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The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Start date: August 7, 2009

Discussion: Book Candidates

Why we're reading this: Hotspur's suggestion. A wonderful parody of the time-honored cliche of the loner who doesn't fit in and gets sent to a magickal escapist land to study magick and have adventures, but seen through an adult's eyes. Has equal parts Narnia and Potter in it.
[close] Hotspur's suggestion. A wonderful parody of the time-honored cliche of the loner who doesn't fit in and gets sent to a magickal escapist land to study magick and have adventures, but seen through an adult's eyes. Has equal parts Narnia and Potter in it. [close]

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Book Candidates

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* Book Candidates
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what members thought

Aug 17, 2009

Hotspur rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy, thriller

Read in August, 2009

I heard about it when Lev was interviewed on NPR. "What do you get when you have one of these Harry Potter style schmaltzy "Schools of Wizardry", and the students act like (gasp!) real human teenagers, and all that entails (sex, drugs, popular culture, all of it).

What if the evil villain is absent from the story, and you don't have him/her/it around to drive the plot to an obvious conclusion?

What if there is no happy ending?

At one point.. the prot...more

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Oct 17, 2009

Ina rated it:

Read in November, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

While the story starts out "all wrong," with the exact opposite of what escapist-types would savor in reading such books -- the complete lack of that usual heartwarming wonder -- the melancholy and empty-snobbishness of Quentin, the protagonist, seems familiar... and I suppose, it's via such kindred identification that the reader feels not compelled to either stop or continue, but maybe to read on to see what the fuss is all about (with the slight hope that this intelligent-but-depress...more While the story starts out "all wrong," with the exact opposite of what escapist-types would savor in reading such books -- the complete lack of that usual heartwarming wonder -- the melancholy and empty-snobbishness of Quentin, the protagonist, seems familiar... and I suppose, it's via such kindred identification that the reader feels not compelled to either stop or continue, but maybe to read on to see what the fuss is all about (with the slight hope that this intelligent-but-depressed character might find peace, and so, the reader as well).

With entering classes of exactly twenty, Brakebill turns out to be more like prepschool, or perhaps an extremely-tiny extremely-exclusive college, than a higher education institution. Magic seems like rote memorization of spells and hand-motions (through which Quentin forced himself through with the empty, but determined vigor of your typical prep-school mentality), until the fourth year of the program, when half the class is transformed into geese (yes, literally!), to fly to Brakebill South in Antarctica, where they would finally truly learn magic, in its soul-seeping essence... via a masochistic Mr Miyagi-kind of professor.

Though Fillory seems like just a child's story at first, the novel eventually reveals that Fillory is a real place, with all its unlikely elements, and escaping the dreariness of a privileged life after college, the Brakebill magicians are whisked off to Fillory via a magic button. Of note, the book's first episode of sex is in the form of students having transformed into snow foxes, and Brakebill's graduating gift to each student is a cacodemon installed into the body of each via some high-magic a tattoo'd pentogram. (Everyone's cacodemon seems to have made some kills and defeated their opponent, except for Quentin's, which he released while trying to fight the "boss of Fillory" -- who turns out to be Martin, and not Ember or Umber.)

...

Cutting to the chase, while I found this novel moderately enjoyable, I was also moderately relieved that it's finally over. I didn't particularly like the ending, though I suppose the author had to resort to it, in order to bring closure to the story -- the vague implication of Quentin, in some delirium, subconsciously breaking the windows of his desk job and hopping out, down that long jump from the skyscraper. True, he could have turned himself into a goose, or some other affect, and flown off to join the now-winged Eliot and Janet, and Jane, to complete the pairs of kings and queens of Fillory... but, were the common person to attempt what he did, the analogue would have been suicide, and despite the affection, the frightening power bestowed to magicians, as well as the frightening dreary and mundane world that seems utterly unworthy of such magic, the magicians do, at least, have both magic and legacy to help them beat the odds. Quentin realizes that his melancholy was all due to himself, and that he didn't need happiness or Fillory or any of that to be happy -- though neither could he achieve happiness with magic, Fillory and all that.(less)

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Nov 18, 2009

"Nabila" added it

Read in November, 2009

Well, my hopes for a "bright, positive ending" were dashed. Not that I'm surprised or anything. This was like Harry Potter meets Narnia as told by Dorothy Parker. The protagonist and most of his associates are a bunch of self-centered, whiny, surly, foul-mouthed, boozed-up (or alternately hung-over), jaded little brats, too self-absorbed to take their gifts and do something constructive with them. Maybe this IS a parody, because otherwise it's just too annoyingly depressing.

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Sep 07, 2009

Eleanor rated it:

Read in October, 2009

Enjoyed the story though I found myself picking out the bits that reminded me of Harry Potter and of course the CS Lewis stories. Not really a parody but can't say it is an imitation of the other stories it has been compared to.

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