The Magus

"What came next were years of provicial goings-on, of which little would be known."
                    -The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Calasso p.192



I am about 450 pages into the Magus and I won't lie, I don't want to read anymore. It took past 400 pages for me to even begin to be somewhat indulged. The majority of the book has just made me frustrated. I feel like it could be getting the main focus across with a lot less filler words, reducing the book by half. And the sex. It's not that I can't handle it. I can, I just would prefer not to. I realize that in today's society it is almost impossible to get away from it as our culture has become very open towards the subject, however, I personally still put sex in a high position where it should not necessarily be openly publicized and should remain between a man and his wife. Call me old fashion, call me what you want, but I really am not a fan of having sex become the main image for the perception of love. Don't get me wrong, physical attraction is a very important aspect, but not the main focus. This being said, I am still not completely convinced that Nicholas really does love Julie in the Magus, but rather has been so deprived of any sexual pleasure from an actual person of the opposite sex for some time and has always been a sex addict. The only difference is Julie is probably the first decent girl he's met that he's been attractive to, so in that aspect, I hope he does truly fall in love with her.
     As for the rest of the book, I am at the point where Nicholas just found out the "last chapter" from Conchis. The graphics were terrifying. I am a huge fan of war movies, fiction holocaust books, the like, but I usually can handle them better than I did that section. And the point? It just make me dislike Conchis more than ever and still dislike Nicholas and want the author to just get to the point of everything, all while my feeling of not wanting to finish it growing stronger. I would be perfectly ok with selling the book right now and never speaking of it again and my life would be grand. Most books I am ok with getting sucked into for a while, but this book, whenever I get that feeling the feeling of hate and discontent comes with it. At this point I just want to get the stupid book over with so I don't have to worry about anymore.
    But moving on from my slight rant, I would like to say that if I were in that position he was in during the German invasion I would spare the few to save the many, or talk reason into the officers and soldiers to stop the barbaric acts, but one does not know what one would do when placed in that position of fear. I'm afraid I am a tish bit confused with Conchis's idea of "freedom". I agree when he says that freedom is the right to choose, but (I believe) freedom is also the right to know the truth. Which he seems more than happy to keep from Nicholas.