It might be said that it is a bit of a stretch to claim that this book fits this month's category of "mythology", but if we go with the definition of mythology of "a set of stories about a particular institution, especially when exaggerated or fictitious", it works. I think. Look, just go with me here -- it's more content for you to read! Why nitpick about category definitions?! (Nitpicking is our job!).

The Magicians is kind of a cross between Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, if either of those were more adult and realistic (at least, as "realistic" as a story about magic and fantastical lands can be)(And don't get me started on how Harry Potter turned into more of an adult story. It didn't. Which has been well discussed on this here site.) The book features our hero(?) Quentin, who is a normal, yet brilliant, high schooler from New York who doesn't feel particularly comfortable with his life and doesn't know what he wants to do with himself. He does have a secret love of a set of children's books about a British family of kids having adventures in the fantasy land of Fillory, and as such, when Quentin suddenly finds himself with the opportunity to study magic at the exclusive (and hidden) school of Brakebills, he feels that perhaps this could be the thing he's been missing from his life.

He's not entirely correct. While he finds that he's good at magic and enjoys it, it's not the Best. Thing. Evar. Life at school is still… life. He does meet several (relatively) like-minded fellow students, all of whom make up the “physical kids” (i.e. those with penchants for physical magic) such as Alice (in Quentin’s year, and eventually his girlfriend), and Eliot, Josh, and Janet, three students from the prior year at Brakebills.

Quentin’s life is turned upside-down yet again when the discovery is made that… (dramatic pause)… Fillory is real! It’s his fantasy come true! And Quentin and his friends head to Fillory to find their own adventures, and discover that just like in the real world, Fillory isn’t perfect.

The book has a lot going for it. It’s both a cynical and yet somewhat satirical take on schools of magic and fantastical lands and all that. The characters are quite believable, and seem real. Grossman does an excellent job of inventing a rich, detailed world, and yet one that could easily be part of our world.

And yet… I ended up feeling a little disappointed at the end. I was hoping for more in certain areas. For instance, the book is divided up into three distinct sections. The first being Quentin’s time at Brakebills. The second is his time after school in the “real world”, and the third is within Fillory. Yes, you read that right, his entire four year magical education at Brakebills takes place in about a third of the book, and that was it. It seemed like there was much more that could have been explored just from that era in his life. And I can’t quite tell if these three sections were always the plan, or if Grossman liked the idea of Quentin-in-Fillory but needed the backstory of the first two sections to get there, hence the somewhat rushed nature. Hard to say.

And for all of the discussion and teaching of magic -- it doesn’t really come up as often as you would think. There were instances of specific ideas of magical applications brought up, and then dropped later in the book. Or large swaths of the book where Quentin and his friends don’t really do much magic at all, even in Fillory, going around in a much more mundane way. That was probably a conscious choice to write it that way from Grossman, but I kept thinking “why aren’t they doing magic here?”.

So this book left a little to be desired for me, overall. But I would still recommend it. The ideas are good and interesting, and I could easily picture The Magicians speaking to some people more than it spoke to me, particularly if they are well-versed in early fantasy literature (like Narnia). There are certain plot threads that pull everything together by the end which I thought were quite well done. It is a good book. So give it a try, have an open mind, and see what you think.

   -- K. Burtt