Lev Grossman’s The Magicians tells the story of young adults who discover a magical culture.
However, Grossman’s tale has the keystones of the fantasy genre. His characters contend with mature problems that the classic characters never had to worried about.
Specifically, these magicians suffer from depression and wonder about the purpose of their powers. His adolescents are competitive yet lonely, arrogant yet self-loathing and caring yet unfaithful. They all have futures full of prospects, but they are pitifully bored.
Grossman’s best works are psychological windows into teenage anxiety that seem to be written with near autobiographical authenticity.
Throughout the novel, the streaming thoughts and dialogues are intriguing and evocative.
Grossman has a keen awareness of his themes and structures his plot appropriately.
His clever metaphors will amuse, and his sarcastic social commentary will enlighten.
It becomes obvious that the book’s entire magical culture is a massive literary symbol for escapism, since the heroes attend magicians’ school to escape the unsatisfactory humdrum of modern life. They escape the tedious chores of magic by playing wizard games.
When Earth’s magic no longer excites them, they depart to another magical realm, where they find themselves living out an ‘unhappily ever after.’
Grossman does not know how to conclude a story. Several drawn-out battle scenes climax with a disappointing deus ex machina, and the useless denouement drags on ad infinitum.
This is all wrapped up with an unconvincing plot twist, but readers won’t bother wondering whether or not this development makes sense after the multiple time warps, the trans-dimensional travel and the introduction of several demigods.
The stage becomes cluttered with too many characters and the whiny, inept and self-destructive main character will eventually squander away anyone’s deepest sympathies.
Believe it or not, reading about bored and depressed people will make readers bored and depressed.
The Magicians fails as a fantasy, since it offers only regurgitated motifs, and thus seems like a subpar imitation.
As usual, the heroes contend against arbitrarily evil Voldemort-type villains, while sage Dumbledore-like mentors lend them their infinite wisdom.
This book is too much like its predecessors, and because its culture is not as rich and its plot not as intricate, the magic ends up being drab without being mysterious.
Grossman’s work also fails as a satire because he takes his magical premises too seriously.
The book doesn’t offer the sincerity of a Dungeons and Dragons spin-off, but it is too earnest to offer the hilarity of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Instead, The Magicians offers readers a bittersweet and down-to-earth interpretation of the fantasy genre, which will be refreshing to cynics and sobering to others.
It emphasizes real interpersonal relationships and real problems in an effective manner, so much that the magic itself is often forgotten.
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