Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by orlathewitch
The Magicians: Alice's Story by Pius Bak, Lev Grossman, Lilah Sturges
2.0
I had heard a lot of mixed reviews of Lev Grossman's 'The Magicians' and now I know why. It's just kind of a weird book. There's no plot so much as a serious of events happen that aren't connected and no one cares.
Imagine someone took all of the Harry Potter series, all the Narnia books, mixed them together with some sex, binge-drinking and existential dread then compressed the whole whole mess into one book and then you've pretty much got 'The Magicians'.
The book falls at the first hurdle by having an incredible unlikeable main character. Quentin is whiny, self-centred, entitled and boring. From the first page to the last he is a miserable little sap who a cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone liked.
The story has a few good moments, mostly supplied by the supporting characters and there are some nice bits of descriptive language. But there are these vast deserts of exposition to struggle through between any of that.
Ultimately it's about wealthy, educated, white (dare-I-say privileged) people who have quite literally been given the key everything in life who then proceed to spend 400 pages drinking themselves to death and complaining constantly. Events come in two modes; dull and ridiculous. The book opens with Quentin finding a dead body, its never mentioned again and never becomes part of a plot which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the book.
The story spans 8 years but very little actually happens until the last quarter. There is no overarching plot, no narrative development. The only thing tying it all together at all is this continuous theme of being betrayed by fantasy and the bitterness of that.
This a sort of related to and it's probably what kept me reading. One of the hardest things about growing up, especially for those kids obsessed with fantasy adventure stories, is letting that go a little and trying to find magic in the real world. I cheated of course, I became a writer.
Dean Fogg touches on this in the story but there's no resolution of the theme, no greater exploration, it just stays the same through the whole book just like Quentin.
Even at the end, Quentin's idea of "growing up" or entering the "real world" is to be handed a job that mean nothing, entails no work but pays well and to do nothing with his life. This isn't only bleak it's pathetic and it's bad writing. There is no growth, he learns nothing and we care about him just as little as at the start.
Not only that but it's SO DERIVATIVE. Fillory is as obviously Narnia and Brakebills is obviously Hogwarts. Watcherwoman - White Witch, Ember and Umber - Aslan, Chatwins - Pensieves, Disciplines - Houses, welters - quidditch, they even make the quidditch joke in the book. And I get that they're references, or supposed to be commentary or something but 'The Magicians' doesn't SAY ANYTHING so all just comes off really unoriginal.
Imagine someone took all of the Harry Potter series, all the Narnia books, mixed them together with some sex, binge-drinking and existential dread then compressed the whole whole mess into one book and then you've pretty much got 'The Magicians'.
The book falls at the first hurdle by having an incredible unlikeable main character. Quentin is whiny, self-centred, entitled and boring. From the first page to the last he is a miserable little sap who a cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone liked.
The story has a few good moments, mostly supplied by the supporting characters and there are some nice bits of descriptive language. But there are these vast deserts of exposition to struggle through between any of that.
Ultimately it's about wealthy, educated, white (dare-I-say privileged) people who have quite literally been given the key everything in life who then proceed to spend 400 pages drinking themselves to death and complaining constantly. Events come in two modes; dull and ridiculous. The book opens with Quentin finding a dead body, its never mentioned again and never becomes part of a plot which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the book.
The story spans 8 years but very little actually happens until the last quarter. There is no overarching plot, no narrative development. The only thing tying it all together at all is this continuous theme of being betrayed by fantasy and the bitterness of that.
This a sort of related to and it's probably what kept me reading. One of the hardest things about growing up, especially for those kids obsessed with fantasy adventure stories, is letting that go a little and trying to find magic in the real world. I cheated of course, I became a writer.
Dean Fogg touches on this in the story but there's no resolution of the theme, no greater exploration, it just stays the same through the whole book just like Quentin.
Even at the end, Quentin's idea of "growing up" or entering the "real world" is to be handed a job that mean nothing, entails no work but pays well and to do nothing with his life. This isn't only bleak it's pathetic and it's bad writing. There is no growth, he learns nothing and we care about him just as little as at the start.
Not only that but it's SO DERIVATIVE. Fillory is as obviously Narnia and Brakebills is obviously Hogwarts. Watcherwoman - White Witch, Ember and Umber - Aslan, Chatwins - Pensieves, Disciplines - Houses, welters - quidditch, they even make the quidditch joke in the book. And I get that they're references, or supposed to be commentary or something but 'The Magicians' doesn't SAY ANYTHING so all just comes off really unoriginal.