Mild spoilers ahead, be wary.
Apparently, Harry Potter was not enough for the world of fiction. More magic was needed! The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, is a combination of Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. It is also teen angst, college life and after-college blues, all wrapped into a succinct 402 pages.
It follows Quentin Coldwater, a geeky but top of his class high school senior. He has always been obsessed with the world of Fillory, the subject of his favorite fantasy literature series. He reads the books from cover to cover multiple times, almost like a security blanket. He yearns for his friend Julia who is linked with his best friend, James. These two, plus Fillory, are his entire world.
However, at one point (which I won’t give info on), he basically follows the rabbit hole and ends up at Brakebills, a school for magicians. He has been recruited for this school based on his talent with coins and sleight of hand. After a lengthy and grueling test, he passes and is entered into the school.
This may all seem quite familiar but this is where is deviates from the Potter formula. Where each Potter book represents a year in the prep school that is Hogwarts, The Magicians version, Brakebills, is a college and all 4 years are included. Obviously, this requires some jumping ahead and it can be annoying at times. 6 months may pass by and Grossman will include nothing more than ‘they studied for 6 months’ or ‘time passed by quickly as they drank heavily every day’ (I’m taking liberty here but you get the drift). He will describe in great detail certain segments and not so much the rest. It really feels like he had more ideas but wanted everything to be in one book.
What really shines for this book and the idea in general is the general description of magic. Grossman goes way beyond in-depth when describing magic, be it the certain circumstances that magic in this world must adhere to or the components required for certain spells. In order to cast a warmth spell on himself, Quentin must have mutton fat on hand. To do all spells, certain hand signs and languages, both old and new, have to be performed in the right order and proper pronunciation. The spells have certain names based on rules and those who first cast them, you have to truly understand the spell in order to cast it and so on.
The lengths that Grossman will go to in order to present magic in this fashion is remarkable. There is truly deep studying to casts spells in this universe and it is not simple memorization. Quentin even describe sit as ‘as tedious as it was possible for teh study of powerful and mysterious supernatural forces.’ Even the moon pahses and time of day have be considered for casting. He really wants the reader to recognize how difficult it is for the characters to do this. At one point, Quentin goes back home and meets Julia. Apparently, she was at the same Brakebills exam that he was but failed. However, the professors failed to wipe her mind of it completely, leaving her slightly unstable. She has spent her time trying to do magic without any formal teaching. When she performs a simple spell for Quentin to prove that she can do magic, he thinks about how much he pities her because it must have taken her a year to do and, even then, she botches some of the language.
There are no wands or wizard hats, no broomsticks or kiddy things. Brakebills is a college and, as such, that means a lot of swearing, sex, drugs and alcohol. Essentially, once Quentin joins with a particular group of magic about 100 pages in, he is drunk throughout the rest of the novel. He first hooks up with his friend and future girlfriend, the supremely gifted Alice, when they have been transformed into foxes in Antarctica at Brakebills South-no, really. This comes off as even more strange in the novel. Neither he nor Alice put much effort into their senior projects, basically failing in spectacular fashion and accepting the bare minimum grades they need to pass. As soon as Quentin graduates, he moves to New York with his friends and discovers the joys of, as he puts it, ‘actual drugs.’
A recurring theme through The Magicians is Quentin comparing life to Fillory. In each book, the Chatwin children would be pulled back into the Fillory universe, accept a quest, complete it and subsequently be kicked out. Quentin makes interesting observations about how magic in Fillory is different than his world and how he keeps waiting for a true purpose to evolve at Brakebills, some reason for his magic. He is never happy because he cannot see a purpose for any of it.
Well, upon graduation and the move to New York, it is discovered that Fillory is a real place and that the books were stories told to the author by one of the actual Chatwin children. Seizing the opportunity, Quentin and his friends go to Fillory in order to become kings and queens. Quentin goes there ‘to find happiness.’ They meet characters from the books, learn about where they should go and undertake the quest. All along, they grouse about how this is not what they expected and are generally wary of everything. They are virtually dependent upon everyone else in the world to help them. Without giving too much away, no one ends up happy at the end of the Fillory tale.
The book can be best summed up with this quote: ‘They had all the power in the world, no work to do and nobody to stop them.’ They are handed these great powers and never told how to use them in the real world, into which they are thrust upon graduation. They are set adrift and have no clue about how to live life outside the confines of Brakebills. Quentin just wants to be alone on graduation night, even when he and Alice are together. He can no longer locate the love he had for her but she won’t let him be. ‘He didn’t feel like staying and he didn’t feel like going.’
The entire character of Quentin is infuriating at times. He cannot make a choice and is always hesitant to take blame for himself. His feelings for Alice waver between lust, indecision, general boredom and idol worship. Being the viewpoint of the novel, you get all of his feelings and it is just incredibly depressing at times. He purposely sabotages his relationship with Alice, he has a general apathy towards classwork, he has no clue about what to do after Brakebills. He talks about redoing his senior project but never does, because, in the end, he is just talk. His friends talk about what they may do but never get around to it.
When they go to Fillory, they think that it will solve everything. Instead, some people break down, unable to cope, others are generally apathetic and still more act like it is renaissance fair, almost like it wasn’t real.
Really, this book is many things:
1. A fantasy novel with deep magic concentration
2. An after-college novel about discovering yourself and realizing that there is nothing there, you serve no purpose in this world
3. A college novel about how to completely lose yourself in the freedom of college life while finding love
4. A parody of all things magical in literature
Ultimately, it is a very well-written book with incredible depth in its description of magic, quite depressing moments about life in general and a main character that is simply too indecisive to be likable. Would I recommend it? I think I would solely for the description of magic in the novel, as it is unlike anything I have read. It is simply an infuriating book at times, is all.
Not a bad review, but I have no inkling to read this book now. I’m not sure I can put my finger on why though… I had no interests in Harry Potter. I was late to even knowing it existed, and then got it stuck in my head that it’s a “kid’s book”. Though I really liked the first movie (I’ve seen all of them that have been on DVD, but only the first one was good. Everything was new and magical in the first, “wow, all the paintings are moving, oh, cool, ghosts wonder the halls” where as the rest had nothing new, and the “cool/new” things just became mundane to both Harry and the viewer (me)).
So right off the bat, any book relating to HP is almost immediately dismissed in my mind. As for the great lengths you say he goes into describing magic and the rules, I see pluses and minuses to that. Firstly, that sounds incredibly boring to read about. But having rules is a good thing. I hate how almost all books degenerates into either “He’s the greatest ever, and just gets more powerful” or “he could be the greatest ever, he just needs to unlock his potential”, but never stating why this is so. There is danger in explaining that why too. Just think of the Force from Star Wars in the original Trilogy, and the explanation they give in the newer prequel trilogy. Completely ruined it. Major credit to the original trilogy though. Luke didn’t just become the “greatest master of the Force” and defeat the emperor. Infact, he lost. But he didn’t give in and THAT is where he had his victory, which drove his dad to save him (who also didn’t use the force to defeat the emperor, he just picked him up and threw him off the platform). Getting back to the rules, I think believable mysticism is a fine line between absurd/unexplained and tedious explanation. I personally like a quick outline of the rules (like in some universes where a wizard needs to memorize a spell each day, and can only use it once, and forgets the spell after 24 hours), but without having everything explained down to the minute details.
I’ll write more later.
You read it! You actually read it! I just kind of kept writing and writing, not bothering with organization. Wasn’t sure anyone would finish it.
I liked The Goblet of Fire. But I like movies with competition (and dragons!). Also, I was greatly amused by the DBZ fight at the end (dueling kamehameha’s).
Mind you, I don’t like Harry Potter. While I think it is great that it inspired more kids to start reading as a hobby rather than out of necessity, I feel it never gets out of the kid mode. The characters grow up but still she has these silly items. Plus, harkening back to ‘witches and broomsticks and such’ should not be immediately kid-friendly, in my mind. It almost hurts any future books over the next 15-20 years that want to do a classic witch tale.
Anyways…the in-depth of magic is actually rather interesting. I like it when an author is really devoted to their work enough to put some effort into it beyond simple outlining of the story. What is frustrating about the book is the attitude of the main character and the fact that the main plot never really occurs until you are near the end (I think, at least).
Of course, you are welcome to borrow it. It’s really quite well-written and several of the ideas are well-done…it’s just frustrating.
If this were done in the Potter-style (sadly that’s the best example I can come up with) of one book per year but in the Brakebills college-type setting, I think it would have been better because it feels like there is a lot more Grossman could have done, he’s a magnificent writer (he writes for Time). Of course, then it would be called a Harry Potter ripoff for adults