Quentin Coldwater is brillant
but miserable. He's a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he's
still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about
the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to
that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless. (Goodreads)
Reviewed
by Laura Madsen, writer, veterinarian and mom
I
read a review of THE MAGICIANS that suggested it would appeal to Harry Potter
fans after they’ve graduated high school. Well, I had already graduated college
by the time I read—and fell in love with—Harry Potter, but that was enough of a
recommendation for me.
Awesome
story. Rather dark, with some bad words and naughty escapades, but a great read
for a fantasy addict like me. If you like darker, edgier fantasy like George
R.R. Martin you should read it. (In fact, George R.R. Martin wrote a cover blurb:
“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of
weak tea.”) Plus, there are happily geeky references to D&D, Star Wars and
Star Trek; J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis. (Huh. Never occurred to
me that all those famous fantasy authors go by their initials; maybe I’d have
better luck getting my fantasy novel published if I went by L.L.M. Madsen?)
Quentin
Coldwater is a brilliant 17-year-old but he feels like “his real life, the life
he should be living, had been mislaid through some clerical error by the cosmic
bureaucracy.” He escapes reality by reading and dreaming of Fillory, a
Narnia-esque fantasy locale from a children’s book series. But then he is
inexplicably recruited into Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a weird,
exclusive, magical university in upstate New York. The college is a huge
mansion with hedge maze and manicured lawns, hidden by ancient spells from the
prying eyes of regular people. The magical faculty is “largely dependent on
Victorian-era technology. It wasn’t an affectation, or not entirely;
electronics, Quentin was told, behaved unpredictably in the presence of
sorcery.”
Grossman’s
magic system is intriguing. “You don’t just wave a wand and yell some made-up
Latin.” The spells require painstaking practice, precise hand movements, and
knowledge of some obscure languages like Aramaic and Old High Dutch.
At
Brakebills, Quentin’s friends are brilliant but cripplingly shy Alice;
flamboyantly eccentric Eliot; loud, fashionable Janet; and chronically
underestimated Josh. Another classmate is a tattooed, mohawked guy with the
inexplicable name of Penny, whom Josh describes as “a mystery wrapped in an
enigma and crudely stapled to a ticking time bomb.”
During
his years at Brakebills, Quentin learns to do some amazing magic. Pretty much
anything you can imagine is possible, provided you have the brains and balls
and perseverance to try it. But after graduation, Quentin and his friends
descend into aimless, self-loathing, drug- and alcohol-fueled debauchery.
One
night, Penny shows up with a magic item he’s bought from a black-market dealer.
It’s real, and it allows a person to transport to the Neitherlands (“Neither
here nor there”), a realm from the Fillory novels which connects to every other
realm and dimension—including Fillory.
Quentin
and his friends take the plunge and jump into Fillory, where they find that
things aren’t quite as clear-cut as they were in the novels. Good vs. evil
comes down to a matter of perspective. Friends turn into enemies and enemies
into friends.
Although
Quentin is 17 when the novel starts, this is adult fiction, not YA. It’s not
that it’s necessarily inappropriate for older teens, but I think the complexity
puts it firmly into adult fiction. With references from Karate Kid to the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, I think teens just wouldn’t find it very
interesting. But if you’re an adult who never outgrew wanting to go to Narnia
or Hogwarts—yet you can appreciate that maybe humans, with all their foibles
and prejudices, shouldn’t really wield magic—this is for you. It’s both an
homage to the fantasy genre and a commentary on our non-magical society.
Market:
Adult fiction (fantasy/ urban fantasy)
Language:
explicit
Sensuality:
explicit
Violence:
explicit
Mature
themes: death, betrayal, sexuality, magical violence, drug and alcohol abuse
Book formats:
3 comments:
This sounds intriguing! I've seen the title and author before but never investigated further. I'm definitely interested in reading it now.
I really, really tried to get into this book, but after several chapters, I just didn't care for the characters enough to continue reading. Maybe I should try again??
Kim, I've heard other people say that they couldn't get into it. Granted, Quentin is not the most sympathetic protagonist--he's kind of a whiny jerk--but the world is fascinating. And I think the sequel, THE MAGICIAN KING, is even better.
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