The Magician
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| Vintage Classics |
W. Somerset Maugham
"Yet magic is no more the art of employing
consciously invisible means to produce 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 hs but
one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen."
Riding a mysterious crest of enthusiasm that pushed me forward into writing four posts in about two weeks (side affects yet to be determined), I raced through my next book of choice with a velocity which I haven't experienced in some time, finishing it in about two days (not an impressive brag by any means, but for me the rigours of daily life and its distractions have increased my average reading time for each new book to roughly infinity). Partially, I must admit, this speed was down to the fact that I wrote The Darkened Wardrobe and it reminded me very precisely of just how out of control my unread book pile had become, but the absolute core reason was simply that W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician was the perfect book to capture my attention from beginning to end.
My first exposure to Maugham was through The Razor's Edge, clumsily reviewed on this blog during that curious period where the reviewer only has the context of the one book by the author to go by. It left me with certain impressions of Maugham's style and themes (some of which were even correct) and left me open to more by the author, but things didn't become clearer until reading The Magician opened things up for me. The modern copy I read opens with an author's note entitled A Fragment of Autobiography (presumably included in all new editions of the novel, as I can't imagine reading The Magician without the invaluable context given here) which lays out the obvious inspiration for this book, and in turn completely captured my attention.
Perhaps the most famous of all of W. Somerset Maugham's work (though some might argue the case for Of Human Bondage), The Magician's notoriety exists as an alternative-classic; that is, a novel that primarily appeals to literary hipsters looking for something a little different in tone to your average Charles Dickens novel, and that's because it is decidedly both a gothic horror masterpiece and the birthplace of a very notorious character. As Maugham explains in his introduction; during his earlier years as a struggling younger author attending high societal events, he became well acquainted with a certain Mr. Aleister Crowley. Though the Wikipedia link offers far more actual information than I'm going to bother with, I'm guessing that most people reading will at least recognise the name as the most famous occultist in history. Maugham's introduction sets the scene more firmly for the transition of Aliester Crowley into Oliver Haddo, the villain of The Magician, as a fictional version of Crowley who actually possesses the knowledge of arcane, sinister magics that Crowley claimed to.
The Magician, as a novel, isn't concerned with the stark reality of Crowley's claims and styling, but instead goes about structuring the character of Oliver Haddo into a complex and cultured, if far from original, villain. As Maugham's novels often are, it is set amongst the high class cafes and homes of Paris and London, and the introduction of Haddo is based upon Maugham's encounters with Crowley. The story begins with a small group of characters encountering Haddo for the first time and reacting to his outlandish claims and appearance. Morbidly obese yet tall, handsome and compelling, Haddo regales his new acquaintances with outlandish claims about his life and beliefs, both fascinating and disgusting them in equal measure. The character of Arthur Burdon is the lead protagonist and the reader's primary identification figure, as a witty, slightly withdrawn skeptic who immediately takes a huge dislike to Haddo. Arthur's fiance, Margaret Dauncey is similarly disgusted and disbelieving, but nonetheless is drawn by Haddo's heir of mystery to indulge his stories. The overall progression of the plot from then on is fairly simple and predictable; Arthur and Haddo inevitably clash and Haddo is embarrassed, from which point the magician plans his silent revenge by using his clandestine means to take what is most valuable to Arthur.
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Earlier on I described The Magician as a gothic horror, and it is that in every regard. Maugham's prose style is lavishly detailed in provoking the tone from every line, very positively reminiscent of Victorian English authors like Dickens, but with an extra emphasis on promoting mystery and suspense. I actually feel somewhat silly even attempting to review the talent of an author like Maugham, since he's so clearly an absolute master of the English language, able to construct a sentence with a natural talent few others can hope to match. There's a great sense of adventure that comes with the supernatural elements of this book, combining with the idea of a somewhat heroic protagonist like Arthur to make this reader immediately and favourably compare this with the most famous of all the gothic masterpieces, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Perhaps a lazy example, but Maugham's Oliver Haddo has the same undeniable charismatic personality as Stoker's vampire, to the extent where he leaps off the page as the constant star. It would be easy to predict dozens of re imaginations of Haddo, though the only one I know of is Alan Moore's usage of the character as a primary villain in his literary-obsessed comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (at some point to be a focus of my Comics Snobbery posts). Also, without giving too much away as regards to the plot, there are elements of the story very much routed in the other gothic horror classic Frankenstein, but with a hint of HP Lovecraft mixed in too.
While I hate to try and criticise a work like this, if I must then it has to be on the same grounds that Aliester Crowley himself critiqued it under (in an article in Vanity Fair circa 1908), it's simply not very original; nothing particularly unique occurs in the plot or with the characters. This didn't bother me one bit, as it's clear from the introduction, the blurb, and the opening chapters that this is a stylistic piece of genre fiction merely concerned with doing what it does as well as possible. Maugham's crafting of the environment is sublime, and once the plot and characters have been established within the gothic horror genre it allows the author to present his own themes and motifs also prevalent in his other works. Maugham focusses on love, obsession, and the thin line separating the two. As in Dracula it is the fear of loss and helplessness in relation to the fate of a loved one that pushes through the tension and sadness surrounding the somewhat unbelievable, almost pulp-fiction like plot. Arthur is a simple protagonist designed to transmit the easily identifiable fear of helplessly losing a loved one to the reader, and then to show the clenched-fist, gritted-teeth, do-what-has-to-be-done English gentleman style response. It is glorious stuff, five star genre fiction that I would mark as an essential read to anyone with an interest in this style of dark, supernatural-based story, particularly as an example of a classical style addressing a subject that's sure to be immediately recognizable to a modern reader thanks to the deluge of similar supernatural stories of today.
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| Mr. Crowley |
The Magician, as a novel, isn't concerned with the stark reality of Crowley's claims and styling, but instead goes about structuring the character of Oliver Haddo into a complex and cultured, if far from original, villain. As Maugham's novels often are, it is set amongst the high class cafes and homes of Paris and London, and the introduction of Haddo is based upon Maugham's encounters with Crowley. The story begins with a small group of characters encountering Haddo for the first time and reacting to his outlandish claims and appearance. Morbidly obese yet tall, handsome and compelling, Haddo regales his new acquaintances with outlandish claims about his life and beliefs, both fascinating and disgusting them in equal measure. The character of Arthur Burdon is the lead protagonist and the reader's primary identification figure, as a witty, slightly withdrawn skeptic who immediately takes a huge dislike to Haddo. Arthur's fiance, Margaret Dauncey is similarly disgusted and disbelieving, but nonetheless is drawn by Haddo's heir of mystery to indulge his stories. The overall progression of the plot from then on is fairly simple and predictable; Arthur and Haddo inevitably clash and Haddo is embarrassed, from which point the magician plans his silent revenge by using his clandestine means to take what is most valuable to Arthur.
Earlier on I described The Magician as a gothic horror, and it is that in every regard. Maugham's prose style is lavishly detailed in provoking the tone from every line, very positively reminiscent of Victorian English authors like Dickens, but with an extra emphasis on promoting mystery and suspense. I actually feel somewhat silly even attempting to review the talent of an author like Maugham, since he's so clearly an absolute master of the English language, able to construct a sentence with a natural talent few others can hope to match. There's a great sense of adventure that comes with the supernatural elements of this book, combining with the idea of a somewhat heroic protagonist like Arthur to make this reader immediately and favourably compare this with the most famous of all the gothic masterpieces, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Perhaps a lazy example, but Maugham's Oliver Haddo has the same undeniable charismatic personality as Stoker's vampire, to the extent where he leaps off the page as the constant star. It would be easy to predict dozens of re imaginations of Haddo, though the only one I know of is Alan Moore's usage of the character as a primary villain in his literary-obsessed comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (at some point to be a focus of my Comics Snobbery posts). Also, without giving too much away as regards to the plot, there are elements of the story very much routed in the other gothic horror classic Frankenstein, but with a hint of HP Lovecraft mixed in too.
While I hate to try and criticise a work like this, if I must then it has to be on the same grounds that Aliester Crowley himself critiqued it under (in an article in Vanity Fair circa 1908), it's simply not very original; nothing particularly unique occurs in the plot or with the characters. This didn't bother me one bit, as it's clear from the introduction, the blurb, and the opening chapters that this is a stylistic piece of genre fiction merely concerned with doing what it does as well as possible. Maugham's crafting of the environment is sublime, and once the plot and characters have been established within the gothic horror genre it allows the author to present his own themes and motifs also prevalent in his other works. Maugham focusses on love, obsession, and the thin line separating the two. As in Dracula it is the fear of loss and helplessness in relation to the fate of a loved one that pushes through the tension and sadness surrounding the somewhat unbelievable, almost pulp-fiction like plot. Arthur is a simple protagonist designed to transmit the easily identifiable fear of helplessly losing a loved one to the reader, and then to show the clenched-fist, gritted-teeth, do-what-has-to-be-done English gentleman style response. It is glorious stuff, five star genre fiction that I would mark as an essential read to anyone with an interest in this style of dark, supernatural-based story, particularly as an example of a classical style addressing a subject that's sure to be immediately recognizable to a modern reader thanks to the deluge of similar supernatural stories of today.
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