The Magicians
Joyless. Somehow still thrilling.
Quentin Coldwater is a dissatisfied privileged teen-genius in Brooklyn when he is invited to test into the über-secret Brakebills College of Magic. He learns that not only is magic real, its difficult. Only a special rank of gifted people can study it and only a few of them succeed. He makes friends, fucks off, advances almost spectacularly, falls in love and is still unhappy.
I appreciated what Grossman was doing, creating a magical world that works with our world as it is and is singularly selfish. There is a tribe of gifted people in the world, I wasn't in the big leagues there but I remember the feeling of competition when comparing grades, discussing points of tests, shrewdly measuring how you ranked in everything with your peers. I can see the truth in a world entirely people and run by people with this mindset.
I didn't like the impression that Grossman gave of being better than fantasy and of somehow being the first person to look critically at a fantasy world subject to real-world problems or the realities of signing up for a quest in a world whose politics you barely know exist, let alone understand. There's whole bodies of work about just those things.
And yet, I enjoyed 'The Magicians' and devoured the sequel. Grossman is a more than capable writer, his pacing was good, his world had enough detail to stand on its own and his psychology was thought-provoking. Especially with the first scene with The Beast, he made my flesh crawl. So I chuck any misgivings out the window. Did I enjoy myself? Yes. The rest of it doesn't matter.
The Magicians
Next: 'The Magician King'
