I remember reading John Fowles's Magus when I was in faculty and being very impressed about it. I even think of retaking the lecture of this book considering you approach it with different eyes/ views at a different age.
The postmodern book (1965) has been called a work of metafiction, but it is much more than this. It mixes tensions, mystification, and psychology in unexpected ways.
Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is teaching English on a little Greek island, is the main protagonist of the book. Urfe becomes entangled in a master trickster's psychological illusions, which get progressively dark and severe.
Urfe arrives on the island to be an English teacher at the Lord Byron School in Phraxos, Greece. He struggles with loneliness and considers suicide after starting his new job and being bored, dejected, disillusioned, and overwhelmed. He comes upon an estate and meets its owner, Maurice Conchis, a rich Greek. Conchis gradually confesses that he may have assisted the Nazis during World War II as they form a bond.
Nicholas becomes further absorbed in Conchis' psychological games, his contradictory ideas on life, his cryptic identity, and his bizarre masquerades. Nicholas thinks it is a joke at first, things become more intricate and intense as the narrative progresses, and he loses his capacity to tell the difference between what is real and what is not. He becomes a performer against his volition and knowledge. Nicholas eventually realizes that all this created universe (the Nazi occupation re-enactments, the ridiculous playlets after Sade, and the filthy parodies of Greek mythology) is a picture of his life and not that of Conchis.
Hope you do find this book interesting and maybe decide to read it. Except for the intriguing plot and the psychological quest, its enormous value I think it stands in the way the author put up all the elements to build his piece of art.
To actualise my information about this book, I consulted this link here
Best!
Maylena