The Magicians 122
| The Magicians | |
| author | Lev Grossman |
| pages | 402 |
| publisher | Viking |
| rating | 7/10 |
| reviewer | JR Peck |
| ISBN | 978-0-670-020550-3 |
| summary | Boy feels socially akward...boy discovers he's magical...boy gets into private magical school. |
The protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, is a nerd. He's an academic over-achiever living a life of privilege, set on a path of success. He's also extremely unhappy, feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. He struggles with his inability to connect with others and the meaninglessness of life. He has sought out and found some respite in the fantasy world of Fillory, a magical land created and explored in the books of an American author that lived in England. At the start of The Magicians Quentin in on his way to an interview as part of the admissions process for Princeton. But this does not end up as another normal day for Quentin. Rather than his ultimate destination, Princeton, Quentin ends up at Brakebills. Brakebills is a university in upstate New York where students learn magic.
While Hogwarts was not the first literary school of magic, it is the model Grossman has in mind and he is very up front about that fact. The students take part in a magical game called Welters. At one point a team member of Quentin's, Josh, is absent at the start of a match. Quentin hunts him down and the following interaction takes place between the two of them.
Josh stood up. He saluted smartly. "Send me an owl."
"Come on, they're waiting for us. Fogg is freezing his ass off."
"Good for him. Too much ass on that man anyway."
Quentin got Josh out of the library and heading toward the rear of the House, though he was moving slowly with a worrying tendency to lurch into door frames and occasionally into Quentin.
He did an abrupt about-face.
"Hang on," he said. "Gotta get my quidditch costume. I mean uniform. I mean welters."
"We don't have uniforms."
"I know that, " Josh snapped. "I'm drunk, I'm not delusional. I still need my winter coat."
This sliver does a lot to reveal the similarities and differences. Brakebills is very much like Hogwarts in external ways, and completely different in substance. The school is for adults, not children and the life that Grossman portrays is much more in line with reality than fantasy. This is not a book to pick up for a young child. This story contains profanity, sexual content, graphic violence, as well as alcohol and drug abuse. This is where I ran into my first issue with The Magicians. I'll get to that shortly, but first I'd like to finish laying out what the book involves.
Not all of Brakebills is lifted straight from Hogwarts, though I don't think the reader with much experience in reading fantasy will find anything that could really be called new. What there is, as I have mentioned, is very well done. Grossman builds up to moments of palpable tension. He pulls the reader into the life of Quentin and shows real finesse at times. His characters very much come alive, in their brief moments of joy and in their many moments of pain, frustration and loss. Anyone who has felt the hurt of being outside, dealing with the cruelty of others or a general questioning of meaning will be able to relate well to the protagonist.
Eventually school is over and the students graduate. And here is the turn that I think the promotional material makes obvious but some may not want to know about going into reading the book. The second section of the story begins as Quentin and his fellow Brakebills alumni find out that Fillory is real. They immediately prepare to set out on an expedition to the land they've loved since childhood. That Fillory is better spelled N-a-r-n-i-a is just as obvious as the connection to Rowling's work. Quentin and company enter Fillory using magic buttons that take them to an intermediary world of fountains. Jumping into each fountain takes a person to a different world. They have to take care to jump into the correct pool at the base of the fountain that will take them to Fillory. Fillory is a land of talking beasts and magical creatures.
So what sets The Magicians apart from lesser books that lift heavily from other works? Why is The Magicians a strong story while something like Eragon is a weak rip-off? I think it boils down to two elements. First is Grossman's strong writing. Even if this were just a big piece of fan fiction, it would be well written fan fiction. Secondly, this isn't just an homage to the work of others. While Grossman has lifted the settings and externals, the substance is completely different often to the point of taking a position that is completely antithetical to the original work.
My first problem, which I tie to the very adult content is wrapped up in why I read fantasy. I read fantasy on many levels as a form of escape, much like Grossman's character Quentin did. Much of the fantasy I've read is not only fantasy but it is written for children. At the bottom of it all there is no real risk or fear. I read with anticipation, not of an outcome but rather how that outcome will be worked out by the author. There is often death or treachery but it takes on a fairy tale like quality. It does not feel real or cruel but rather cartoonish. Grossman completely jettisons any of this kind of approach. He tackles the safety of these children's tales and eviscerates it. The violence in The Magicians is not cartoonish, it is often cruel even sadistic. There's not much in the way of escapism here. What Quentin finds is that magic doesn't change the basic underlying facts of life, not even traveling to another world does this. This is combined with the fact that much of Grossman's realism includes behavior and speech that isn't something that I would consider normal or appropriate. It may be for others but this isn't a book I would feel comfortable recommending to friends or family.
Then there is my second issue. I've read that Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is intended to be a type of anti-Narnia. Well Grossman doesn't just create an alternative world that is contrary to Narnia. He destroys Narnia from the inside. And this caused issues for me in both sections of the book at times. Not because of ideological difficulties with what Grossman puts forward but because it would frequently push me outside the story as it felt like Grossman would move from telling his own story to commenting on the story of another. It isn't that what he has to say about the other stories isn't interesting and that he doesn't bring up intriguing issues and criticisms of both, but rather that it jarred me out of the narrative as the story became more a work of exposition. Something like the flashbacks to History and Moral Philosophy class that fill so much of Starship Troopers. The author shows his hand, that he is more interested in making a point than telling a story.
The fact that a major component of the book is polemic in nature means much of the discussion around the book will not be about plot or setting but rather about the argument the author sets forth. I don't agree with Grossman's premise or conclusions but I do admire how well he states his case throughout the entire book, not only in those portions that might feel a bit preachy. I've read in an interview Grossman did about The Magicians that he feels that Rowling lets her characters solve their problems, rather than resting on divine intervention like the characters of Lewis's works. This is reflected in how he handles the world of each, though I would argue that this is not the case, especially in light of how Rowling's series ended. I think it does explain why he is so much rougher on Lewis.
Anyone looking for a dark story that questions the assumptions and underlying principles of those that are not so dark should really enjoy this book. Any parent that picks it up for their young one because they hear it compared to Harry Potter is in for a rude surprise. Those looking for a fun little escape from the real world wont find it here, though things are so grim at times they may find the real world a bit of a relief after the weight of Grossman's. The Magicians held my attention and I was impressed with Grossman's ability, unfortunately at the same time I was a bit disappointed with how he used that ability. With something this subjective your mileage may vary, and since release The Magicians has hit number nine on the New York Times best sellers list.
Viking set up a number of web sites to support the release of The Magicians. This is not so much about the book itself but will be of interest to readers and I think is an interesting development for book lovers in general. There are four sites TheMagiciansBook.com is a normal promotional site with information on the book. ChristopherPlover.com brings to life the fictional author of the Fillory books. Brakebills of course has a site, obfuscated just like the school itself. Finally there is Embers Tomb a wealth of Fillory related information. The Fillory and Plover sites come across as very genuine and will probably snag a reader or two into some level of confusion. The Brakebills site is a bit too over the top to be taken seriously but then again, with real news sites quoting The Onion and the occasional uproar I see over humor sites like Objective Ministries there probably will be some who think it is a real school.
You can purchase The Magicians from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:Frosty weather (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that the protagonists will stick the magic wooden staff of GapenHolen up their asses and then self-flagellate themselves to death before the evil Crusaders of Cok beat them to it. Larry Craig will make a guest appearance as the Scoutmaster.
Will it Blend? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think it's indicative of people wanting to mash things together, so much as finding it amusing when someone sticks every day objects (and sometimes expensive ones) into a blender and records the destruction that ensues.
Sames as the guys on youtube who stick shit in microwaves for extended periods of time to see what happens. It's purely the destructive impulse being satisfied.
Gritty realism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who reads fantasy for 'gritty realism'? Sounds like it'd just be a major drag, to me. And deliberately basing your school on another magic school in a recent book? Isn't that just a cop-out?
The Improbability of Improbability (Score:3, Insightful)
C.S. Lewis was out to make a point and tell a story. So was Tolkien. In contrast Potter seems to be "just a story" without an underlying point. This has no bearing on the merits but rather the structure and origin.
It struck me that Both Lewis and Tolkien (as well as Herbert for you Sci-Fi fans) sat down and said, "What message do I want to send... okay.. now how about a good story to communicate that..."
Potter struck me as, "Ok here is the overall story. Let's see if we can work a bigger message into it."
As the review pointed out sometimes the story can get overshadowed by the message\point the author is trying to make.
People, for some odd reason alawsys have an axe to grind with Lewis. Be it Christan bigotry or the exact opposite, alas the "Jesus isn't an animal!" rabid foaming at the mouth fundamentalists I find it almost ironic that Rowling, Tolkien, and Lewis now form this weird "Fantasy Trinity" of core writers.
Interestingly enough though I hear little of Ann Mcaffrey, Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman; and albiet biased, Terry Brooks.
It goes back to world crafting which is difficult to do, for authors even more so do to limited space.
Perhaps the success of those three was their ability, intentional or otherwise, was to draw the reader into the world with little effort.
Perhaps we should measure this work against that standard on how easily "we can step through the wardrobe", or quickly "we can make the journey to the undying lands", or how siftly we can "catch a train to Hogwarts"
Re:The Improbability of Improbability (Score:5, Insightful)
C.S. Lewis was out to make a point and tell a story. So was Tolkien. In contrast Potter seems to be "just a story" without an underlying point.
I'll concede Lewis, but what was the "point" that you perceive Tolkien set out to make? That invented languages are fun? If I may quote from Tolkien's "Forward to the Second Edition" (page 6 in the Houghton Mifflin hardcover edition):
As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none.
Of course, there will always be those people who read a statement like that from an author and instantly start looking for inner meanings and messages, but those people are silly.
As for the Harry Potter series, I'd say there's as little or as much "point" to it as you want to read into it. If nothing else, Rowling's characterizations are much more nuanced and "modern" than those of either Lewis or Tolkien. Dumbledore, Rowling's analogue to Gandalf, is shown to be flawed and fallible, and even Rowling's take on the archetypal Dark Lord can be read as just some poor guy who had a rotten life and went sour because of it. Maybe that was her point -- that for all the wizardry and wonder we would have in a world where magic was real, human beings would still have to muddle through the way they always do, and that children in such a world would no more be able to rely on the infallibility and immortality of their elders than children in our own world do? I don't care enough about the series to formulate a hard opinion one way or the other, but to suggest that it "has no point" seems to say more about the critic than about Rowling herself.