The Magicians

Let's get on thing clear. This book is not for kids or even teenagers who don't know what they want. No, this book is something special. The characters, the settings, the things that happen are like a fantasy we all have had at some point but fantasy never stays pure. Without spoiling much, I'll just say this. Read the book, watch the first season of the show, watch the rest of the show and then read the other two books. They have different plots altogether. Warning, spoilers follow. Here's my review on it: This book is NOT for the innocent. The opening page or two of the book are bland, but with a dark undertone that kept me reading. Then, the book actually begins and holy shit is it amazing. People have called this book alot of things like Harry Potter for adults, dark fantasy etc but it's none of that. If you're self obsessed, glass half empty Kind of person, then this book is for you. If you're a kid or someone who thinks Harry Potter is the best fantasy series ever written, this is NOT the book for you. The plot is something like this: Quentin Coldwater, our MC, is the smartest person in his school and he's headed to a man for an interview into a prestigious college with his two friends. But when they get there, they find the man murdered and he's left a suspicious package for Quentin containing a never seen before manuscript of his favourite book series. He opens the package and starts to read it but a few pages fly away and he starts to chase them and while chasing them, he stumbles across a college for magic: Brakebills. Here, he learns, he has magical abilities and must hone them to become a Magician. The tone: Well, it's pretty depressing and guess what, I like depressing. There aren't many depressing books put there when compared to the number of books with a good message like Harry Potter. Through the entire book, Quentin feels empty,like he always did back in the real world. The magic he learns at Brakebills seems to fill some of the holes but it's still there. The rest is spoilers so I'll abstain from mentioning them. The pacing: you know, I think Lev Grossman looked at the book and said, "You know what, I'm gonna do this at my own pace." and the book is better for it. Lev takes his time to paint Brakebills in our mind as clearly as he could since well, 3/4ths of the book takes place there. It's a great thing he did it because we often see writers hurry the story along because the readers don't care about the place. They just want a general description of the place and then move on with the story. Books are meant to be savoured and this book proves it. There's not alot of plot in the book that's immediately apparent. Random things happen while he's living there and some more random things happen. There's no clear villain either. Or at least not until the ending chapters of the book. Quentin is fascinated by the magic and starts school there and some days are just accounts of what happened. Some school days are just plain boring. He studies, competes with others because they were the most smartest people in their school as well. Everyone at Brakebills is basically a genius. And thankfully, Grossman understands magic isn't easy. At least, not as easy as some books make it seem. Like in Harry Potter, all you had to do was say a few words and wave a stick. In other books, you did something similar. In the Magicians, magic is not simple. There's over ten complex hand gestures (sometimes over 50 gestures) that need to be utter perfection to be cast or you start all over again. There's weather conditions to be taken into account, the magnetic vibrations of the place you're in, there's over a hundred things to take into account when casting a spell and the gestures change accordingly. I LOVE this magic system. It's not something shallow for the plot to revel in. It IS the plot. The entirety of Brakebills is just filled with competetive people, struggling to be the best at everything. I can't say much without spoiling the book but a lot of epic shit happens when they're in school. The prose isn't flowers and rainbows, it's raw and it's supposed to be. The entire atmosphere is gloomy and there's always the sense that something bad will happen at any moment and it's great. It's like the sense of dread you get when reading Stephen King's books which I do enjoy alot. But that's not all. IN FACT, some scenes of the book were just accounts of Quentin going from class to class, like a mindless drone. But it was written so masterfully that I didn't once think to put it down. I gobbled this masterpiece up in 7 hours the first time I read it. Since then, I've read it 28 times. It's that good. And hopefully, you'll like it too. Anyway, if the book isn't your speed, try the show. Yes, there's a show, that's how I found the book in the first place. The show's got the same basic idea but diverges in a completely different path from episode 2 or so onwards. The show is good in its own right but the book is one of the closest things to my heart, right alongside The Gentleman Bastard Series, the Miss Peregrine Series, IT, The Running man and the beautiful creatures series. It's a great book. So are all these. Check them out if you get the time. The Characters: Nobody in the book was made to be likable. They were made to be relatively relatable. Quentin: He's selfish, shy, a know it all, a brat, self obsessed, horny all the time and naturally adept. Alice: Extremely smart (much more so than Quentin), amazingly ahead in magic than half her class and has been through the death of her brother. I'd tell you about the rest of the characters but that'll ruin the book. So go, read the book.

Au début de ma lecture, j'ai écrit à ma fille que l'histoire était intéressante mais me semblait écrite volontairement avec un style pauvre, comme par un ado (désolée, je sais qu'il y a des adolescents qui écrivent très bien, mais ils sont une minorité !). Puis je me suis retrouvée incapable de quitter cet univers et ce qu'il s'y passe, avant d'avoir dévoré la trilogie ! A croire que l'auteur possède une de ces capacités d'ensorcellement que ses personnages étudient et pratiquent ! Mais, encore plus intrigant : j'ai été séduite par le style ! Bien qu'américain, l'auteur utilise beaucoup de termes anglais, c'est devenu un jeu ! Pour ceux qui aiment naviguer dans le monde de la fantaisie, et qui ont "lu les classiques", il peut être très distrayant d'en repérer les multiples références. J'ai aimé la manière pleine de signification avec laquelle Lev Grossman construit ses personnages féminins, et leurs aventures, pour l'une d'entre elle son odyssée. Quand j'ai terminé ce voyage dans lequel je me suis jetée avec une sorte de frénésie, je l'ai regretté... évidemment ! Etre humain est encore plus étrange qu'être ange... PS : j'ai relu les toutes premières pages pour confronter mon impression première sur le style de l'auteur, et je l'infirme !

I gave up reading fantasy, roughly around five years ago. At the time the genre was teaming with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings knock offs. Just last year I rediscovered my long lost love with Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy and I have been playing catch up ever since. Lev Grossman's The Magicians is to Harry Potter what the First Law Trilogy is to Lord of the Rings. The Magicians is a darker, more adult themed look at fantasy and perhaps the best book I read all year. Quentin Coldwater is an intelligent introvert who buries himself in a series of children's fantasy books to escape the miserable real world. One day he gets an invitation to attend a college dedicated to the study of magic. Just when it seems that Quentin's dreams may finally be coming true he realizes that magic may not be so magical after all. Life at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy has a mundane edge to it, complete with late night study cramming and adolescent hedonism. So begins the story of The Magicians, the ultimate coming-of-age tale for anyone who ever waited anxiously for an owl delivered invitation to Hogwart's that never came. I found in Quentin an immediately relatable character. Romantic at heart, Quentin keeps searching for happiness, going through all the necessary rituals without ever getting the desired results. Quentin is fully human. He makes mistakes. He makes stupid, ignorant, awful mistakes. Half way through the novel I got so angry with Quentin that I wasn't sure I wanted to read on. Until I realized where my anger stemmed from. Quentin is a real person, he is flawed and believable and I honestly couldn't remember the last time I have been so absorbed in a character. Quentin's relationships with his peers drive the story along. Each member of his little group are screwed up to some degree but while some people may find it off-putting I found it to be endearing. Lev Grossman's portrayal of magic is a breath of fresh air. Some fantasy books have no rules at all that govern magic. Some fantasy books are far too strict and limiting with their magical laws. Grossman writes comfortably in the middle. Magic in The Magicians is rich and diverse with several branches. "Magic wasn't simply random, it had an actual shape - a fractal, chaotic shape..." The process of learning magic is hard, diligent work and the actual application of spells is far more complicated than saying a few latin words and waving a wand. Brakebills, and later Fillory, are fantasy worlds but with a very real world edge to them. The further down the rabbit hole Quentin goes the more obvious it becomes that there is a very dark side to magic. There are some very chilling moments in this book that ground what wonderment there is to be found. As I described it to a friend, The Magicians is like a Narnia without the Christian overtones and add a dash of Lovecraft (a very very light dash but still). There is action, intrigue, suspense, dark humor, and romance in spades. The Magicians even lumps in a dose of philosophy. The Magicians is the best fantasy book I have ever read. Lev Grossman celebrates the classics like Lewis and Rowling while turning the genre on its head and giving it a dose of realism. Plenty of critics have described it as "literature fiction" but I find the term rather snobby and inaccurate. The Magicians is extremely well written in terms of plot and prose but I feel like "literature" generally means boring and pretentious as hell. The Magicians is neither of these things. Instead it is an exciting, compelling, immersive story about the tragedy of living out child hood fantasies as grown ups. Whenever someone finishes up The Deathly Hallows and sighs sadly, "What next?" Smile and hand them a copy of The Magicians. They'll appreciate it.

Although I DESPISE the main Character (which attest to the author's skill in my opinion), I love the stories, It's a very well written storyarc (over three books), and i recommend all three. Also very easy to read even for non native speakers, besides some rare words in french or other alnguages (but the meaning or context makes even those easily understandable).

I totally agree with James' review. And will add...... While it could be argued that there are obvious parallels to be drawn between this body of work and that of JK Rowling et al, I personally wouldn't tout it as Harry Potter for grown-ups. JK Rowling does not have the monopoly on magical, fantasy fiction; she 'just' happens to have written an exemplary body of work in the genre, which in turn has been marketed to death and made so famous that now anyone writing in the same genre cannot escape the comparison. Which to me is a bit of a shame. Grossman's work is genius in its own right and there is so much about it that is completely different from other fantasy fiction that I personally think the comparisons are unnecessary and the work deserves to be reviewed independently and without constant reference to bloody Hogwart's. The Magician's is set between the real world, a university and a parallel universe. The main protagonist is a flawed, jaded young adult who seeks escape and salvation outside of himself rather than within, which is one of the main spiritual and existential themes of the book. It's dark, mysterious, compelling and at times tragic and is often grounded very much in the gritty reality of someone whose quest for happiness via escape from the real world often has devastating and irreversible consequences. It's also an adult read - sex, violence, heavy drinking etc. Grossman is a beautiful writer - articulate, poetic, descriptive, he paints this world vividly and with perfectly-paced tension and excitement. He does tend toward the hyperbolic, but I absolutely adore hyperbole beyond belief so I'm irrevocably hooked! I hope this is adapted for film because I think it would make for cracking viewing in the hands of the right producer and director. I personally found it much more enjoyable than other books in the genre. Read it and find out for yourself.