Magicians casts hard look at life with magic

Lev Grossman is after your inner child.

In his latest novel, The Magicians, Grossman aims to kill that small hope many of us harbor: If magic existed, the world would be a better place.

Grossman, a writer for Time Magazine and author of the best-selling book Codex, has created a superb novel with weighty characters and a worthwhile, twisted plot that fills readers with a sense of dread.

Meet Quentin Coldwater, a teen who has discovered that magic is real and that he’s been accepted into a college for the craft. He finds everything a normal college student would: friends, drinking, an intense workload, and, of course, love. The only thing different is magic. Yet this talent fails to make Quentin happy, and he graduates with no plans for a future except finding harder drugs and crazier parties.

Grossman is clearly onto something as he surmises that magic would not change the nature of humans, but might instead exaggerate their trivialities. Sure, a person in Grossman’s world might be able to create a black hole, but that still does not give her confidence if her peers look down on her.

Grossman, self-proclaimed lover of fantasy books, indulges many staples of the genre. There are dragons, other worlds and dungeon crawling, but Grossman manipulates these similarities to further his themes of abject realism. One character, a pixie, is never trusted by his fellow teachers because he has wings. Even in a world of magic, prejudice is rampant, once again showing magic cannot change the nature of humans.

Grossman’s characters also face real problems that magic can’t fix. Take Quincy, a homosexual who tries to drown his feelings of shame with alcohol and an obsession with tidy appearances. Or Professor Mayakovsky, who has an affair with a student and is banished to the South Pole. Psychological details such as these enhance the story and remind the reader that even if there is magic in the world, there is no wonder to it. Instead, magic becomes similar to science. It becomes a burden, not only to use, but also to learn.

Like the Harry Potter series, The Magicians deals with themes of escapism, but unlike Harry, Quentin can find no refuge. Instead, each escape from the real world brings him more anguish and further detaches him from reality. The novel follows Quentin as he struggles to find meaning in his life, and the plot is largely motivated by his struggles.

Quentin’s escapades follow an archetype familiar from other fantasy novels, but they are still satisfying to read, especially with Grossman’s knack for matching the rhythm of his sentences with the pace of the action.

The Magicians, though unrelenting in its realism, also has a brazen sense of wit. Its characters make many allusions to fantasy favorites like Harry Potter and Tolkien, and during these moments the reader gets a sense that Grossman is really enjoying himself. There are other interesting moments such as a discussion with a bear that rarely leaves the subject of honey and berries, much to Quentin’s disgust. These lighter moments ease the weight of the book and serve to make Quentin’s world more habitable.

The novel stands as an innovation in a culture dominated by the hero worship of Harry Potter. With deep and disturbed characters, Grossman fuses magic into a terribly real world, one with crippling desperation and never-ending isolation. In Grossman’s world, there is no good or bad, only the infinite rule of reality. It is truly refreshing to see a view of a fantastical world that does not change the nature of humans. Grossman even charms the reader into gladly offering up his inner child.