Slow, slow developer

I began re-reading John Fowles' 'The Magus' today, partly at the exhortation of my youngest son.

I see it was first published in 1966 and remember that my father, a librarian, brought it home for me to read that year.   I found it hard at the time - dense and without focus - although I think I did finish it eventually.   Earlier, in September, I realised that he had also introduced me to Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' which I hated and abandoned, afterwards believing it to have been something written by James Joyce (!)   At the time, of course, the sex I knew was teenage, not for the elderly, and it is with shame that I realise how much I missed out on the opportunity to learn, to have been grateful for what he would have so willingly given me.