The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)

by Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead - but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path to any he'd ever imagined. The envelope, and the mysterious manuscript it contains, leads to a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power and, for a while, it's a world that seems to answer all Quentin's desires. But the idyll cannot last - and when it's finally shattered, Quentin is drawn into something darker and far more dangerous than anything he could ever have expected...

• ISBN10: 1101082283
• ISBN13: 9781101082287
• Publish Date: 11 August 2009 (first published 21 May 2009)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Plume Books
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[sarahjay]

I enjoyed this way more than I did the first time I (tried to? not sure I finished) read it years ago when it first came out. I loved every single thing about Alice. She is the best. Looking forward to the sequels.

[malberto]

People have pinned this series as an adult Harry Potter but I thought it was more like a dark, adult version of Narnia... The world building was done very randomly and and it seems that the author really wants the characters to be "real people with real people's problems" (magic apart of course) and that's OK but it feels forced.

Over all I kind of liked the book and will read the second one, but it wasn't wat I expected at all....

More like an alternate take on Narnia than an adult version of Harry Potter, I enjoyed it nonetheless. I look forward to reading the next one!

[ktshpd]

I would say 4.5, but I got tired of reading the word "bedraggled". I just wish your thesaurus were handy, sir.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Quentin Coldwater is about to graduate high school; his future is catching up with him. Suddenly an offer to a very exclusive private college has become a real possibility, but this is no ordinary university, this is a school of magic. Not only will Quentin have the normal college experience of sex, love, booze and friendship, he will also discover his magical abilities. Not just a coming-of-age novel, Quentin will also discover that the world of Fillory from a children’s fantasy series he obsesses over is very real.

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians on the surface reads like a cliché fantasy novel but there is something deeper here. If you think of The Magicians as a homage to series like Harry Potter, The Golden Compass and Narnia, you can focus on the coming-of-age element of the novel. I found similarities to The Neverending Story but if I looked deeper I would say this is more of a magical version of The Catcher in the Rye. Quentin Coldwater follows the Holden Caulfield archetype, full of angst, self-loathing and all the normal teenage boy awkwardness, almost to the point where he could be considered an antihero.

Quentin not only has to work through his new found magical abilities, this only takes a side plot to what is really happening in The Magicians. The novel depicts and often amplifies the prototypical teenage boy experience, the depression, angst and emotional carelessness. The idea of magic being a gift turns out to be more a curse for Quentin. Unlike Harry Potter this novel looks at the magic being a curse, choosing Brakebills to get an education was possibly a downfall in his adolescent life, or at least that would be how Quentin will view it.

This is not an escapist novel; in many cases The Magicians is anti-fantasy. Viewing magic as a curse was an interesting way to view life and the fantasy genre. While it does this in a very interesting way, the homage to children’s fantasy novels was a bit over the top, while trying to avoid being a cliché; it ended up falling face first into the formulaic. I would have liked to explore the ideas of education and growing up with a gift/curse more than the actual fantasy elements but that might have risked alienating the target audience.

The Magicians is not without its flaws; in fact this novel could have been so much better if it took a more focused approach. The coming of age elements were interesting, the homage and Fillory parts of the novel were annoying and I think it would have worked out better without them. If the next books in the series continue to explore magic as a curse, I will gladly read it but I’m not interested in the Fillory story arch.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/04/29/the-magicians-by-lev-grossman/

[Eve1972]

I really enjoyed this one! It sort of reminded me of Harry Potter meets Narnia for the adult crowd. I will say that the first 3/4 th of the novel was outstanding and it would have probably have earned a 5 star rating had the whole book just been about his time at the magic college. The last fourth of the book dragged a bit for me, but still overall a really good read!