Literature Prepare to be Bored
I know it seems like I'm being rather direct when it comes to summing up my feelings about the book, but in The Magicians case I am actually paraphrasing one of the most commonly used sentences that is seeded throughout the book. Some regard straightforward fantasy stories to be the worst, predictable and riddled with cliches. I find these books to still maintain a charm and sincerity that makes its writing memorable. Magicians, on the other hand, is irredeemably awful, a self-aware fantasy that can't shut up about how much it hates itself.
The book begins with the main character, Quentin, attending Brakebills, a school where the attendees learn magic. The problem is that Brakebills sucks. The school has a useless game with too many rules called Welters which the characters approach with the same enthusiasm as South Park approaches with baseball. The teachers are has-beens and deviants that couldn't hash it out in the real world. The lessons are tumorous paragraphs about the boring applications of magic. The narrative forces the reader through this colossal structure of utter tedium for half the book. You'll be as relieved as Quentin is when its all over, which just asks the question, why write it?
This is the major failure of The Magicians. The author includes insipidly stupid plot developments and character designs and then proceeds to have the characters poke fun at them. The author seems to point the finger at other mediums like Narnia, Harry Potter, and D&D for these elements being dumb, but its really Grossman copying these elements and then caricaturing them that actually makes them terrible. A ferret armed with a bow staff, evil fauns, a middle aged man with a fern in front of his face as the main villain, no fantasy novel that took itself seriously would include these elements. The author tries to make a statement about fantasy when he has nothing but contempt for it and lost perspective of what attracts people to it.
When stripped of the content its attempting to satirize, the book is about an a group of assholes trying their best to undermine each other self-esteem while pretending they are friends. Quentin, in particular, treats everything as terrible until it proves itself to be otherwise. Its hard enough to trek through this HP-Narnia fanfiction just on how bad it is, but Quentin makes it so much worse, by treating everything and everyone like shit. His main contribution to the climax is bleeding out on the floor, while everyone else actually fights the main villain. It's a pity, he lives.
The Magicians tries to be a deconstruction, but really just hands you a taxidermy corpse and tells you its your childhood. There is no sincerity in Magicians, no drive, no ability to actually breath. Its a lifeless imitation, that only makes you feel relief when you finally put it down.
(This review is for the book only. I have never seen the TV series.)
Literature The Magicians: Brilliant But Flawed.
To this day, I have no idea why this has ended up as one of my top ten favourite novels of all time: there’s so many elements which should have turned me off ages ago, and there’s a plethora of mistakes committed towards the end that nearly undermine the whole thing. But in spite of these flaws, the book remains entertaining, funny, heartbreaking, and maybe even a little insightful.
But let’s address the pros and cons in order, shall we?
First of all, Brakebills proves to be a fascinating setting, at once idyllic yet horribly flawed. Like Quentin, I fell in love with the place even as I grew increasingly concerned with its many oddities – the Training from Hell most of all. In the same vein, magic truly fascinated me in this story by doing away with efforts to make it simple or imitable. In ‘’The Magicians,’’ magic feels as though it takes effort, intelligence and obsession. It takes months to begin and years to master, but once it’s done, truly incredible things can be achieved. It short, magic feels magical.
Meanwhile, Quentin aside, the characters are an enjoyable bunch despite their many flaws. My favourite is undoubtedly Alice: a much more understated presence in a school full of tumescent personalities, she can usually be relied upon to exclude herself from some of the more histrionic behaviour of her fellow students, demonstrate the terrible trap that post-graduate life can become, and even outdo all her friends in sheer magical might. Plus, she delivers sweet chin music to Quentin. What’s not to like?
Finally, I always like to see parodies evolving beyond their origins to become something more complex, more layered and original in their own strange way. ‘’The Magicians’’ seems to have begun life as a parody of Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but has evolved in order to tell its own story. What results is a world that is at peace but not quite at ease – a world of charming-yet-saddening dysfunction. Magic, as has been mentioned, can accomplish almost anything, but there’s no Dark Lord, no enemy to occupy the main characters’ attention: in this world, you have to find your own reason for living.
And so, with the plusses out of the way, now I have to talk about the negatives:
Quentin is one of my least favourite protagonists of all time, and one of the more frustrating things about him is that he was meant to be unlikable and does his job too damn well. He’s okay at the beginning, but I started to feel real distaste for him around the time he got a fellow student killed out of immaturity and refused to confess, but it wasn’t until he betrayed Alice and began taking out his frustrations on everyone that I actually found myself genuinely hating him. By now, I know he gradually improves, but that doesn’t make his bad behaviour any easier to stomach in the here and now.
On that note, the second half of the book is where things slip; up until this point there are very few things (apart from Welters) that I honestly felt the story could do without, but here, there’s a stumble. Quentin’s rotten attitude sours the journey to Fillory for the reader almost as much as it does for the rest of the characters, and as much as I liked Alice’s big argument and the final showdown with the Beast… it felt a bit directionless up until then, and the other fights feel a bit… contractually obliged.
Finally, I really wish the novel did more with the Beast.
But with all that said, in spite of all those flaws, The Magicians still numbers among my most favourite books of all time, and I heartily enjoy it to this day.
Literature Prepare to be Bored
I know it seems like I'm being rather direct when it comes to summing up my feelings about the book, but in The Magicians case I am actually paraphrasing one of the most commonly used sentences that is seeded throughout the book. Some regard straightforward fantasy stories to be the worst, predictable and riddled with cliches. I find these books to still maintain a charm and sincerity that makes its writing memorable. Magicians, on the other hand, is irredeemably awful, a self-aware fantasy that can't shut up about how much it hates itself.
The book begins with the main character, Quentin, attending Brakebills, a school where the attendees learn magic. The problem is that Brakebills sucks. The school has a useless game with too many rules called Welters which the characters approach with the same enthusiasm as South Park approaches with baseball. The teachers are has-beens and deviants that couldn't hash it out in the real world. The lessons are tumorous paragraphs about the boring applications of magic. The narrative forces the reader through this colossal structure of utter tedium for half the book. You'll be as relieved as Quentin is when its all over, which just asks the question, why write it?
This is the major failure of The Magicians. The author includes insipidly stupid plot developments and character designs and then proceeds to have the characters poke fun at them. The author seems to point the finger at other mediums like Narnia, Harry Potter, and D&D for these elements being dumb, but its really Grossman copying these elements and then caricaturing them that actually makes them terrible. A ferret armed with a bow staff, evil fauns, a middle aged man with a fern in front of his face as the main villain, no fantasy novel that took itself seriously would include these elements. The author tries to make a statement about fantasy when he has nothing but contempt for it and lost perspective of what attracts people to it.
When stripped of the content its attempting to satirize, the book is about an a group of assholes trying their best to undermine each other self-esteem while pretending they are friends. Quentin, in particular, treats everything as terrible until it proves itself to be otherwise. Its hard enough to trek through this HP-Narnia fanfiction just on how bad it is, but Quentin makes it so much worse, by treating everything and everyone like shit. His main contribution to the climax is bleeding out on the floor, while everyone else actually fights the main villain. It's a pity, he lives.
The Magicians tries to be a deconstruction, but really just hands you a taxidermy corpse and tells you its your childhood. There is no sincerity in Magicians, no drive, no ability to actually breath. Its a lifeless imitation, that only makes you feel relief when you finally put it down.
(This review is for the book only. I have never seen the TV series.)
Literature The Magician King: A Better Protagonist For A Better Story
The Magician King, as the second book in the series, immediately sets out to fix the deficiencies that weakened The Magicians - and for the most part, does so quite well. For one thing, now that we've gotten all the monolithic worldbuilding of the first book out of the way, we can actually focus on plot and character.
However, the most important step forward for the series is the fact that Quentin is now sharing protagonist duties with a much more interesting and genuinely tragic character: Julia. Putting aside the fact that - like Alice before her - she ends up dragging Quentin off his high horse on several occasions – her character arc is easily the most compelling thing in the saga so far. It leaves Quentin's first-book character arc in the dust, and the fact that it's told through contrasting flashbacks only adds to the mystery of what happened to her. And in many ways, her arc is also more cathartic: quite apart from the fact that Julia actually endures more and experiences more than the endlessly-callow Quentin, Julia actually finds a way out of her depression: she earns her happy ending.
As much as I like to pick on Quentin (unimaginably easy as it is), he genuinely develops as a character here: after accidentally returning to Earth, he finally learns some much-needed humility after finding himself in the presence of those who weren’t as lucky or as spoiled as him. Eventually, he’s forced to face the fact that he might never see Fillory again… and instead of being overwhelmed with angst, he reacts with acceptance: he realizes how lucky he is to still have the company of good friends, the simple pleasures of wine and food, and the wonder of magic.
He learns to take responsibility, to stop risking what he loves in favour of selfish fantasies, even to recognize the beauty of places beyond his narrow interests. In fact, I might even go so far as to state that he actually becomes somewhat… likeable. Yes, really.
Now, as for the plot itself, it owes even more to Narnia than Hogwarts this time around, and while it provides some interesting twists – especially with the return of the gods and the imminent loss of magic – I find that Julia’s half of the story is once again the most fascinating.
Also, this story features rape as a plot element in a mature way that doesn’t seem exploitative or cheap. Indeed, the evidence for the awful truth is hidden in plain sight for most of the novel and it’s not until the end that the cause behind all these symptoms becomes terrifyingly apparent. Unlike, say Game of Thrones, it’s not treated as something needed for character development, and becoming a cold-hearted emotionless “badass” automaton in response is not treated as desirable; indeed, the latter element is treated as a steppingstone to recovery, to regaining happiness and moving on.
All in all, a very good second entry in the series.