SOURCE: "The Dialectics of Debasement in The Magus," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring, 1985, pp. 71-82.

In the following essay, Novak analyzes the "disturbing" aspects of The Magus and the novel's cultural significance.

Commentators and readers alike have praised The Magus as a fascinating and powerful novel of great audacity, richness, and intellectual depth. I am sure that many, like myself, have also found it to be an eminently teachable work that rarely fails to intrigue and to challenge those who study it. Yet The Magus profoundly disturbs many college students; it often affects these young readers in unexpected and unsettling ways. Although praising the novel as a compelling and absorbing work, students frequently express an uneasy concern about various problems: the meaning of Nicholas Urfe's bizarre experience, the extent to which he learns and changes, the unresolved ending, the motives and morality of those who conduct...