Chapter 20
'I stayed in that crater all night.'
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
We remained staring at each other.
Chapter 23
I looked around again, towards the house.
He had already had his own…
I was silent.
Chapter 24
He stopped speaking for a moment…
'But there was so much misunderstanding between us.'
Chapter 25
I went swiftly down the hall to the front door.
Chapter 26
'He's asked me over next week again.'
Chapter 27
At last it began to seem plain.
She had bare shoulders and arms.
Chapter 28
She went and stood against the parapet at the far end of the terrace…
Chapter 29
'Constantly, during that first visit, I was shocked…'
'He was the most abnormal man I had ever met.'
I went to the parapet that faced East.
I looked back at Conchis.
'Very well. Let us have a little more brandy first.'
Chapter 30
I had never had a telepathic experience in my life…
Chapter 31
'Give me your hand.'
I thought for one mad moment that he had crept up behind us.
It was a wild, dislocating, disactualising, shock.
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
She threw me a veiled look, then stared ahead again.
'I haven't been very happy on Phraxos.'
Chapter 34
'When shall I see you again?'
Chapter 35
He gave me a piercing look I was meant to believe…
I had the now familiar feeling that came in conversations at Bourani.
I remained staring at the edge of the tablecloth.
Chapter 36
I began to stare at the star.
At some point it began imperceptibly to change.
Chapter 37
I was glad, with a simplicity that recalled earliest adolescence.
Chapter 38
I remembered Lily's prophecy…
There was a long silence.
Chapter 39
It should have cast a shadow over the day.
Chapter 40
At the top of it we came to…
Chapter 41
She thrust the saucepan under my nose…
Chapter 42
We walked on a way…
'It's not that I believe any of these things…'
We got to Arachova about five…
'That reminds me.'
She began to bang the bedrail with her fists…
Chapter 43
She turned down the pale blue flame of the spirit-stove…
I went after her.
Chapter 44
'I think I told you that when modern history…'
However, from being rather frightened by the solitude…
'He said, "I had no choice."'
'I got into the boat…'
'I watched this rare specimen of humanity for some time.'
'I went back to the farmstead a wiser young man.'
I trained my glasses on him.
Chapter 45
Conchis kissed her hand, and then she reached it to me…
A second later I had let go of her and was reaching in my pocket…
She leant backward and stretched her arm along the seat back…
She answered obliquely.
She started to walk down past the statue.
Chapter 46
Lily looked coolly down at me and said…
I lit my cigarette.
She handed me three other letters.
'But you must still have smelt a rat?'
'We had screen tests. Some woman Maurice knew…'
'You said yes again?'
She looked back over her shoulder.
Chapter 47
I began my supplementary cross-examination.
After a moment or two…
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
We came to where the beach curved away…
I began to walk in the direction that would bring me…
In a few seconds a pale movement told me I was right.
'What the bloody hell's the game?'
The colonel moved up the path to where the sergeant…
As he did so there was a cry, an exclamation.
Chapter 50
I began to walk along towards the bay with the three cottages.
On the far side of the village there was another harbour…
'What kind of singing and dancing?'
Chapter 51
I lay on the bed and thought of her coming to me…
My tears did not last very long.
Chapter 52
'A victim is someone who has something inflicted on him…'
This was the 'last trick' of Julie's letter.
We silently toasted each other, across the lamp-lit table…
The new-risen moon was amber…
Chapter 53
He let me look a few moments longer…
The beam was extinguished, the engine stopped.
'Poor Anton.'
'‘So the eighty of us were marched off to the school…'
They took the three to the school, where they were interrogated.
'We went into another bare room next door.'
'The night passed.'
'Beyond those three atrocious shapes I saw the hostages.'
'I understood then.'
Chapter 54
'But let me finish by showing you the report that Anton wrote.'
Chapter 55
'She wrote me a letter.'
He caught sight of something behind me.
Joe appeared in the music-room door, with two heavy suitcases.
Chapter 56
Perhaps it was seeing her in contemporary…
Under the colonnade, Hermes stood waiting.
I lit a fourth match.
Chapter 57
Julie's suitcase stood at the foot of the bed.
Chapter 58
She had the amateur liar's habit of looking earnestly into one's eyes.
I took her hand and led her silently and quickly up the alley…
I went and stood by the window, the now-torrential rain…
Chapter 59
I lay on top of her, mastering her…
A little smile at the corner of her mouth…
Chapter 60
All her story – her stories…
I lit another Philip Morris.
Chapter 61
As soon as I had done so…
The next figure was African…
Perhaps a minute passed like that.
'Good. Now… if I may be allowed I shall first introduce myself.'
I could not keep control any longer.
The subject's family…
Though I have little sympathy as a fellow human being…
Adam called something.
No one moved…
Chapter 62
A new shot.
Then light came from behind the curtains.
Lily.
Chapter 63
I climbed a hundred yards or so to the top of the hill.
Pitching and rolling, the little steamer, made late by the meltemi…
Next I opened another envelope from London.
Chapter 64
There was a swift conversation in Greek between the headmaster…
He watched me a moment more, then came to the point.
Chapter 65
Finally, on different paper, a scrawled message…
The 'orders' looked as if they had all been typed out…
Chapter 66
I returned to the waiting yellow taxi.
The dinner that evening was dreadful…
Chapter 67
I walked up and down my room…
Part 3: Chapter 68
I wanted to say that I hadn't come as a tourist…
Chapter 69
The next morning I went round to the estate agents…
Chapter 70
Faculty of English, Osaka University.
Evening Standard of January 8, 1952.
Chapter 71
I walked over the gravel and under a brick arch.
'Can you remember one thing…'
She looked down at her cigarette.
Chapter 72
'I have some ugly questions to ask.'
She reached up to the mantelpiece beside…
I would not turn and look at her.
Chapter 73
There was only one person I wanted to talk with.
I stood at the bar waiting for the drinks…
'Fantastic.'
Chapter 74
I analysed the situation.
Chapter 75
I looked down.
A minute later, we were going down the corridor…
Chapter 76
A young Victorian of my age would have thought nothing…
She was always equable…
Rain pounded down, dripped in the gutters…
If only I had told her at the beginning…
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
She was walking slowly across the grass, towards the east.
'You're the only person I've ever felt that about.'
She was not crying, I leant forward and looked.
There was a smell of a bonfire.