The Magician

by W. Somerset Maugham

From one of literature’s finest storytellers comes an enchanting tale of secrets, the supernatural - and fatal attraction.

Renowned English surgeon Arthur Burdon is engaged to the beautiful Margaret Dauncey, who is studying art in Paris. The match is met with approval from all sides, and everyone is happy - until the mysterious Oliver Haddo enters the picture. Both Arthur and his fiancée dislike the enormously fat and eccentric Oliver but are fascinated by his stories of black magic, by his demonstrations of a power that seems inhuman. And while they scoff at his boasts, their dislike turns to loathing.

A month later, Margaret disappears. The note she leaves behind “When you receive this, I shall be on my way to London. I was married to Oliver Haddo this morning.” Why? How? What mysterious power had the Magician used? What further revenge might he be plotting? The answers are revealed in this hair-raising fantasy.

About the William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was born in Paris and grew up in England. He studied medicine before turning to writing and becoming one of the 20th century’s most popular novelists as well as a celebrated playwright, critic, and short-story writer.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Horror, Gothic, Fantasy, 20th Century, Literature

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.

At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Profoundly unlikeable occult novel mainly written to slag off Aleister Crowley, which is in itself fair, but the whole thing is an incredibly unpleasant experience.

It starts with one of those lovely late Victorian relationships where an adult man falls in love with a child, waits for her to become legal, lets her know he controls her financial prosperity before he proposes, and then the entire book is like "Oh he's so wrapped around her finger, this man is hopelessly enslaved to her, she's going to ruin his life by being pretty" and mmmmmm shall we not. After which it's a story about how Aleister Crowley ruins her life to get at the man but she kind of deserves it for being weak willed and also she was going to ruin the Hero's life anyway because of his totally selfless and uncreepy love.

Also Maugham appears to feel the best way to indicate how creepy Crowley is is to reiterate how extremely fat he is, which is nice.

A deeply unpleasant reading experience out of which I noped because the misogyny, it burns. DNF somewhere in the middle, I don't care.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Burdon is due to marry his fiance, Margaret Dauncey. The pair have the misfortune of meeting Oliver Haddo, a self-styled magician and pompous ass. When Arthur assaults Haddo, the Magician hatches a plan to ruin Arthur's life in the most insidious of ways...

The Magician is a tale of revenge, seduction, and things of that nature, written by Maugham after he met Aleister Crowley. It's pretty much a horror novel, honestly.

Oliver Haddo is a revolting character that made my skin crawl and his seduction of Margaret was a little hard to read about. Arthur, Susie, and Margaret were also well drawn, flawed characters.

For a novel written in 1908, The Magician was surprisingly readable compared to many books of that era. The writing was lush and descriptive without being overly flowery and still felt pretty accessible. Haddon's occult knowledge and abilities were also very well done, not terribly flashy and somewhat believable. I have to think the way magic was depicted influence Susan Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

The only strike against the book that I can readily come up with is the ending. I felt it was a little on the anti-climatic side and kind of a downer.

The Magician is a surprisingly effective horror novel for being over one hundred years old. I may have to give old Maugham another shot some day soon. Four out of five stars.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads as a Gothic horror story, and it grabbed me--which is totally amazing! Books of this genre are not ones that normally attract me. I do not regret reading it. Proof is in the fact that the last three hours of it I spent glued to my seat. If Gothic horror stories are your cup of tea, grab it immediately; I guarantee you will not be disappointed. While I was listening, I was totally enthralled. While I was listening, I thought I would give it four stars. Only when completed was I released from its spell. Only when released from its spell could I return to my senses. I have given the book three stars. Yes, I liked it, and yes it grabbed me and yes it gave me a scary thrill, but what did it teach me? Actually, not all that much. I hope from this review, you can decide if YOU should read it.

The setting of the novel is England and Paris, France, at the turn of the 20th century. Margaret Dauncy is soon to marry her long-time friend and beloved guardian Arthur Burdon, an acclaimed English surgeon. He visits her in Paris while she and her friend Susie Boyd are studying art. There they come in contact with Oliver Haddo, a mysterious and alluring but at the same time insidious occultist, a magician of the Black Arts. All are to come under his spell. Just as we readers come under the spell of the book!

The occult was in fashion when Maugham wrote this--in London, in 1907, after a short residence in Paris living on the Left Bank. The magician in the novel and the one referred to in its title was modelled on Aleister Crowley (1875 – 1947), an English occultist, novelist, poet, painter and big-game hunter whom Maugham had met when in Paris. He had taken an immediate dislike to the man! The novel is by no means a biography; it is a story of fiction. It is interesting to note though that Crowley, on reading the novel, recognized himself and wrote a declamatory review under the name of Oliver Haddo!

When the book was republished, circa fifty years after its original publication in 1908, Maugham added a foreword. Entitled A Fragment of Autobiography, it explains in detail that which I have summarized in the preceding paragraph. The foreword is not to be missed. Both the foreword and the entire novel is in fact accessible free online here: http://www.online-literature.com/maug... Before you grab it, read what I have to say about the audiobook.

The audiobook includes the foreword. It is narrated by David Rintoul. His performance is fantastic. We are given a show, a dramatization of the written words that is better than anything one can imagine. I do not usually enjoy dramatizations, but this I loved. It is superb, it cannot be improved upon. Even the French is impeccably rendered. Remember, much takes place in Paris! Don’t read the book; listen to it. I believe I became as enthralled as I did because I listened to David Rintoul’s narration.

Each of W. Somerset Maugham’s novels are different from his others--in content, theme and style. Each is unique, a surprise and a delicious treat!

My ratings of Maugham’s books:
Then and Now 5 stars
Mrs Craddock 4 stars
Cakes and Ale 4 stars
The Painted Veil 4 stars
Liza of Lambeth 3 stars
The Razor's Edge 3 stars
The Magician 3 stars
Christmas Holiday 3 stars
Theatre 2 stars
The Moon and Sixpence 2 stars
Of Human Bondage 2 stars

[Brett C · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange and yet entertaining story. This story is not based off traditional witchcraft but gets more into the shadowy and occult black arts.

It started out with ordinary people with ordinary lives for the time period until the mysterious Oliver Haddo comes into their lives. Doctor Arthur Burdon, a renowned English surgeon, has a normal life with plans of marrying the love of his life, Margret. Things start to get weird after they encounter Oliver Haddo, a self-proclaimed magician and occult practitioner. The magician is the acquaintance of Arthur's friend, Dr. Porhoët (who is an expert in the occult).

Eventually Haddo starts to infiltrate their lives to the point where lives are shattered. The book has occult references, black magic rituals like necromancy, a supernatural dream sequence, and descriptive imagery that help add to the plot's gloomy atmosphere.

Overall is was a decent story. Background information is the author met/knew occultist Aleister Crowley in real life and based the book about him. Knowing myself I will reread it in a few years and I'll discover things I missed the first time. I would recommend this because it entertaining. Thanks!

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather strange, but fascinating little book. Despite the short length (196 on my edition) it feels almost like two separate books It starts off as something like a comedy of errors, then slowly becomes more sinister until it becomes a flat out horror novel.

The story focuses on a couple that meet a claimed magician named Oliver Haddo. Our magician is boastful, seemingly has a story for every scenario (which will of course make him sound amazing) and has a bit of a sense of humor. There’s a great moment where he tells a tale about how after his father passed away, he kept feeling like he was trying to tell him something. After performing a ritual to see his ghost, we get the following dialogue:

"Buy Ashantis, they are bound to go up." I did as he told me; but my father was always unlucky in speculation, and they went down steadily. I sold out at considerable loss, and concluded that in the world beyond they are as ignorant of the tendency of the Stock Exchange as we are in this vale of sorrow.'

At first Haddo seems rather oafish, he’s portrayed comically and one might suspect that the plot would involve debunking his magic and letting science and enlightenment reign. One would be wrong, as we see Haddo go from a source of comedy to a rather repulsive figure. His actions are dark, and with enough implications of what is going on behind the scenes… well, one might suspect that it could have been published later than 1908.

The most fascinating aspect of the novel in my opinion, is actually the origin. Apparently Maugham started writing it after he met Aleister Crowley who he immediately thought of as a buffoonish con-man, and couldn't see how anyone could actually fall for him. As he kept meeting him in social circles though and saw people's reactions to him, his character became less comedic in the book and more sinister. You can actually see the transition happen between chapters.

Crowley responded after publication by writing an article for Vanity Fair in which he accused Maugham of plagiarism. While this was no doubt set off by him being annoyed at the character obviously mocking him, he does make a compelling argument. The Penguin edition of the book contains some of the paragraphs the Crowley quoted. Many of the paragraphs are exactly the same, except for one sentence reworded. If this was published now, it would be enough to end Maugham’s career.

Overall the book is entertaining, but it has such weird pacing and feels so strange (both in a positive, and negative way) that I can’t really recommend it to everyone. That said, I still enjoyed it, and if it sounds intriguing from the above, you’ll most likely want to give it a shot. 3/5

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1908, this was W. Somerset Maugham’s last novel for seven years, as he devoted himself to writing for the theatre. The rest obviously did him good, as he returned with the classic, “Of Human Bondage,” but this is an interesting, and lesser known, novel. It was inspired by meeting Alastair Crowley in Paris, who became the character, ‘Oliver Haddo.’ Crowley himself responded to Maugham’s interpretation of his character with a wry magazine article, “How to Write a Novel!” which he signed using his fictional name.

We begin with Arthur Burdon, a surgeon, who is visiting Paris to see his fiancée, Margaret. He has been Margaret’s guardian since she was a child and has insisted she spend the two years in Paris, studying art, with her friend, Susie Boyd, before their marriage. All is light and happiness, until Arthur’s friend, retired doctor and occult scholar, Dr Porhoet, introduces them to the notorious Oliver Haddo. When Arthur loses his temper, Haddo takes revenge in a terrible way.

This is very much a novel of two parts. It begins slowly; unravelling the characters, their motivations and their feelings. Then, towards the end, we have a bizarre, supernatural showdown. In some ways, this reminds me of, “A Handful of Dust,” by Evelyn Waugh, which I read recently. Not in terms of the theme, but in the way the novel starts as one thing and ends as quite another. I like the beginning of the novel best, with the sinister Oliver Haddo, initially being seen as something of a joke and then, gradually, revealing his powers. Maugham remains one of my favourite authors and I enjoyed re-reading this very much.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magician is a chillingly effective horror story from a surprising source. (Somerset Maugham isn’t a name that springs to mind when contemplating the horror genre.) Brilliantly drawn characters and subverted expectations are the initial elements from which Maugham constructed this gem. I expect that from Maugham. What surprised me was his creation of a growing sense of dread and terror, transforming a bright little bohemian romance into powerful horror.

The central focus of this horror is the tale’s villain, the magician Oliver Haddo, the most interesting character in the story. Indeed, Maugham made Haddo so fascinatingly eccentric, so mockingly roguish that my natural sympathies were initially drawn to him rather than the stolid, conventional, unimaginative, and priggish Arthur, the tale’s hero who is supposed to get the beautiful girl and live happily ever after. This persisted long past the point where Haddo’s malevolence and villainy had been clearly established.

The ending of this tale was it weakest point, which was all that stopped me from rating The Magician five stars. Yet it wasn’t so weak as to ruin what is otherwise a delightful and odd tale of terror that I very much recommend.

[Candi]

I'm setting this one aside. I just can't muster up any desire to pick it up. I had set it down temporarily to read a couple of others, and then almost forgot I had it sitting there partially read (probably not a good sign!) It's a Gothic sort of fantasy/horror story and I usually like that sort of thing, but I have little patience for this particular style right now. A tad too melodramatic for me in my current frame of mind! It's not a bad story, so I'm leaving it unrated, considering it's possibly a case of timing. I'm a fan of W. Somerset Maugham, and this is different from the others of his I've read so far. More simplistic, less depth.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book and enjoyed it up until the point about two thirds of the way through where it jumped the shark. Assuming you can accept the questionable premise of a man in his early thirties becoming infatuated and proposing to his nineteen year old ward and if you are not put off by the idle rich fannying around Paris for the best part of a year taking evening classes, drinking in cafes and not much else then this book starts off well.
The soon-to-be-weds meet the obnoxious Oliver Haddo – an intelligent, charmless boor who cares not for other’s opinion of him as his own self-regard is so great – and greet his discussion of the occult and his claims of his own magical ability in quite different ways. Margaret, the young, naïve fiancée is repulsed by him, her fiancé Arthur finds Haddo ridiculous and sets about to quash him with reason and Margaret’s chaperone Susie finds him interesting and seeks out his company.
Susie lights the touchpaper for the events that unfold when she invites Haddo for tea. Haddo kicks Margaret’s dog and Arthur takes this as an excuse to unleash his dislike by beating him to the ground. The remainder of the book sees how Haddo takes his revenge.
Maugham made no secret that Haddo was based on Crowley and, seeing as Haddo is described as obsese, shabbily dressed and deeply unpleasant in character, clearly made no secret of his intense dislike of him. I would have liked some more of the mysticism, the magic what Haddo does to bewitch, for he does bewitch Margaret so that she spends afternoons in illicit meetings with him, kissing him saying that her flesh is drawn to him and eventually marrying him. As so little is written of his methods, Margaret comes across as something of a drip and so its hard to imagine Arthur summoning up the motivation to cross the street to rescue her let alone traipsing around Europe. Nevertheless, it is the latter he does and the whole farce culminates in an ending that is somewhere between Frankenstein and Jane Eyre.
Could have been interesting but sadly ended up being ridiculous.

[Warwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thinks of Somerset Maugham as ironic and uncensorious, a quintessential man of the world – which is perhaps why this early attempt at gothic horror is not entirely successful. It takes in evil mesmerism, black sabbaths and communing with the dead, but never for a moment do you believe the author thinks it’s anything other than a load of nonsense.

Interest comes mainly from the biographical background. The title character, a charismatic and repellently obese schemer called Oliver Haddo, is based on the English occultist Aleister Crowley, whom Maugham drank with at the Chat Blanc in Montparnasse (halfheartedly disguised here as the Chien Noir). This was in the rue d’Odessa, just round the corner from my flat when I lived in Paris, so I was interested in the descriptions of this scene.

It’s certainly not a flattering portrait of Crowley, who was indeed overweight but who is here described as disappearing into his rolls of flesh in a way that is positively grotesque. Crowley himself claimed to be delighted with his portrayal (‘an appreciation of my genius such as I had never dreamed of inspiring’), but he still published a vicious review of the novel in Vanity Fair accusing it, convincingly, of widespread plagiarism. Crowley signed the review as ‘Oliver Haddo’, a name he continued to use on and off for the rest of his life.

Some of Maugham’s perennial themes are here – betrayal, deception, sexual power play and perversion – but imprisoned in a lot of proto-pulp overwriting, so that the heroine’s ‘sensitive fancy’ is ‘aflame with the honeyed fervour of his phrase’ and there are periodic exclamations like, ‘who could tell what dark secrets he trafficked in?’ It’s also worth thinking for a moment about how much the novel reflects the instinctive horror felt by Maugham – who was very cagy about his homosexuality – towards the more overt fin-de-siècle decadence that Crowley represented.

In the end, though, as a novel it doesn’t quite work. A book that took Crowley seriously but not literally might have been fascinating; this one takes him literally but not seriously, and the result is just an exercise.

[Mike Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished in a few hours. A great story that could have been written by Dennis Wheatley. Haddo the magician a character based on Aleister Crowley. Maugham mentions meeting him in the preamble. Crowley also wrote a review of this book which I have downloaded to read.

My first book by Somerset Maugham and I have to say I enjoyed his style. I have another book in the Vintage Maugham series to peruse and look forward to it.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magician has so many of those elements that send my little dark-fiction reader heart racing, among them pulpy mysterious melodrama, a bit of decadence, and of course the dark forces of the occult and the supernatural. At its heart though, it is a story of revenge plotted by a most sinister villain, the "Magician" Oliver Haddo, and the race to save young Margaret Dauncey, the woman at the center of it all.

for plot details etc., you can go to my reading journal: http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2017...

I was hooked right from the beginning, and later, as I realized where Maugham was taking this tale, it got even more interesting since it wasn't at all what I expected when I started it. The main question for me here was whether Haddo was a genuine magician/alchemical adept or just a fast-talking fake with hypnotic powers, and it was a question that kept me turning pages as the novel went on. By the time I reached the ending, well, let's just say that I'd made up my mind, and by then the pages were flying.

It's one I can definitely recommend to readers who like darker fiction that moves into the realm of the occult. It's a fun read.

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ausgehend von der Lektüre von Aleister Crowleys Das Testament von Magdalen Blair, habe ich ein bisschen zu Crowley recherchiert und wollte vor allem wissen, wo dieser schillernde Charakter wohl literarisch verewigt wurde. Das ist viel seltener passiert, als man annehmen sollte. Eines der bekannteren Werke ist der Roman Der Magier. Somerset Maugham hatte Crowley in Paris kennengelernt und hielt offensichtlich nicht viel von ihm. Hier hat er ihn als Inspiration für den rachsüchtigen Okkultisten Oliver Haddo verwendet, der eine junge Frau ihrem Verlobten entfremdet und manipuliert. Haddo ist eine ebenso grausame wie in Bann ziehende Persönlichkeit. Ich denke zumindest damit wird der Autor Crowley durchaus gerecht, auch wenn dieser der Darstellung heftig widersprach.

Nachdem ich kürzlich ein paar moderne Texte in eher karger oder jugendlicher Sprache las, habe ich mich auf die Erzählweise hier gerne eingelassen, auch wenn sie hin und wieder arg pathetisch ist. Und auch wenn es der Zeit geschuldet ist, kann ich über so manche Aussage über Frauen nur belustigt den Kopf schütteln:

“Der steife Garten erinnerte an eine leichtlebige, nicht mehr junge Frau, die sich bemüht, mit vergilbtem Putz, mit Puder und Schminke in ihrer Verzweiflung tapfer dreinzublicken“

“Nie hatte sie reizender ausgesehen als an diesem Nachmittag, und die hausfrauliche Grazie mit der sie sich den Vorbereitungen zum Tee widmete, gab ihrer Anmut eine besondere Feinheit. Die Würde, die ihrer vollendeten Schönheit anhaftete, war erfreulich gemildert, so daß man an die reizenden hauslichen Heiligen erinnert wurde […].“

“Arthur war der Ansicht, daß Frauen oft unter etwas litten, was er mit dem altmodischen Namen Hirngespinste bezeichnete, und hatte keine Lust, diesem heftigen Kummer viel Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken. Er beruhigte sie, wie er es mit einem Kind getan hätte.“

Diese Zusammenstellung wirkt etwas gemein, wo ich insgesamt den Roman doch gerne gelesen habe, immer die Spannung aufrechterhalten wird und Haddo wirklich ein faszinierender Charakter ist. Aber vielleicht illustrieren die Zitate ganz gut, worauf man sich – auch mit Blick auf den schwülstigen Stil – einlässt, wenn man nach dem Roman greift. Für mich sind das 3,5 Sterne.

Und nun? Wie weiter auf meiner Reise auf Crowleys Spuren in der Literatur? Er war auch, selbst Spion, mit Ian Fleming bekannt. Der hat ihn als Inspiration für seinen Bond-Schurken Le Chiffre in Casino Royale genutzt. Also vielleicht mal wieder einen alten 007-Film anschauen? Mit Darstellern wie Peter Lorre und Orson Welles klingt das ansprechend. Doch lese ich im Netz gerade eine Beschreibung Le Chiffres aus dem Roman, die mir gar nicht gefällt: „Ears small, with large lobes, indicating some Jewish blood.“ Weit verbreiteter Antisemitismus hin oder her, das wurde 1953 geschrieben.

[Anushree Rastogi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maugham's novel The Magician is an aesthetic disaster. From the fumbling realism at the beginning of the novel to the childishly Gothic fable that it turns into, the book seems to lack structure, design and well developed characters.
Maugham himself, on reading the book later, described it as “lush and turgid.” Cluttered with adjectives, the writing, bordering on being kitschy, does little to gloss over a story that is formulaic and shallow.
The plot is facile and it is no surprise that it was met with derision from literary circles.
The plot in one sentence is that this novel’s eponymous antihero, Oliver Haddo, bewitches the young beauty Margaret Dauncey into marrying him to avenge his public humiliation at the hands of Arthur Bourdon, Margaret's fiance. What Maugham seems to be doing in the magician is playing a bullying schoolboy, ridiculing Aleister Crowley, self-publicist, occulist and an acquaintance of Maugham's on whom the sordid character of Oliver Haddo is based.
The ostensibly fantastic story seems to draw inspiration from the spectacularly disastrous marriage of Crowley to Rose Edith Kelly, who was later institutionalized for alcoholic dementia. Crowley, a square and plump man, slightly round in the face is caricatured into an man a with a “vast bulk and a savage, sensual face.”
Crowley, however, would not let this pass. What followed was a war of words, Crowley wrote a critique of the book, under the pen name of Olive Haddo, which was published in the Vanity Fair Magazine. He would later summarize this review in his Confessions (1929):

“Maugham had taken some of the most private and personal incidents of my life, my marriage… my magical opinions, ambitions and exploits and so on. He had added a number of the many absurd legends of which I was the central figure. He had patched all these together by innumerable strips of paper clipped from the books which I had told Gerald to buy. I had never supposed that plagiarism could have been so varied, extensive and shameless.”

Maugham, for his part, denied having read the review, adding his own bit of sizzling sarcasm, saying, “I daresay it was a pretty piece of vituperation, but probably, like his poems, intolerably verbose.”
The characters seems schmaltzy and uni-dimensional. The heroine Margaret is effectively a child and Arthur and Susie supervise her existence, the former paying her bills and the latter choosing her clothes. Margaret’s empty life and feeble character leave her hopelessly vulnerable to Haddo’s attack upon her psyche. Unable to concede the fact that someone like Margaret(Rose) would accede to Haddo(Crowley)'s proposal of marriage out of he own free will, Maugham lavishes upon him magical powers which he ruthlessly uses to make her marry him.
The righteous surgeon Arthur Burdon is an ambassador from our purely rational world who finds himself trapped in a novel where the supernatural is possible. His staid attempts at upholding sanity in a world which seems to be caught in a Gothic vortex are pitiable. He is doomed to irrationally insist upon the rational in the face of all incoming evidence. We may suspect that Haddo is squandering his infernal genius upon a man who is too daft to appreciate it.
Susie Boyd is more evolved that the rest, but Maugham diagnoses her as “plain,” a condition as apparently debilitating as leprosy, for her "own stock of enthusiasms was run low".
Arthur is “not handsome” and he has a “large” nose, but he can compensate for this plainness with his masculine character.
Maugham repeatedly dwells on Haddo's obesity with appalling vapidity and insolence.

“she saw that in the last six months he was grown much balder; and the shiny whiteness of his naked crown contrasted oddly with the redness of his face. He was stouter, too, and the fat hung in heavy folds under his chin; his paunch was preposterous. The vivacity of his movements made his huge corpulence subtly alarming. He was growing indeed strangely terrible in appearance. His eyes had still that fixed, parallel look, but there was in them now at times a ferocious gleam.”

He even makes a “Yo-Mama's so fat” joke in his own inimitable style. Margaret visits Haddo’s mother in a lunatic asylum and finds “a woman of… revolting, excessive corpulence,” weltering in brown flannel. Crowley’s own mother was a devout evangelist and he had fallen out with her fairly early in life. Singling out Crowley’s disaffection from his mother for mockery seems, in some scintillantly, malicious way, to get to the bottom of his devilry.
In 1956, Maugham’s publishers reissued the novel and Maugham added an explanatory “Fragment of Autobiography”. What would be truly interesting would be to read Crowley’s review alongside Maugham’s “Fragment,” to know the two different sides of the story.
But history is written by the victors and The Magician is today remembered more as a roman à clef about Crowley than as the starting point of a spectacularly juvenile altercation that threatened to drown Maugham's career in the infamy of plagiarism. Crowley died in squalor in 1947 whilst Maugham lived on, sunning himself in the south of France.
For a book based on magic, the writing is horribly lacking in any of Maugham's literary wizardry. Disappointed.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m becoming increasingly fond of Maugham. There is something about the self-deprecation of the English that is so utterly appealing. It is worth even just reading the ‘Fragment of Autobiography’ that precedes the text and can be read here - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14257/... - for a taste of his tone. Bits of this made me laugh out loud. Take: “I was looked upon as a promising young writer and, I think I may say it without vanity, was accepted as a member of the intelligentsia, an honourable condition which, some years later, when I became a popular writer of light comedies, I lost; and have never since regained.” Isn’t that gorgeous?

I think this book could so easily have been much better than it ended up, but I still enjoyed it immensely and if I think that I would have written it differently, that in itself is fairly high praise – for a book to have me considering how I would re-construct it shows how interested in its themes and concerns I was.

The antagonist in this story is based on Aleister Crowley – someone who has an important role to play in Of Human Bondage too. He is a real person and sounds like quite a character. As you can see, I’m working on my understatement.

I kept thinking of Alan Bennett at the start of this book and his wonderful monologue, A Lady of Letters – where she says that in a book if someone says they are terribly alone and without love in their life and feel that nothing is ever going to change, that is a sure sign that things are about to completely change for them and happiness is about to come streaming into their life, whereas in life if you say that you are alone it is very likely that that is how your life will remain. A truth I’m more or less working on proving at the moment.

So at the start of this novel when the happy loving couple are gazing into each other’s eyes and say that they could not be more happy – and Suzie says of Margaret that she must be careful as she could make Arthur more unhappy than anyone else in the world, well, it is pretty obvious where this story is going. Not that I mind that. A storm is not made less frightening by our hearing it rumble in the distance as it approaches.

I’m going to have to spoil this book for you now. Haddo, the character based on Crowley, is a fat magician. Years ago I was thinking of having a car sticker made up that said, “Necromancers Raise Hell” – I thought it was very funny, but a dear friend of mine pointed out that what I take to be funny, many people take to be deadly serious. Haddo is that sort of magician.

Where Haddo is full of himself and terribly proud, Arthur is a doctor who is the essence of rationality and who is madly in love with Margaret. Margaret is in Paris having a bit of a holiday before marrying Arthur. She would rather have just married Arthur, but he insisted she have a bit of a holiday beforehand. She is accompanied by Suzie, who also falls in love with Arthur on first seeing him. Haddo, the magician, is fat and a revolting pig of a man, a fact that Arthur points out repeatedly at the start of the novel. No one is completely good, but Haddo is as near to completely evil as one could reasonably expect to get away with in a novel.

The turning point of the novel is an altercation in which Haddo is humiliated by Arthur – it is clear that Haddo plots to revenge himself on Arthur and he does this more than completely by stealing Margaret from him. Worse for Arthur, she goes from being a pure and sweet innocent to a debauched harlot – if one who remains a virgin can really be a harlot. There is no doubt that Haddo is both a cad and a bounder (how is it possible that either of those words could have been lost to the lexicon? Or Blackguard – pronounced blag-ard – as if the language wasn’t suffering enough with the loss of Zounds!)

But the book makes it clear that her conversion is due to Haddo’s black magic. You see, I’d not have had it so. I would have left that unclear – I’d have played with the desire of innocent young women to be debauched under the power of mystical men much more. But I guess the book is also a product of its time and for a ‘lady’ to make such a descent, well, black magic is the only possible explanation.

But how much more psychologically interesting this book could so easily have been!

All the same, it reminds me of Of Human Bondage in another sense too – in that idea of Maugham’s that there is no hope for a balance of love. Do you know that Joe Jackson song Be My Number Two? (A song my daughter Maddy hates more than any other) “Won’t you be my number two, me and number one are through. There won’t be that much to do, just smile when I feel blue”? Repeatedly he makes Suzie all too aware of her role as number two, the person who everyone can see is in love with Arthur and who must do what she can to re-unite him with his true love. Oh, love is a terrible and strange thing.

There are problems with this novel, as Maugham himself says, “The style is lush and turgid, not at all the sort of style I approve of now, but perhaps not unsuited to the subject; and there are a great many more adverbs and adjectives than I should use today.”

All the same, there are moments when the writing is breathtaking. The scene in the middle of the storm towards the end where Margaret returns is a fantastic piece of writing. I mean, just look at this: “Without a pause between, as quickly as a stone falls to the ground, the din which was all about them ceased. There was no gradual diminution. But at one moment there was a roaring hurricane and at the next a silence so complete that it might have been the silence of death.”

The other piece of writing that stood out was the whole scene between Haddo and Margaret in her apartment with him basically magically seducing her. The image of the burning water is etched into my memory now – though mostly the idea of him contemplating the end of the world as being in his power really stole my imagination at this point.

And as can be said of so much of female sexuality from this era – if not all eras – the loss of control is to be blamed elsewhere. This is also true in this scene. But Haddo's final words are “When you want me you will find me …” And you know what, I don’t think I could get someone out of my mind who said that to me as they left either.

Margaret’s last evening with Arthur shows just how cruel passion can be. Margaret’s whipping him into a sexual frenzy that can never be satisfied, and the irony of this scene is fully known to the reader. is a remarkable scene, all the more remarkable by the limits placed on Maugham’s ability to say more than is ‘within the bounds of decency’. That kiss is as painful as any I've ever experienced in life.

So, even though there were things about this book I didn’t particularly like and things I’d have done differently – I really did enjoy it and thought the bits that were good were very, very good.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this is a departure from the Somerset Maugham I’m more familiar with – a Gothic fantasia set in Paris, this falls neatly into two halves. The first drags a bit and we’re not quite sure where the plot is going, but once Oliver Haddo, the eponymous magician and all-round grossly repulsive figure, has been insulted and sets out on a plan for revenge that also neatly provides the material for his horrible experiments, the pages race by.

A bit Dracula with the uses made of female sexuality, and the knowing Van Helsing-alike occultist friend, there are some extraordinary moments: the esoteric ‘seduction’ scene which recalls the parade of the Romans in the underworld scene of The Aeneid or the procession in Doctor Faustus; the storm towards the end, even the horrors of Haddo’s laboratory.

While this starts off feeling like a book which is exposing ‘black magic’ as a fraudulent act, by the end it turns into something quite different. Interesting, rather racy in parts for a novel published in the 1900s, and a definite departure from the realism of Of Human Bondage, this is a Maugham who I’ve never met before.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

IN THESE MATTERS ALL IS OBSCURITY

"If I died tomorrow, every penny I have would be yours" – so spricht Arthur, gestandener Arzt, zu seinem Mündel Margaret, und unterstützt sie zustätzlich monatlich mit einer Summe, die der jungen Frau ein sorgloses Leben in Paris ermöglicht, jener Stadt, in der auch Maugham als junger Mann sich als Bohemien versucht hat. Ach, sagte das doch auch einmal jemand zu mir, aber so etwas geschieht vorzugsweise bei Courths-Maler und eben hier bei Maugham.

Arthur und Margeret, ja passen die beiden denn zusammen? Eine schwierige Frage, denn Maugham beschreibt seine Protagonisten im MAGIER nur anhand von Äußerlichkeiten, Psychologie und Glaubwürdigkeit sucht man vergebens und fände sie eher in einem Pulproman. Margeret ist jung, hübsch und künstlerisch interessiert, wohingegen Arthur zwar ein renommierter Arzt ist, aber doch nicht so einer, wie wir ihn aus den Arztromanen kennen; vielmehr humorlos, ehrgeizig und in seinem Denken ganz der Wissenschaft verhaftet. Aber auch wenn er nicht gut aussieht – und hierfür findet sich eine der wenigen charmanten Beschreibungen bzw. Umschreibungen des Romans: "he did not photograph well (...) but he´s very paintable" – wenn Arthur also auch nicht gutaussehend ist, kein Mr Right, kein Prince Charming, so ist eine spätere Hochzeit doch nicht ausgeschlossen. Es wird doch nicht gar das Geld sein? Versuchen wir gar nicht erst, das zu verstehen, und werfen lieber einen kurzen Blick auf das weitere Romanpersonal:
Da ist Miss Susie Boyds, eine Art Gouvernante von Margaret, mit der das Schicksal es ebenfalls gut meint, seit sie eine kleine Erbschaft gemacht hat und sich endlich nicht mehr als Erzieherin verdingen muss, sondern fortan finanziell unabhängig sich in Paris dilettantisch aber froh den schönen Künsten widmen kann.
Der reiche Liebhaber für Margaret, die unverhoffte Erbschaft für Susie: hier können nur noch die Probleme der fuchsjagenden Klasse für Ungemach sorgen - oder aber:
MAGIE (Tusch)!

Es erscheint Haddo, dessen erster pompöser Auftritt an einem grauenhaft uninspiriert geschilderten Künstlerstammtisch ihn sofort als ausgemachtes *** qualifiziert und ihm schlicht einen Tritt in den Allerwertesten verdienen sollte.
Nun ist es ein offenes Geheimnis, dass Maugham Haddo an den englischen Exzentriker und Scharlatan Aleister Crowley angelehnt hat und der ganze Roman etwas von armseliger Abrechnungsprosa hat. Dass Crowley Maugham den Roman nicht sehr viel mehr verübelt hat als er es tat (er wies lediglich darauf hin, dass Maugham reichlich plagiierte, um den „magische Seite“ der Handlung auszuführen), mag unter anderem daran gelegen haben, dass Maugham von Magie so wenig wie von der psychologisch glaubwürdigen Gestaltung seines Personals verstanden hat und Haddo schlicht ein Popanz ist, eine arme klischeebeladene Kreatur, über die Crowley sich nicht aufregen musste, war sie doch auf den ersten Blick als harmlose Karikatur erkennbar.
Haddo also gebiert sich als enfant terrible, als Tier- und Kinderschreck, der allen auf die Nerven geht und aus unverständlichen Gründen doch ungestraft sein Unwesen treiben darf.

So platt kommt das alles daher, dass man den MAGIER ungestraft als Unterhaltungsliteratur ohne Anspruch einstufen darf; ja er fällt sogar hinter die meisten Schauer- und Gruselromane zurück, und das hat einen ganz einfachen Grund: Maugham kannte sich mit Magie nicht aus und exzerpierte ungeniert aus Quellen, die er fast unverändert in seinen Roman übernahm. Heute würde er sich mittels copy & paste an Wikipedia schadlos halten. Erschwerend muss man aber auch konstatieren, dass dieses Genre augenscheinlich einfach nicht sein Metier ist, so dass wirklich alles uninspiriert und blutleer wirkt. Die Autoren der Pulps hätten Maugham ein paar hilfreiche Tipps geben können, wie man spannende Szenen ökonomisch und mitreißend gestaltet. Denn Maugham will zu viel, und alle gelehrten Anspielungen verderben letztlich den erwünschten Effekt, pompös und langatmig kommt das daher, was den Leser umhauen muss. Selbst ein Drogenrausch gerät hier zu einer anspruchsvollen intellektuellen Reise durch die Welt der Mythologie und der Kunstgeschichte.

Der weitere Gang der Handlung sei nur kurz skizziert: Es kommt zum Konflikt zwischen Arthur und Haddo, der, um sich zu rächen, Arthur das Liebste nimmt, was dieser „besitzt“: Haddo bindet Margaret mit einem Zauberbann (so scheint es) an sich und entführt sie. Die sich daraus ergebende Frage ist tausendfach in Groschenromanen gestellt worden: Wird der Held die Damsel in Distress retten können oder wird Margaret den magischen Experimenten des Wahnsinnigen zum Opfer fallen?


Es sprengte den Rahmen, alle erzählerischen Sünden hier aufzulisten, die Maugham in seinem Jugendwerk unterlaufen, daher nur die fatalsten in Kurzfassung:
Maugham hat kein Gespür für den Rhythmus des Textes, was zu sinnfreien Spannungsabbrüchen führt - wenn ihm einmal so etwas wie Spannung überhaupt gelingt.
Über weiteste Strecken wird der Roman nicht erzählt, sondern es wird schlicht berichtet, was geschieht. Lebhafte Beschreibungen sind Mangelware und fast immer ist eine erzählerische Distanz präsent, die ein Mitfiebern unmöglich macht.
Die Figuren sind unscharf und unglaubwürdig konstruiert und die Erzählperspektive wechselt aus handwerklichen Gründen; denn im Grunde handelt es sich beim MAGIER um keinen Roman, sondern um eine Aneinanderreihung von Snapshots, sprunghaft anstatt substanziell berichtet, die Maugham der Mühe enthebt, zusammenhängend und romangemäß episch zu erzählen. Man sollte hier auf keinen Fall Faulheit als Ökonomie der Mittel missverstehen, und Maughams Nachlässigkeiten und eben die Faulheit sind die größten Mängel dieses Romans, der komplett überarbeitet vielleicht gerade das Zeug zu einer Kurzgeschichte hätte.
Ein Beispiel: Unter Haddos Einfluss erzählt Margaret in geselliger Runde eine ihr wesensfremde extrem peinliche Geschichte, die zu erzählen sie sozial ächtet und sie aus der Gesellschaft der Anwesenden herauskatapultiert. Alle Zuhörer sind furchtbar betroffen, so wird uns versichert, jedoch macht sich Maugham nicht die Mühe, den Leser mit dem Inhalt der Geschichte vertraut zu machen. Das nenne ich Faulheit! Was hätte hier funkeln können und ist doch gar nicht erst aus der Dunkelheit hervorgetreten.
Der Roman muss mit fünf erzählerisch unterentwickelten Personen auskommt, deren Unzulänglichkeiten Maugham mit behäbig gravitätischer Geschwätzigkeit aufzuwiegen versucht - ein verzweifeltes Unternehmen. Und so kommt´s, dass ich als Leser Arthur nicht als die "tragic figure" erlebe, zu der Susie / Maugham ihn stilisieren & reduzieren will, denn dazu ist er erzählerisch viel zu oberflächlich entwickelt, als dass Mitgefühl aufkäme. Und die alte romantische Vorstellung, dass Leid und Krankheit den Menschen veredele, ist pathetischer Mist und macht Arthur auch nicht zu einem „poor thing“: "She (=Susie natürlich, sie ist dafür oberflächlich genug) wondered what refinement of self-torture had driven him to choose that place to come to" - unerträglich!


Als Lehrbuch für junge Autoren mit dem Titel "Wie man einen Roman nicht schreibt" wäre der MAGIER jeden Cent wert, als Leser bedauere ich, mich auf dieses Unterfangen eingelassen zu haben.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maugham is easily my favourite writer. He's that author whom i keep coming back to over the years.
This is one of his lesser books, not in the same league as say Of Human Bondage or The Razor's Edge but an average Maugham novel is better than a lot of writer's best novels.
Apparently the villain in this story is based on Alistair Crowley whom Maugham had met and thoroughly disliked so this is perhaps the literary equivalent of a diss track.
Parts of this are just campy good fun while others get quite sinister and mysterious. It held my attention until the end and i enjoyed every minute of it.

[Franky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to side with those reviewers who commented on how this is a bizarre little book that seems to shift gears from its genre, going from a Victorian period drama to dark Gothic to full blown supernatural horror in the final portions.

This is one of those books that I decided to dig into a little before starting. This is noteworthy because the backstory of this book is as notoriously infamous as some of the elements of the novel contained within. The back story of the squabble and back and forth feud between author M. Somerset Maugham and Aleister Crowley, a magician who the author had met and had taken an extreme dislike to. It’s clear that our antagonist is the basis for Crowley.

Maugham goes out of his way to make our villain cartoonishly repulsive, pompous, and, well, grotesquely villainous as possible. Clearly Maugham is shaming Crowley, and doing it vicariously through his boastful caricature of a villain. This seemed to lessen the reading experience, as it came across as rather petty and sophomoric on the author’s part.

With regard to the novel itself, it is a darkly interesting and unpleasant journey. A prominent surgeon (Arthur) is due to marry his love (Margaret), and is awaiting this date and preparing.

However, when some acquaintances talk the two into meeting a certain Oliver Haddo, an eccentric who has delved into the dark arts and boasts to have certain magic capabilities, then things take a strange and sinister turn. Arthur takes an instant disliking to Haddo, and after an altercation and exchange later on, Haddo uses his “powers” to try to get vengeance on the young doctor through various means, including stealing Arthur’s bride to be.

One of the things that the author does effectively is create a rather uncomfortable vibe, especially with regard to his villain. As Haddo begins to hatch his plan, and cause havoc, the wheels begin to spin in the reader’s mind: Who exactly is this guy?

“Is he an imposter or a madman? Does he deceive himself, or is he laughing up his sleeve at the folly of those who take him seriously?”

I suppose the novel works well as a dark Gothic or horror, with the usual Victorian theatrics also at play. Once Haddo bursts into the scene, it’s as if an aura of fatalism envelopes the novel.

“She seemed bound to him already by hidden chains.”

The Magician was definitely reminiscent of Dracula in that there is a sinister force at force taking hold of a beautiful young woman, and a race for our principle characters to try to figure out how to try to stop this force and save the day.

While Maugham can clearly write excellent prose (this was a quick and easy read) and tell a story, I did have a few problems. As I stated before, it delves into some uncomfortable, off putting subject matter of occultism and dark philosophies. Also, Maugham makes his villain rather too much of a caricature to be taken seriously, and the fact that he bases it on a real person seems a bit much. Alongside this, the book’s final portions were a bit over the top, and seem to dissolve into Dr. Moreau, Frankenstein-like territory.

I’ve now read two of Maugham’s novels (the other was The Razor’s Edge) and both have been somewhat lacking. Still, I’m up for trying another one of his books. Maybe someone can recommend another one.

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I raced through this. Less from enjoyment and more because I wasn’t in the mood for it, so perhaps it was a case of right book wrong timing.

I’ve enjoyed many other books by WSM, but this one felt overly melodramatic.

The drift into gothic horror in the last section felt incongruous.

I was hoping for some insights into Aleister Crowley however his character was quite cartoonish.

Interestingly WSM, on reading it 50 years later, found the writing "lush and turgid". I agree.

Fine, but not up there with his best work.

2.5/5 (rounded up to 3 as it's WSM)

[nettebuecherkiste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paris zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Der junge Chirurg Arthur Burdon besucht sein Mündel Margaret, die gleichzeitig seine Verlobte ist. Sie wohnt mit ihrer ca. 10 Jahre älteren Freundin Susie Boyd zusammen, die wie sie selbst in Paris Kunst studiert. Es herrscht heile Welt, das Paar ist glücklich, die alleinstehende Susie durch ein Erbe gut versorgt. Auftritt Oliver Haddo, ein weitgereister, arroganter Zeitgenosse, der angeblich magische Kräfte besitzt. Doch inwiefern stellt er eine Bedrohung für das junge Glück dar?

Dieses ist das erste Buch, das ich zusammen mit einer Lesegruppe gelesen habe, und ich habe mich aus diesem Grund, aber auch wegen der spannend klingenden Inhaltsangabe, sehr auf die Lektüre gefreut. Und mir hat das Buch auch am Anfang recht gut gefallen: das Setting in der Bohème-Szene, die Aussicht auf eine unheimlichen Weitergang der Geschichte und eine Identifikationsfigur für mich in Susie Boyd. Auch sprachlich war ich angetan, Maughams Stil ist anspruchsvoll, aber gut lesbar, mit häufig markierter Satzstellung.

Im weiteren Verlauf des Buchs musste ich jedoch häufiger die Stirn runzeln. Über eine in den Augen vieler Leser völlig misslungene Magieszene mit schwülstigen Beschreibungen von Halluzinationen konnte ich hinwegsehen, aber die Entwicklung der Geschichte selbst nimmt nun einen unglücklichen Weg. Zunächst schafft Maugham es zwar, Spannung aufzubauen, doch der folgende Showdown wirkte auf mich eher leicht komisch und das Ende des Romans schlicht und ergreifend banal. Zudem entwickelt Maugham seine Charaktere nicht weiter, sie bleiben sämtlichst flach und auch die zunächst so interessante Susie Boyd verblasst.

Die Plagiatsvorwürfe von Aleister Crowley, auf den Somerset Maugham die Figur des Oliver Haddo basiert, habe ich in dieser Rezension außen vor gelassen. Maugham weist in seinem Vorwort darauf hin, dass Crowley nie so düster und bösartig war wie Haddo in dem Roman, was den Vorwurf einer Abrechnung mit dem Vorbild abmildert.

So lässt dieses Frühwerk von Maugham mich enttäuscht zurück, es konnte meine Erwartungen nicht erfüllen. 2,5 Sterne.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magician may not be Maugham's most known work, but it's my favourite so far.

Arthur and Margaret are about to marry when the sinister Oliver Haddo comes into their lives. Haddo is known for practising ocultism and to deal with the dark arts. At first, Arthur doesn't take him seriously; when strange things concerned with Margaret start taking place, Arthur is forced to realize that maybe he should have taken care not to offend the man who is known as a magician.

After having read two of Maugham's most popular books, I wouldn't have imagined he could write something this dark. And indeed this was one of his first works and has nothing to do with later ones.

Apart from the magic and obscure parts, there were elements common to The Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage, such as Paris, art and medicine.

I really liked it and I'm glad to have given it a chance.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a little more bizarre than what I expected from Maugham. I wish I had read this at Halloween. The villain is absolutely repulsive.

[Paul Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Atmospheric horror story whose villain is a caricature of Crowley. Very readable, page-turning.

[Osiris Oliphant · Rating 4 out of 5]

2001-07-20
Please introduce yourself, Mister Haddo!
The rabid results of a charlatan's inkling of matters occultic, and a young impressionable literary aspirant's efforts to champion intellectual Parisian bohemianism vivdly evokes the wondrous conversations he smuggled out of the "Le Chat Blanc", a philosophical refuge for learned gents on the Rue d'Odessa in Paris circa the 1900's, here fictionalized & crowned "Chien Noir" in this intriguing & evocative novel. "Oliver Haddo", the sinister & most fascinating character the world quickly recognized is none other than Edward Alexander (Aleister) Crowley (1875-1947), the English Mage, Poet, & mountain climber. Crowley, proud of the portrait painted of him, likewise had earlier written as an extended introduction to his pornographic mystery: "Snowdrops From A Curate's Garden", a hilarious portrayal of the same crowd & place suspiciously corroborating Maughams'? "The Magician" has been deemed plagiaristic compilation, but this is a bit fanatical; Somerset merely provides accurate, if lifted elswhere from unreliable sources, all variety & category of magical lore which could be had in any decent bookshop as Occultism was entirely in vogue and Paris was still very much experiencing the effects of the 19th century French Occult Revival. Admittedly, the work is definitely NOT Huysmans! Still, it is this humble reader's opinion it can only be commended for providing Occulture & Literature with a historical treatise under the guise of fiction, painted in the magicKal colours of an up & coming, much-esteemed author, "who would go on to forge much finer works"---at least, that is how the book is considered by "official and established academia", somewhat embarrassingly, as well as hypocritically. I feel the work is underrated, as the majority of Maugham's thematics are present as well as explored; the difference lies in that it is composed by a young writer, not yet fully matured, but not suffering any artistic lack because of it; and for that stage in the charting of a writer's progression, he was functioning at peak capacity, completely absorbed by his cast and contents. Besides, a reconciliation of the author's progression is uncalled for and unessential to "properly" enjoy the journey through underground occult Paris we are taken on!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

An astonishing gothic story written by Somerset Maugham.

Location 122:
Dr Porhöet knew that a diversity of interests, though it adds charm to a man´s personality, tends to weaken him.

Location 140:
One of my cherished ideas is that it is impossible to love without imagination.

Location 277:
She had learnt long ago that common sense, intelligence, good-nature, and strenght of character were unimportant in comparison with a pretty face.

Location 384:
I shall not have lived in vain if I teach you in time to realize the rapier of irony is more effective an instrument than the bludgeon of insolence.

Location 480:
Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisble means to porduce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.

Location 504:
You should be aware that science, dealing only with the general, leaves out of consideration the individual cases that contradict the enormous majority.

Location 741:
Man can know nothing, for his senses are his only means of knowledge, and they can give no certainty. There is only one subject upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his own mind, but even here he is surrounded with darkness.

Location 1002:
We should look for knowledge where we may expect tp find it, and why should a man be despised who goes in search of it?

Location 1053:
Fools and sots aim at happiness, but men aim only at power. The magus, the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind.

5* The Razor's Edge
5* Of Human Bondage
4* The Painted Veil
4* The Narrow Corner
4* The Moon And Sixpence
3* Liza of Lambeth
3* Ashenden
3* The Magician
TR Cakes and Ale
TR The Circle - A Comedy in Three Acts

[Meseceva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiraciju za lik harizmatičnog i zlog maga Olivera Hadoa Mom je našao u Alisteru Krouliju. Sam Krouli je prepoznao sebe u Hadou i kasnije je to ime katkad koristio kao pseudonim. Ovo je bilo dovoljno da me privuče čitanju Volšebnika. Mom ima dobru ideju, lepo veze priču i ruga se Krouliju više ili manje otvoreno. Zanimljivo je da pokazuje solidno poznavanje okultne materije, pitam se da li je ono rezultat istraživanja posebno za pisanje ovog romana ili iza toga stoji nešto drugo. Kako god, gotika u kombinaciji sa groteskom, uz razobličavanje egoizma i osvetoljubivosti kao vodećih motiva pružila mi je zadovoljstvo u čitanju. Da nije traljavo odrađenog kraja bila bi petica.

[Fonch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ladies and gentlemen after writing Mark Twain's review of Joan of Arc https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... I am about to write the review of a book, also very interesting, although not as good as the previous one. I am referring to one of the books written by one of the authors who was rated in my father's book as one of the three best writers of the twentieth century. I am referring to William Somerset Maugham. The other two were J.B. Priestley, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and Graham Greene https://www.goodreads.com/author/show.... In my opinion William Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite writers, and one of those who in my humble opinion write best. Mind you, that doesn't mean, that he approves of everything he writes, or that he is morally good. However you can say that my favorite novel of this author is"The Painted Veil" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... perhaps the most Catholic of his novels (personally he never mentioned it among my favorite novels, surely not this one in my top 10, or top 20 of my favorite novels, since there are many, but surely I would be in a top 30, or top 50 of my favorite novels). Although critics opt for"The razor's edge" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... that is closer to Hinduism, and is closer to the spirit of Herman Hesse https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... a minimum of two adaptations were also made, with Anne Baxter winning the Oscar for best supporting actress for playing Sophie Campbell in the forty version. It was a very powerful story that had absolutely everything. Although perhaps more sincere"The human bondage" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... where the author told how he lost his faith. However, despite the fact that the subject is so raw Maugham knew how to tell it in a very beautiful way, and that made the story less bitter. However, although he felt sympathy for Catholicism, he never managed to recover his faith. The writer Piers Paul Read wrote a very good variant of"Human Servitude" "The Careerist" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1.... A great virtue that William Somerset Maugham had is that he was not mediated by the black legend, and felt a great affection for Spain. In fact, his last novel Catalina https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... was an explicit tribute to sixteenth-century Spain. In fact, William Somerset Maugham's favorite painter was El Greco. In addition, he was living here for a while, and always felt great sympathy for Spain. He shared a quality with the writer Maurice Baring https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... and it is his passion for the world of art, and of nobility, which he described with great exquisiteness, and talent. For example, he recounted Gaugin's life, as Irving Stone would have done https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... He was also a precursor to the spy novel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... . W. Somerset Maugham was not only a great writer, and a doctor had a nephew who followed in his footsteps, although their relationship was bad, but Robin Maugham https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... wrote a mythical play"The Servant" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... adapted into a film by Joseph Losey with Dirk Bogarde, and James Fox in the lead roles, and was a dark version of the Jeeves stories written by P.G. Wodehouse https://www.goodreads.com/author/show.... Apart from that Maugham inspired the skeptical, gay writer of Anthony Burgess's"Earthly Powers" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and was also the source of inspiration for Morgan Freeman's character in"Seven." https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... .
So when I heard from Goodreads that W. Somerset Maugham had written this novel"The Magician" I first read the plot, and then I asked my sister to get it for me, because the synopsis of this novel was very interesting.
I was shocked that someone like Maugham wrote this story. I didn't hit him, but I'm aware of one thing, and that is that Maugham is very polyvant, and is not limited to a specific genre. So it did well it could have been one of the novels of the year. The end result. Well you can say, he got it halfway. It's a bleak conclusion, and a little disappointing to see how 2/3 of the novel is magnificent, and how two elements weigh down and condemn such a promising, and good, book. The first element is an accelerated, poorly resolved final third, and the second flaw is that if the villain inspired by the necromancer, and writer Aleister Crowley https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... known as The Great Beast one of the most sinister, and disturbing writers ever known. Not even my beloved G.K. Chesterton https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... knowing the evil of the character wanted to debate with him, and that G.K. Chesterton debated with almost everyone. By the way concerning G.K. Chesterton, and William Somerset Maugham I am going to tell you one thing that you will surely not know, and that is that G.K. Chesterton for a while was dedicated to reading manuscripts for some publishers, and gave the go-ahead to a so-called Liza de Lambeth https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... which was the first novel written by William Somerset Maugham. So who gave him his first chance was G.K. Chesterton. I have obtained this fact from Joseph Pearce's biography Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5.... . It should be said one thing, that my sister (whom I send many kisses) was the one who got me this book, and instead of getting me the edition of Plaza Janes. In the end he did something better, which was to get me Valdemar's (he ignored the edition of Plaza Janes), but Valdemar's has a very interesting introduction written by Maugham himself. Where he tells us his vital impressions, what he did in Paris, and most importantly how he met Crowley, and how he fell. The image is not good at all more or less despite his academic achievements, and sports considered Crowley as a liar, and a very unredeemable person. Someone who boasted of having occult powers, and of practicing Satanism, which was fashionable by the novel La Bas by Joris Karl Huysmans (before his conversion, of course) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3.... He tells us that in addition to the unfavorable impression Crowley years later in a letter asked him for money, and he denied it. It's funny, because Maugham's attitude towards Crowley is very similar to that felt by the protagonist Arthur Burdon for the villain of this novel Oliver Haddo. The animosity is stronger than you might suspect. Maugham of course said that Oliver Haddo's model was Crowley, and that it made him more powerful than Crowley would ever become. In fact, Haddo has real powers, and he is someone fearsome. For Maugham Crowley it was little less than a fraud. With all this unpleasant episode I have inspired an acceptable gothic story so it is well worth it. This would be the last novel before writing"Human Bondage" unfortunately Maugham did not bless us as much as I would have liked with more fictional stories, and retired too soon from literature. Although the three books I have mentioned I would have already wanted to have been written by any writer. In fact Maugham is well above the average of our current writers. The story begins in bohemian Paris at the time of the gaslight, or the Belle Epoque with two doctors one Breton a little heterodox Perhout fascinated by the occult, which serves to introduce us to the protagonist Arthur Burdon who is qualified as a positivist, and an empiricist in the style of Hume (this protagonist for me is the Achilles heel). Choosing an atheist protagonist doesn't have to be a problem. In fact, if we think of a title similar to this "War in heaven" by Charles Williams https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (a story that thought, that Maugham was going to overcome) Williams had also belonged to the Golden Dawn and many of the villains in his books, were also inspired by Crowley. But returning to what we have to do, if you have had the fortune to read this wonderful story, and very undervalued, although some like my beloved Juan Manuel de Prada https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... he had the great virtue of showing his preference for that book in his brilliant book "A Library in the Oasis" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... This book is not only a basic guide for the collector of Catholic literature, but a collection of brilliant reviews of must-read for every lover of the literature. But back to Charles Williams. Williams' novel is part of a tribute to Arthurian myths, especially "The Search for the Grail" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... it starred three characters, curiously the same number by the way of the knights who found the Grail. They were an Anglican priest, a Catholic Duke, who makes himself wait, but he is my favorite character, and the character I refer to an agnostic journalist Kenneth Mornington (on Arthurian subjects I recommend talking to my admired Professor Manuel Alfonseca https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... who was the one who illustrated me, and I get out of ignorance in Arthurian subjects. It is a subject that we discussed a lot in our correspondence. I also recommend his novel "The Adventure of Sir Karel of Northumbria" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... . I recommend the novels of the English writer Mark Adderley. Less anti-Christian than those of his namesake Bernard Cornwell, rather the opposite https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/series/6120...). This is the wonderful story of G.K. Chesterton The Miracle of the Crescent, which can be found in the wonderful anthology of stories of "The Disbelief of Father Brown" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (from this anthology we will rescue another story, which will be basic when we talk about magic. I am referring to one of my favorite cases of Father Brown "The Winged Dagger" when we compare "The Magician" with other books, and authors. What is clear in the first chapter is how the two characters are, who are going to face each other. Arthur Burdon is a promising doctor, who is going to get married, and what is extracted clean from his antagonist Oliver Haddo is that he is a man with a powerful retentive capacity, and capable of retaining any information, and someone well versed in the occult sciences, who helped Perhouet, when he was he could not find information on a subject that interested him. In the case of Perhouet one thing must be said, and that is that he is not a practitioner of the occult sciences, but a person fascinated by them, who will not pass more than the theory. The second chapter is very interesting, because we meet Arthur Burdon's fiancée, and her friend who is more interesting. In fact, as is often the case in some of Sir Walter Scott's novels, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Maughan’s early-in-his-career novel from 1908 based on the real life occultist Aleister Crowley. The story is about Arthur Burden, a renowned London surgeon who is visiting his fiancée Margaret in Paris where, accompanied by her friend and mentor Suzie Boyd, she is studying art. The trio meet up with Arthur’s mentor, retired doctor and occult scholar Dr. Porhoet who introduces them to the magician/occultist Oliver Haddo. The immensely obese Haddo has a forceful, manipulative personality and uses them to force his way into the group of friends. Matters come to a head when Haddo starts obtaining undue influence on Margaret.
Up until the 1/3 point in the story I thought this was a moderately interesting but uncomfortable read. Haddo gave me the creeps. While I was intrigued, I wasn't enamored with any of the characters and did not look forward to seeing where the book's plot seemed to be going.
But then, as the plot went through the developments that I had foreseen, I found myself totally engrossed and the book was difficult to put down. The story was feeling like a slightly more realistic and contemporary version of Dracula. Then the ending came and the story morphed from Dracula into a version of an unnamed H.G. Wells novel. My skepticism over a description of this novel as a “gothic horror” story had vanished and I finally accepted that, yes, Maugham had indeed written a gothic horror story.
While this was not a great novel, I was definitely entertained by its surprisingly batshit crazy occult horror and science-fiction elements that were so unexpected coming from Maugham. I rate it as 4 stars.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich bewerte dieses Buch mit mittelmäßigen 3 Sternen etwas großzügiger, als die vielen Verrisse, wenngleich ich diesen insgesamt zustimme. Das ganze ist arg schablonenhaft. Ich habe mich aber passagenweise unterhalten gefühlt und meine Erwartungshaltung war wohl deutlich niedriger.