The Magicians

Weirdly pertinent to today with an underpinning of magic realism. The writing is denser than most modern writing, (1954) but this book was hard to put down. It's a recent re-issue from a small publisher in the South. Great escape reading...

The later works of priestly are just not as good as his earlier work, still a nice read for a rainy sunday afternoon with a cupper and a biscuit.

Excellent,story, well developed but the moist important part is the possibilities he envisions as to life; without being a happy endeing it does depict a better ending to a life. I had read Priestley in the sixties and I'm so happy he has been rediscovered, I'ill read many more of his Works, definitely

I didn't know what to expect and it was easy to keep laughing at the situation all the while hoping the story would end well. I want to read it again!

12 chapters 65,000+ words A widower, Sir Charles Ravenstreet, quits a job he’s had for many years and gets depressed. I love the accuracy of Priestley’s description of his depression. If I may paraphrase it: His life becomes a muted daydream placed on an edge that is surrounded by darkness. Lord Mervil offers Ravenstreet a lucrative job to help develop something awful that will cure all ills. It was a good choice to follow Ravenstreet’s depression with a job offer that promises to cure all depressions. Ravenstreet doesn’t like what’s being proposed, but you know that he’s tempted with both the job and the cure-all. Ravenstreet is visited by three weirdos, Wayland, Merot and Perperek, who may be aliens, time-travellers, angels or psychic experts. Wayland and Marot are dull. Perperek is an annoying clown. Fortunately, Priestley uses them sparingly. They’re called “The Magicians” and for a trio of wise men, they spend much of the time clumsily bungling things. Among other things, Priestley uses them to take a gratuitous swipe at the British legal system. They take Ravenstreet through some mind-over-matter adventures and change his career path. Along the way the inventor of the cure-all, Ernest Sepman gets very fed up and takes the story toward a climax. Sepman is the best-developed character in the book and the most interesting. Priestley does a pretty good job here of continuing the conversation started by Aldous Huxley in BRAVE NEW WORLD about the “mass man”, the inert nihilist who is vulnerable to manipulation by elites. Priestley adds some good insights. In more than one place Priestley seems to be implying that mass man and other kinds of modern malaise are outgrowths of secularism. For example, see Ravenstreet’s meditations on his wife’s unhappiness. On the other hand he has Lord Mervil imply that mass man would be different if he had real power. I enjoyed reading this. 2.88 stars

Wonderful book

this is a wonderful novel written in 1954. i love older books as there is more depth and complexities to the stories. the story is about a middle aged man asked to retire. he meets up with some charlatans that want him to invest in a business. about this time, he runs into three strangers who are put out of a lodge because it burned down. he offers them room at his place and then all the fun starts. these are three magicians who carry on in the eastern traditions and gurdjieff's fourth way. they discuss how man is asleep and how most religions denounce everyone except themselves. better to be a drunk merchant than work for the state that asks for more and gives back less. it is an excellent book that hopefully will have one think about their beliefs and journey in life. it would be nice to encounter more wise people along our journey in life....

No one tells a story as brilliantly as JB Priestley and it is really great that his writing is making a comeback and that many more of his books are now available.

It will take some time to process his novel which I wish I had read with someone else, feeling the need to talk about it. Lead character Charles Ravenstreet is led into mystical experiences without once losing his footing in reality.

I read Priestley's "Lost Empires" a few tears ago and was very impressed how well that book still reads and how the author created a good story with a clear sense of time and place. In trying Priestly again by reading "The Magicians" I have not been dissapointed. It has an intriguing plot, which as so often with Priestly, plays with the concept of time. As I find with many novels of this period the plot moves on quickly and I found myself wanting to read more to see where we aere going. I shall read more Priestly.

Fans of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Maurice Nicoll will find this a hoot. It should be much better known. It has a strong message for these days of AI and talk of transhumanism. I asked ChatGPT about the novel and Priestley’s interest in Gurdjieff only for ChatGPT to tell me that J B Priestley had never written a novel by this name. The theme partly reappears also in his later novel The Shapes of Sleep with its Antiants Society, but I prefer The Magicians. Having seen Le Carre’s The Night Manager it’s difficult not to visualise Tom Hollander’s Corky as Major Prisk and the fact that Perperk is so obviously Gurdjieff is a delight and a mystery. J B Priestley is said to have read Maurice Nicole’s Living Time, but how did he come to capture so many facets of Gurdjieff’s character as well as his vernacular. If you read one J B Priestley read this one.

Priestley is greatly underrated. The Magicians gives a taste of the flavour of his work and ideas. I Do not intend to go into plot or characters because it may spoil the awaiting experience of future readers . But as usual Priestley weaves a unique web of intrigue . So all I can say is that you should certainly buy this book : it's a certainty that you will enjoy it.