Jaimie Teekell
asked
Lev Grossman:
You once said that you wrote The Magicians under the influence of Brideshead Revisited and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I think those are the ones. What are some examples of the way these books inspired you? Do they continue to inspire the trilogy?
Lev Grossman
With Brideshead it was about the structure: the first half is idyllic Oxford (with intimations of coming darkness), and the second half is disillusionment in the wider world...the Magicians follows the same arc. Also I nicked some of Eliot's personality from Sebastian Flyte.
With Jonathan Strange ... it was just everything. I never saw anybody write fantasy before without that kind of scope and ambition and power. And the clarity with which Clarke describes magic -- I feel like she's the first person I ever read who truly took on the challenge of making magic feel fully real. When I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell I thought, this is what's going on in fiction. This is where I need to be.
With Jonathan Strange ... it was just everything. I never saw anybody write fantasy before without that kind of scope and ambition and power. And the clarity with which Clarke describes magic -- I feel like she's the first person I ever read who truly took on the challenge of making magic feel fully real. When I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell I thought, this is what's going on in fiction. This is where I need to be.
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