Life's Mystery

Life’s Mystery

       The future is a mystery waiting to be unfolded. Sometimes it seems predictable but one wrong move may change the game, or maybe the outcome won’t change at all. In The Magus, Nicholas Urfe is the main character in a game called the “god game”. Urfe must think about every move he makes. Maurice Conchis, the magician or the sorcerer, must help Urfe see a side of him that he has never cared to see. Conchis does this by manipulating Nick’s actions, predetermining what he will do and constantly staying one step ahead of him. In The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, this is explained as “the precedence behind every action (Calasso, 383)” as in The Magus, Conchis explains, “All that is past possesses our present (Fowles, 311).” Every footprint has already been made; the future has already been planned, and this is what Conchis is doing to Urfe to help him correct his imperfections.

      Maurice Conchis has been playing this “god game” for years. Each year with a different “victim,” as Urfe would put it. Conchis is trying to teach these individuals something they chose not to see in their everyday lives. He manipulates them based on their circumstances, what imperfections they need to change, though they do not have to change if they don’t want to. John Leverrier was one of Conchis’ pawns from earlier years. Though Leverrier will not specify to what happened when he played, it seems as if he learned a valuable lesson and was not willing to spoil Urfe’s experience by giving him answers. Leverrier states, “My dear man, you don’t want charity from me. You want confessions I am not prepared to make (Fowles, 571).” Conchis knew Urfe would go to Leverrier, and try to push him for a confession; much like Conchis knew Urfe would wander to his home after finding T.S. Eliot’s Collected Book of Poems, strategically placed under a towel and fins where Urfe would be sure to investigate. The passage Nicholas opens up to, underscored in red ink, is the beginning of the game of his life.

       Upon opening up the book Urfe finds on the beach he reads, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time (Fowles, 69).” Conchis was setting him up to read this passage for a specific reason. It could have awoken Urfe at that moment if he wasn’t so self-centered but instead he wanders further to find answers. Conchis set him up perfectly; he knew exactly what would make Nicholas want more. He must be taken out of his element, pushed out of his boundaries to experience the effects of the “god game.” Conchis faces him with lies and deceit, unable to trust anyone he spoke to. He does this so Urfe will realize these are similarities he should see in himself. Conchis planned out characters, and knows how they must treat him to make him react in a certain manner. Nicholas has imperfections, which he sees in the trial, such as egocentric deceitful, shallow, and vain.

      Nicholas displays these traits on a personal level, in his relationship with Alison throughout the book. He leaves her to go to Greece, ignores her letters, gets intimate with other women, physically abuses her, and tells her to bug off. Soon after, he finds out she has committed suicide and starts to feel remorse and guilt for the way he had mistreated her. Alison is an actress in Conchis’ game to show Urfe his imperfections. As Nicholas and Julie, another actress, discuss what is taking place on Bourani she states, “The place of mystery in life. Not taking anything for granted. A world where nothing is certain. That’s what he’s trying to create here (Fowles, 339).” It is as if she is pushing him to go with it, whatever happens is happening for a reason. Though Urfe didn’t realize Alison was participating in this until much later, once he does he feels anger and has many questions, questions that will never be answered. He must find his own answers from inside himself, not by asking others.

       Showing Urfe his past by utilizing the present was a great way to prove his narrow-mindedness. He can’t stop dwelling in everything that Conchis, Julie/ Lily, and Alison have done to him instead of focusing on why they have done this to him. While questioning Lily de Seitas and calling their actions evil she asks, “are you absolutely sure our actions have been nothing but evil (Fowles, 604)?” If he would have known what they were doing the ending wouldn’t have turned out the same way and he wouldn’t have learned anything from the game. Every action Conchis made was planned only to help Urfe come to a realization. Sometimes the truth hurts, but doesn’t create a change in character. Urfe had to be completely stripped of what he knows and turn to what is now, the present, in order to believe there is a reason for their actions. What this game has done, is only evil if there is no learning from it; as Urfe disregards the purpose and continues to be selfish, and vain, he will take nothing from his experience in Bourani.

  

       This game can be considered sick and evil, or it could be considered helpful and refreshing, depending on the player. Choosing to see the good in it is something not everyone can do. Conchis took Nicholas out of his nest, sent him through a wild initiation, and brought him his future. As Conchis takes Urfe through many changes, he shall end up where he started, knowing nothing more, but being a new man. “The end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time (Fowles, 69).” It was a mystery in the beginning and continues throughout, as the mystery of the future can never be unfolded until you get there, which makes it the present.