Something Magical

At LeakyCon 2009, I went to a session by Time book critic and author, Lev Grossman. He was doing a session about writing and also promoting his new book, The Magicians. Having a love for the fantasy genre, I was intrigued by his new book and decided to purchase it. I had heard good things about it via tweets from friends, so I felt confident that I had made a good purchase. I finally finished reading it last night and decided to blog about it--kind of a review. So, if you have not read it yet and don't want to be spoiled...

THIS IS YOUR **SPOILER** WARNING

Yes, you have been warned....

Let me first say that this a totally different take on magic versus Harry Potter (although several nods are given to HP throughout the book which I will touch on). Having not really read any reviews on it and only reading the extract received at LeakyCon, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had in mind something like Harry Potter just from what I heard, but was curious as to the direction the book would take.

The book does loosely follow some of the construct of the Harry Potter world (i.e. hidden school of magic, different years at the school, etc.), but obviously not to the same degree. For one, the school is in America and it is a college rather than a sort of secondary school such as Hogwarts. Also, the magic is very different. These are all good because obviously copying JKR wouldn't go over well.

Anyway, one of the biggest things that really caught my attention was the type of magic used. It was more based on language skills and patterns of the hands versus conventional wands. Also, the spells used were more complex than the magic of HP. Grossman used a very unique style to convey the magic of Brakebills and that impressed me.

Something else that really caught my attention was the many references to the Chronicles of Narnia. If you read the book and didn't catch the correlation between Narnia and Fillory, well, then either you just didn't make the connection or have never read the Narnia books. At any rate, there is almost unmistakable similarities between the two fictional worlds, right down to the different buttons used to get into Fillory (the rings used in the Magician's Nephew). I won't go into too many details because I want you all who are reading this to read The Magicians and find out for yourself.

Unlike HP, the book does not really revolve around Brakebills and the education there (much to my suprise), nor like Narnia does it really center on the quests of a magical world that really is not as fictional as our main character, Quentin, figures. In my opinion, the main issue in the book is finding oneself. Is it being a magician? Is it finding a magical world and having a crazy adventure? Throughout the entire book, we see Quentin battling the issue of what really brings happiness, what really brings fulfillment in life.

And that leads me to some of the issues I have with the book:

First, it does not seem that there is any real center point for the plot to revolve around. We have Brakebills, Fillory, magic, New York, etc.: several aspects of the book and yet not one really takes center stage, in my opinion. It seems that the connection between Brakebills, the magic learned, Fillory, and the magicians is more abstract than concrete, meaning it is hard to weave these aspects together as they are presented in the book. This makes the plot hard to follow.

Second, the references to Narnia are, well, very blunt. It's one thing to come up with your own world, but it's something totally different to take something already made and just change around some names and places. No offense to Mr. Grossman, but I think the differences between Fillory and Narnia are very small. I can see how making a nod to a well-written series would be fine, but taking something already written and just recreating it, well, I think that is going too far.

Finally, the ending seems very anti-climatic compared to the build-up of the entire series. There seems to be too many loose ends at the final chapter to really give closure. Yes, Alice turns into a niffin but is that it? Did that water nymph really know what that horn did? And why didn't Jane Chatwin just turn back time to before the Chatwin kids had entered Fillory, saving everyone the trouble?

Overall, a very interesting book, but my suggestion would be to borrow it from either a friend or the library and read it first before buying it (not to keep anyone from buying it, of course, but it might not be for everyone).

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