Likewise, in the second half of the book, where the characters go to NarniaFillory, everything is a very deliberate mockery of C.S. The Potter references are predictably snide, from the interminable QuidditchWelters game where even the teachers don't bother to hide their boredom, to sneering comments about made-up Latin and wands. There is nothing subtle or even coy about Grossman's riff on Rowling: Harry Potter is referenced implicitly and explicitly throughout the text, and Brakebills is a slightly Americanized Hogwarts for all practical purposes.

I would, however, omit the words 'thrilling,' 'original,' 'piercing,' 'absorbing,' 'boldly,' and 'uncharted.' I'd say that's an accurate enough summary of the story. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.Īt once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom.

Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. He took Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, slashed their wrists, put them in a nice warm tub, and said, 'Isn't this pretty and grim?'Ī thrilling and original coming-of-age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

Still, a literary author can do genre fiction well if s/he brings with him/her a love of the genre. Book critic pretensions to the contrary, literary fiction is just another genre - some people like it, I don't particularly unless there's a darn good story attached, but there is an unfortunate perception that it's automatically more sophisticated writing and more worthy of respect than 'genre' fiction that features detectives, spaceships, or monsters. As you may recall from my review of Angelology, one of my pet peeves is literary authors who tackle genre fiction as if they're slumming.

The magicians the book