The Magic of The Magicians

By Jackie E

"If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so." The Magicians by Lev Grossman is touted about as adult take on Harry Potter, and for good reason. Written in a third-person limited narration, the story follows a boy named Quentin, and his life. A boy who has a large disdain for life, and used his love of fantasy (A children's book called Fillory, to be exact. Which itself is a darker take on Narnia) to escape his miserably mundane life, or rather, as a hope that if he could, despite all reason, get to Fillory, it would fix his life. He had an unreasonable belief that one day he would be whisked away into the magical world he loved, and that everything in life would be fixed just like in the books. He clings onto this hope whenever something doesn't go his way, believing he wasn't born into the right world.

One day, Quentin is sucked up from the lonely streets of Brooklyn and plunged into the world of magic. A college in New York, to be exact. Brakebills. Here we see him spend five years studying magic, actual, real life magic. He crams his schedule to study. He makes friends and finds himself falling in love with a girl named Alice. Everything was great now, His life was finally starting, right?

Our Quentin is a 'glass-half empty' kind of guy, except he blames everything around him for this unjustly removal of half the contents of his glass. He goes through the same motions as before. Magic lost its novelty,  this was nothing like Fillory, this wasn't some magic journey that would change his life forever. This was still the same life he thought he left behind, only now it was full of glowing, exploding marbles, and finger sparkles, and magic chess. This wasn't what he was supposed to get. Everything would of been better if he found Fillory. It would of fixed his broken life for him, but that sort of thing only happened in children's books.

At Least it was, until one of his friends came with the key to Fillory. A button, to be precise. A portal to Quentin's dreams. Everyone uses the portal, and when they get there, they're given a quest. A journey that would change Quentin life. The key to happiness. This was what he was waiting for, or at least he thought..

"You can't just decide to be happy,"..."No, but you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want? Do you want to be that asshole who went to Fillory and was miserable there? Even in Fillory? Because that's what you are right now." Quentin loses a lot at Fillory, and gives up. Fillory was supposed to fix his life, not make it worse.

As far as the Big Question goes, I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to anyone. I resonate with Quentin, most of my life had been stuck in fantasy worlds, and a younger me's hope that maybe I was born into the wrong world, maybe I was supposed to be in one of the stories. The difference is Quentin never grew up. He still let his belief that Fillory was real keep him from fixing his life. The Magicians follows Quentin's life instead of world building. To some readers, the lack of world building would be a drawback. This huge, magical world is at this kids fingertips, and we don't get to see most of it, because Quentin is too busy brooding. Most of the character development is weak, but again, we follow Quentin's view, and he doesn't seem to pay attention to the others enough for them to have good development. I personally loved the book, but there's something to be missed if you can't relate to Quentin. You'd miss the purpose of the narration as the lack of development in the world and the characters got your attention more.