The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What do you get when you cross Harry Potter with Narnia? On the surface, The Magicians seems to be the answer. An awkward kid goes to a school for magic, and then finds a magical land of talking animals and saves it...kind of. But the spirit of the book is quite different than that of Harry Potter and Narnia. Aside from the copious amounts of alcohol, this book deals with more mature themes, like finding a meaning for yourself and navigating a real relationship. In fact, the main theme, which hits you quite bluntly over and over, especially in the second half, is that if you don't learn how to be happy with yourself, nothing, not even magic or finding out that your childhood fantasies are true will make you that way. This isn't really escapism like most fantasies, but quite the opposite: it tries to make you face reality. Or at least Grossman's version of reality, which is quite depressing. Still, it sucks you in, makes you want to finish it even though you know it won't end happily ever after. The characters are deeply flawed and can be jerks, especially Quentin, the main character, and much of the setting only exists to serve as a contrast to Hogwarts and Narnia. Do I dare read the next books? That would be rather masochistic, but the writing was well done, full of great metaphors. As long as you know what you're getting into, this can be a good, although not so much fun, read.

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