I should have known better about The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. Usually I feel suspicious when for a week or so, I keep hearing the same author getting interviews on the radio. But I thought the premise of Narnia for grownups sounded interesting. So I gave it a try.
Quentin Coldwater is a bright, nerdy kid with bright, nerdy friends. He grew up obsessively reading the Fillory novels, which are mostly like Narnia, with aspects of Oz and Middle-earth. When he gets tossed into a room full of kids who are used to doing well on tests and given blue books and sharpened pencils, they all dive into the test without asking any questions. The test itself was cool. And it brings him into the Brakesbill school for magicians.
Some of the best passages come of the magic, but once he got there, I kept waiting for the story to begin. Meanwhile, Quentin and his new friends drank a lot of wine and tested each other as sexual companions. No matter what he does, though, Quentin is persistently, resolutely unhappy. He wishes he could go to Fillory. He thinks learning real magic will make him happy. It doesn’t. He thinks casting spells will make him happy. They don’t. He thinks if only he could go to Fillory, well, you can see what’s coming.
By the end, this is a bleak book, with moments of delight, but the price of glory is so high there’s no glory left. It’s also a very tidy book. All the loose ends are tied. No gun shown on the mantelpiece goes unfired. Mysteries that you didn’t even know were mysteries get explained. But just when it seems that Quentin is resigned to learning the lesson beaten into him over and over again, he is offered a happy ending that seems tacked on.
He should have known better.
But then, so should I.
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