The Magicians

The Magicians was an interesting read, especially for someone who grew up reading the Harry Potter series. Grossman has brought a dose of realism to fantasy. The whole mood betrays what I would expect from a normal Fantasy novel. There are no real triumphant moments, or marked ecstatic highs from their adventures. Every new discovery only disappoints Quentin, failing to ever fill him up. A particularly brilliant part in the book, I felt, was their arrival to Fillory for the first time, and how everything about the place, down to the overgrown talking animals, was way too eerie to enjoy. What Quentin thought would be perfection is really just weird and kind of scary. And in a new and bizarre world with its own foreign rules we should actually expect nothing less. Fillory is a bit like adulthood. As children we dream of freedom adulthood offers, but coming out of adolescences and seeing the world for what it is can be a let down.

There was also no mission, or “Greater Calling” if you will, that thrusts the protagonists into necessary heroic action. It’s the boredom of their new adult lives that causes them to seek out thrills in Fillory. Again, this is more true to life than traditional fantasies. None of us are “The Chosen Ones” with a simple black and white goal laid out in front of us, for us. We have to make our own choices in life and risk facing the unknowns ahead of our decisions.

In an existential way I suppose one could argue this makes Quentin more heroic than Harry Potter. Still, Quentin was unable to rescue anyone himself, he cost a girl her life to Martin “The Beast” Chatwin due to a bit of carelessness, and it was his girlfriend, not him, who in the end made the ultimate sacrifice. As an edifying fairytale, The Magicians is a redemption story, not a tale of good versus evil; about how power corrupts.

I don’t read an awful lot of fantasy but the genre seems to have put itself in a rut since Tolkein. To see Grossman shake up the genre is exciting. I definitely want to read the sequel, The Magician King, although I wouldn’t expect it to be too similar to the first novel. Quentin’s time with the Centaur’s has ostensibly made him an infinitely more mature person, and that much more likeable. With everyone grown and out of Brakebills somehow Grossman will have to find a way to use the magic of Fillory to comment on adulthood.