“Genesis is a great lie, but”

Abstract

It is increasingly accepted in textual studies that to approach the genesis of a literary work is to narrate how its textual versions were produced. In other words, understanding the development of a work encourages a reflection on the strategies used to reveal the reconstruction of its genesis for the reader. Since the main objective of genetic analysis is to trace back the processual aspects of materially recorded changes, the question arises as to how the dynamics of writing are implied by the very narration of reconstruction. In light of this discussion, the present article examines the avant-texte of John Fowles’s novel The Magus, focusing on the work’s closure which has repeatedly been debated by critics yet not addressed from the perspective of genetic analysis. This case problematizes the task of representing the complex genetic links comprehensively and promotes the view that the versions of the novel’s ending ought to be treated as a homogenous structure rather than a set of heterogeneous units.