Anna goes to dinner with Conchis.

So I just recently finished reading this book, The Magus, by John Fowles.

I know, you're amazed I can read. 

This book is 656 pages of utter and complete nonsensical chaos. I will tell you about it now in a much condensed version.

There is this guy and he's a total cad. I didn't bother to learn his name because he is dumb. Really, really dumb. So dumb. He thinks he is God's gift to women and he does seem to pull the ladies quite well. Somehow he ends up shacking up with this Australian chick that comes to visit her friend downstairs and never leaves their building because guess what? They're meant for each other because they're miserable excuses for human beings. Ol' dude gets a job teaching English in Greece (Btw they live in England) and she gets to be stewardess. He goes to Greece and homegirl gets mad at him for leaving, even though he told her he was leaving and asked her on multiple occasions to not only go with him but offered to stay in England if she wanted him to.

Part 2: This is when shit gets real hairy.

Ol' dude shows up on an island in Greece that the best I can tell is populated by troglodytes and hermits. There is a village where 3 people, literally, live but there is apparently a super-posh school on this island that the Grecians send their sons to. I don't know, I'm not Greek, maybe it's a thing.

On this island lives this batty old rich guy that has more money than free time and he proceeds to torment the fuck out of our protagonist. The old man's name is Conchis, who is not to be confused with Ol' dude whose name I never bothered to learn. Ol' dude has dinner at Conchis' house every fucking weekend.

My learned roommate tells me that this book is about the temporality of reality or the validity of reality or something. What this book is really about is that our author, John Fowles, had a bone to pick with his editor so he wrote the most convoluted book ever known to man to piss his editor off. Here is a bullet list of shit that happens whilst on said island with Conchis:

• Ol' dude meets Conchis for dinner and learns about his fascination with dead things and the time/space continuum.
• Ol' dude meets Lily/June/Skank-whore and her twin sister Rose/Julie/Evil-person.
• Lily/June/Skank-whore gives Ol' dude a hand-job while skinny dipping in the ocean.
• Ol' dude gets a hard on from seeing Rose/Julie's boobs.
• Conchis convinces Ol' dude that Lily/June/Skank-whore is schizophrenic. That's why she has three names.
• L/J/SW convinces Ol' dude she isn't schizophrenic.
• Ol' dude becomes confused.
• Rose/Julie convinces Ol' dude it's contemporary theatre and Conchis confirms it.
• Ol' dude's Australian live-in girlfriend comes to Greece and they hang out for a weekend and shag and then Ol' dude breaks her heart by telling her 'There is someone else.'
• Ol' dude is even more confused, Conchis doesn't help.
• L/J/SW finally lets Ol' dude in her twat and Ol' dude is in looooove
• Ol' dude's Australian gf commits suicide and he has kind of an emotional meltdown.
• Rose/Julie calls off the charade and somehow Ol' dude still is a sucker and manages to get captured, drugged and possibly sexually molested for 3 days on Conchis' yacht.
• There is what they refer to as 'The Trial' and I'll just say this: Just when you thought this book could not get any wierder, BAM! It hits you over the head with this sadistic bullshit. For serious, there is a man with horns. And an alligator head. And a witch. And of course, Conchis.
• Apparently it isn't contemporary theatre, it's a grand psychological experiment in which they're essentially torturing ol' dude to get him to realize he's an asshole. Why? Because Conchis is not only a psychic but a psychologist. That works out well.
• JK, Australian gf didn't commit suicide. She's alive and well and bff with the Bitch-Twins' Mom who also happens to be sleeping with CONCHIS.
• Ol' dude goes back to England and the last 200 pages of the book are him arguing with Bitch-Twins' mom about Australian gf. Also apparently Conchis has been dead for 4 years. Yeah, I don't know either.
• Australian Girlfriend finally comes back and the book ends with a fucking French quote that I was too pissed off to look up. I have no idea if Ol' dude and semi-dead Australian gf end up together.

There are a couple of points I'd like to make. First, this book would 650 pages shorter if Fowles would have just had his Australian girlfriend tell Ol' dude he's an asshole. Secondly, ol' dude never seems really angry that he was abducted, drugged and molested/tortured for 3 days on a yacht. Although I guess it could be said that if you're going to be molested and drugged it would be nice to be able to have Hector bring you a pina-colada to dull the pain? WTF man? Tertiarily (Is this a word? I know thirdly isn't. Maybe ternarily?) why in the fuck this dude still continues to GO TO CONCHIS' HOUSE is beyond me. Personally after about the 4th dinner I'd stand up and graciously thank Conchis for a wonderful dinner and then shoot him the bird, piss on his foot and bolt from the house of Hell.

My roommate says I'd be impervious to his tricks though. He says that Conchis would be waxing philosophically about the fluidity of reality and I'd knock over my drink and make some smart-ass comment about the fluidity of fluid, or I'd see a bug and get distracted. I forgot to mention that at least 30% of the book is Conchis waxing philosophically about the fluidity of reality and what actually defines reality. I'm sure there is an important point in it somewhere; I'm just not sure where it is.

I guess what a person can really get out of this is this: If your significant other is an asshole, tell them. And if you're gonna get random hand-jobs in public, don't get them from schizophrenic bitches. They're cray-cray.