John Fowles' The Magus follows in kind with the novels of the Modernists. He is exploring intellectual elitism from the perspective of a bored young man. After arriving at Oxford, Nicholas is quickly stupefied by boredom and the lack of intellectual companionship among his peers and even professors. He throws himself obsessively into writing poetry and even attempts suicide at some point, convinced that he will never be understood or even challenged by anyone. On the other side, he realizes that he's been practicing active escapism, but that doesn't mean he's even remotely done trying to escape.
In an epic scheme, Fowles devises the perfect hell for his young protagonist. He sends Nicholas to an island, Burani, where he meets an eccentric old man who starts giving him new literature to read and telling him stories of proverbial past lives. At last, Nicholas is given a friend, but he realizes that he still misses his ex, Alison. She offered him something Conchis can't -- love. In a back and forth exchange lasting pages and pages, Fowles leads Nicholas forward in self-discovery, but it's a painful process. Nicholas must choose to reconcile his appetite for love with his disgust for ignorance. Eventually he concludes that people are necessary to have in one's life, so he takes up faking that he likes them.
By the end of the novel, Nicholas is so broken that he can't even recognize what's real about the last several years of his life. His time on Burani has completely changed him, some for worse and some for better. He no longer relies solely upon his intellect to interpret the world around him because it failed to protect him from Conchis' schemes. Now Nicholas is psychologically damaged, but he has found an internal strength which caused him to cling to life which he previously couldn't stand. His story is one of hope and difficult truths.
