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isaacblevins's Reviews (460)
As much as I hate to admit it, I missed the Harry Potter boat. When the first book came out I remember seeing a news story about it and buying it. I read it, passed it on to my kid brother and eventually read the second novel as well. By then, however, I was graduating high school and starting college and there were other things to read and lots of things to do. I have always felt like Hogwarts came along just as I outgrew it. Now, I know that adults everywhere love Harry Potter, and I too am a fan of the characters (even though I haven't read any more of the series). I still feel, however, that if it had just come along at a different time...
Maybe that's why I felt so drawn to the characters in Lev Grossman's The Magicians. What Grossman gives us is a fantasy novel where reality breaks through at every seam. The protagonist, Quentin, is whisked away to a school for magic called Brakebills where he meets other magical students and spends the first half of the book exploring the campus and magical-arts. Sound familiar? Brakebills, however, and its students, are a far cry from the whimsical world of Hogwarts. There's sex, drugs, booze, and depression mixed in with the fact that magic is f*$#ing hard! Quentin goes through the same things all students go through when they realize that Animal House was just a movie (for most of us anyway...or at least those of us who graduate) and that college takes some work and certain sacrifices.
Animal House, however, was never Quentin's fantasy. What fuels his opinion of what magic should be is a series of Narnia-like books called Fillory and Further. The second half of the novel explores some very interesting points largely having to do with what real life is like for characters who have spent the past five years at a magical school. Turns out that there are not very many jobs like the Weasley's have in the Potter books. Quentin and his friends face the shock and disappointment that many college graduates do when they leave the hallowed halls of academia and find a very different world that they must now inhabit.
Fortunately...or perhaps unfortunately for Quentin, the real world is soon spiced up by the discovery that Fillory is real - and he and his friends have a way to travel there.
Written in a clear and innovative voice, Grossman's novel is a wonderful read and made me think long and hard about fantasy and reality and the danger of getting what one wishes for. The mixture of Harry Potter and The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caufield is as natural as it is unexpected. With a sequal to be released in the next month, I look forward to catching up with these characters and finding out just where life has led them.
Maybe that's why I felt so drawn to the characters in Lev Grossman's The Magicians. What Grossman gives us is a fantasy novel where reality breaks through at every seam. The protagonist, Quentin, is whisked away to a school for magic called Brakebills where he meets other magical students and spends the first half of the book exploring the campus and magical-arts. Sound familiar? Brakebills, however, and its students, are a far cry from the whimsical world of Hogwarts. There's sex, drugs, booze, and depression mixed in with the fact that magic is f*$#ing hard! Quentin goes through the same things all students go through when they realize that Animal House was just a movie (for most of us anyway...or at least those of us who graduate) and that college takes some work and certain sacrifices.
Animal House, however, was never Quentin's fantasy. What fuels his opinion of what magic should be is a series of Narnia-like books called Fillory and Further. The second half of the novel explores some very interesting points largely having to do with what real life is like for characters who have spent the past five years at a magical school. Turns out that there are not very many jobs like the Weasley's have in the Potter books. Quentin and his friends face the shock and disappointment that many college graduates do when they leave the hallowed halls of academia and find a very different world that they must now inhabit.
Fortunately...or perhaps unfortunately for Quentin, the real world is soon spiced up by the discovery that Fillory is real - and he and his friends have a way to travel there.
Written in a clear and innovative voice, Grossman's novel is a wonderful read and made me think long and hard about fantasy and reality and the danger of getting what one wishes for. The mixture of Harry Potter and The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caufield is as natural as it is unexpected. With a sequal to be released in the next month, I look forward to catching up with these characters and finding out just where life has led them.
