The Magicians (Lev Grossman)

The Magicians
The Magicians series, Book 1
Lev Grossman
Viking
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Teenaged Quentin Coldwater may be a certified genius, already interviewing for a top college when he's still just a junior in high school, but he couldn't be more miserable. His parents barely bother noting his existence, his longtime crush Julia is now dating their mutual friend James, and his future, like the world, looks like a story he'd rather not keep reading. Even though he's technically too old for such things, he still rereads the popular Fillory series obsessively, tales of English children who find their way to a magical land time and again to play heroes and be kings and queens before coming back to Earth... and even though he knows better, he can't help believing (wishing? hoping?) that Brooklyn is just the starting point, that there's really magic and other worlds out there, a quest just waiting to be stumbled upon, and that an insecure lonely sad sack like himself can actually find a purpose and a place to belong. But he's only a hop, skip, and jump away from being a legal grown-up. High time he grew up.
Until he finds a passage to an invisible magical school, and is offered a chance at his wildest dream: to become a real magician.
Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic is nothing like the storybooks have prepared him for. Real magic isn't just waving a wand and shouting nonsensical words. It stretches mind and body and spirit to the breaking point and beyond, loaded with tedious studies and practice, with countless ways to go wrong. There are sacrifices, naturally, and nothing comes without cost. And rather than being the smartest kid in the room as he's used to, he's just one unremarkable student among dozens. But Quentin Coldwater isn't about to turn down this chance. After all, if secret schools and hidden societies of magicians walking among us are real, who knows what else is? Maybe even magical lands from storybooks... magical lands where he can still find that purpose and place to belong that all the magic in the world can't seem to find for him...

REVIEW: One of the most popular fantasy trilogies of recent years (popular enough to spawn a reasonably successful TV show, which I confess I haven't gotten around to), The Magicians is part homage to, part subversion of, and part dig at other popular fantasy franchises, particularly Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. Unlike either of them, for most of the book there really isn't a quest or a villain or big mystery to drive the story: it's mostly just Quentin, struggling to learn the wonders and dangers of magic and navigate the eternally perplexing, pain- and disappointment-riddled labyrinth of growing up. In some ways, that's a strength, and a deliberate poke at franchises that rely on external factors to shove their young protagonists into maturity. In other ways, it turns the tale into an interminable slog as the reader must follow a not-always-likeable (or -interesting) Quentin as he self-sabotages and fumbles and flails (and drinks and sleeps and whines) his way through adolescence.
Things start reasonably fast, after establishing Quentin's pathetic, dissatisfied existence as third wheel in a former three-way friendship that's become a romance-plus-one. For all his brains and scholastic accolades, he's an abject failure at life itself; part of why he clings so hard to the Fillory books is because some part of him has never given up hope that the reason he can't seem to get the hang of life or growing up is because he's still got a date with a coming-of-age quest via portal fantasy, and the validation that comes with saving a fantasy world. Shortly thereafter, he does indeed find his portal (of a sort), discovering that he is in fact as special as he hoped he was: he has the latent talents that will allow him to learn magic. At first, it's everything he wanted and more, for all that it's not nearly as whimsical or bubble-wrapped as fantasy stories often portray a magical education, plus every single person in the school is who he was: the "smartest kid", academic overachievers used to standing out, now among equals for possibly the first time.
Here, the story enters something of a holding pattern or glide. As mentioned, there are only vague hints of anything like a greater arc or plot driver, as it focuses on Quentin awkwardly figuring out Brakebills, his classes, and a social scene that's all too familiar from home. The starry-eyed sense of wonder mostly fades as the drudgery sets in, but he still clings to a hope that magic will answer the deep, nameless, restless need that's always kept him from being happy... and when that doesn't happen, he turns to drinking with friends (and ill-advised hookups that lead to a fumbling form of romance; if nothing else, this book makes a serious argument for magical schools having compulsory neutralization of sexual urges during matriculation, as people thinking with organs other than their brains leads to innumerable problems). If it hadn't been an audiobook, I might have set it aside for a while, but I was at work without much else to keep my brain busy, so I kept pushing ahead. And I will admit there was something compelling about Quentin's growth (or lack thereof; neither he nor many of the other characters mature in a meaningful way, stuck in a state of listless, dissatisfied, frankly selfish mental adolescence) and the way magic was depicted, not as a grand adventure or automatic ticket to happiness or fulfillment but as just another tool, one that can no more conjure a fulfilled life from nothing than a hammer can build a dream house just by existing. In many ways, magic is an empty promise that complicates more than it solves, in Quentin's life and the lives of other magicians. The greater mage world is implied, but it's nowhere near the robust, independent "world within a world" of Rowling's wizards or other "wainscot" fantasies; it's more of a fringe community, people who have studied and partially mastered something so strange that they struggle to know quite know what to do with it.
It's as Quentin is facing this bleak truth that the final phase of the book kicks in, the one that ties it all back to the Fillory series that kicked off his obsession with magic to begin with... only he's not some young, naive schoolboy summoned to save a vaguely whimsical other world (and learn about himself in the process), but a somewhat misanthropic student of actual magic who has messed up his life so thoroughly he's basically grasping at straws, hoping against hope that, in another world, miracles are still possible that the rigors of Brakebills magic couldn't accomplish - the miracle to make him into someone he actually likes, with a future worth looking forward to. It's not exactly a spoiler to say things don't go as planned, even as he and his acquaintances (I hesitate to call anyone in this book "friends", as they're generally too self-absorbed and -destructive for that term) get to live out their childhood dreams. Even in the middle of wonders, they still bicker and stew and hurt each other, as Quentin proves himself singularly worthless for far too long. I get that part of this was deliberate, another rebuttal of the portal fantasy tropes it was consciously deconstructing, but at some point it also got annoying. There's more moping and emotional immaturity, as Quentin processes (or rather, at least partially fails to process) everything, and then the ending... just sort of happens out of the blue, setting up the next installment and leaving me on the fence as to whether I want to bother continuing the journey.
There are parts I found intriguing about this book, and I can see why it struck such a chord, a somewhat cynical retort to portal fantasies and magical schools. It had just enough of that intrigue and interest that I was able to justify that extra half-star. At times, though, The Magicians felt more like it was missing the point of those fantasies and schools, like the guy who can't help shouting that Santa doesn't exist just to watch kids cry as the iron boot of reality stomps a little more wonder and hope out of their worlds. The wonder and hope are kinda half the point, and smugly demonstrating that they may not be plausible in grown-up reality doesn't necessarily make you the clever one. Sometimes it just makes you the jerk with the boot who can't stand seeing other people enjoy things you either have outgrown or were never capable of liking to begin with.

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