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.