The Magicians
The Magicians series, Book 1
Lev Grossman
Viking
Fiction, Fantasy
Themes: Diversity, Girl Power, Hidden Wonders, Magic Workers, Portal Adventures, Schools
***+
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, naïve
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.