This Vintage Edition of ‘The Magician’ has an unpreposessing preface by Maugham entitled ‘A Fragment of Autobiography'. Whilst some of it is interesting - Maugham reveals his not wholly enamoured view of Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century which is an interesting corrective to more romantic accounts - a lot of it makes one doubt this choice of book. Maugham has slightly more time for it than some of his earlier works, but not much. He can’t remember writing it but ’supposes’ that all the black magic arcana he seems to think he packed into it must have come from days spent reading in the British Museum. In fact there is very little magic in the book and what there is could just have been lifted from other potboilers of the late 19th century. Even more damningly, Maugham’s view of the prose in the book is that it is ‘lush and turgid’.
Well, I ploughed on nevertheless. The prose *is* terrible, one unpleasant, almost but not quite indigestible chunk after another. The characters to a person are cardboard thin. The Aleister Crowley character - Oliver Haddo - seems to take most of his phycological makeup and behaviours from a slightly twisted and less intelligent version of Sir John Falstaff. The plot make the average melodrama look good.
At least it is quite short. ( )

Hardly anything like Maugham. Only really readable in the last twenty pages or so. ( )

although Maugham forgot he even wrote this book, I enjoyed it. It had some supernatural elements involved that were well thought out and presented. I listened to the audio; the narrator was very good with great distinctions between characters voices and was not over top, which could easily have happened with the character of the magician. ( )

Enjoyable story about a magician, Oliver Haddon, modeled after Aleister Crowley, whom Maugham apparently hated, who gets his revenge upon a doctor in a very cruel way. Somewhat reminiscent of Dracula, except that Maugham realizes that Haddon is the most interesting character in the book and he has a considerable number of scenes. Dr. Porhoët in this book proves himself far more useful than that insufferable idiot Van Helsing. The doctor is a bit of a bore, having no appreciation for art or anything out of the solid ordinary--but he does show some determination and courage as the book goes on. It is not a great book by any means, and the female characters have stereotypical aspects about them--but I guess the men do, too, come to think of it. In any case, it is a good read, and it has a pretty decisive and satisfying ending. ( )

I have a sensitive spot when it comes to enslavement, sexual domination etc. so this book really stuck a nerve and it took me weeks to get it out of my head. If this book gets to you then it will really get you. If not then you might just think its a decent episode of the Twilight Zone. It certainly has that flavour towards the end. ( )