I feel like every time I hear about this book (the first of a trilogy, because Of Course), someone is telling me how great it is. It’s Harry Potter for grown-ups! Magic school, but with drinking and sex! A story of a misfit youth who suddenly discovers the magical world is real, and has to learn to deal with it! Well, yes. It is all that stuff. But here’s the thing.
It’s terrible. I mean, just not good in any way.
Look, I’ve read a lot of fantasy. Part of my undergrad English major included a unit called “Arthurian Literature”. One of my classmates had a House Stark t-shirt that was the envy of us all; it was 2003. I love the genre, and I can say with confidence that about 98% of it is utter bullshit. Being into both fantasy and good literature is kind of like being a fashionista who likes op-shopping: you have to sort through an incredible amount of garbage, but when you hit paydirt, it all feels worthwhile. The Magicians is not paydirt. It’s filler.
There’s a lot wrong with it, but the most basic problem is twofold: (1) it has no forward momentum; and (2) it has no sense of wonder. Those are fairly common problems in literature generally, but to shoehorn both of them into this particular novel was quite an achievement for the author when you consider that (1) it uses the word “quest” non-ironically at least half a dozen times; and (2) the premise is that a teenager discovers that MAGIC IS REAL. So how does this book manage to be so unutterably dreary in the face of such an apparently promising start?
Well, at its core, this is a book about a rich white male protagonist struggling with existential ennui. There’s no reason that can’t be the basis of a good plot, but you have to make him sympathetic, and you have to write it well. Quentin Coldwater is just some arsehole who has every imaginable advantage INCLUDING a ticket to Hogwarts Tertiary, and still manages to feel bored and sorry for himself. Then he graduates and discovers that Narnia is also real (except it’s called “Fillory”) and is STILL bored and self-pitying. The book’s losing points fast now, but Lev Grossman could still have saved it by making it a genre-defying exploration of true emotional fulfilment or something. That’s not what happens. There’s not even any kind of overall arc. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happens to this uninterested guy against a magical backdrop, and every new episode just makes me like him less, and then it ends.
Here’s another problem. The book tries to be ironically self-aware by dropping references to the Harry Potterverse. Ah ha ha, Brakebills is just like Hogwarts! There’s an inter-varsity wizard game contest – where’s my broomstick? I’d rather have Dumbledore than the Dean! This could all be fine (though it gets thrown around just a little too often, considering there are quite a few elements of the plot that DO seem just a bit derivative), except that then they travel to what is transparently Narnia, and there are ZERO C. S. Lewis references. The number one rule of any speculative fiction is that you can make your world as objectively unbelievable as you like, but internal consistency is non-negotiable. By invoking Potter but not Narnia, Grossman shatters the suspension of disbelief, and once that’s gone, what you’re left with is blatantly absurd.
So why do people keep recommending it? Honestly, I don’t know; all I can think is that they want fantasy novels written about real adults set on Earth and dealing with Earthling-type problems. Please, I beg you, if this is you, try Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. It’s about a hundred times better, and the protagonist is a biracial Cockney who’s actually interested in stuff. Do yourself a favour and ignore whatever hype you might have heard about Grossman.
(NB The Magicians is being made into a TV series that starts airing in a couple of weeks in the US. It’s not out of the question that the series will be watchable; if you get rid of all the shite there’s some interesting material in there. Plus Penny looks pretty hot. Evidently there was a preview in December; at present there’s one review on IMDb, and it says, “Can be a hit, especially with less sex”. Solid advice.)
ETA: I have now read the other two books in this trilogy and they are, admittedly, better than the first one. I still think they have some structural problems, but they kept me reading, and induced less eye-rolling.