The Magicians
by Lev Grossman
Instead of going to a standard, albeit prestigious, college, Quentin is selected by Brakebills College, an academy for magical studies, to try his hand at their entrance exam. The exam is strange and nonsensical, but Quentin excels and is accepted. He along with his classmates now have years ahead of them to study the tiresome and gruelling ways of spell casting. There are no brooms or wands here. While Quentin advances at Brakebills, a foe emerges, a terrible beast that sets upon the class one day and eats a student. This is forgotten for the rest of Quentin's duration at Brakebills, but after graduation when a peer named Penny uncovers the magical world of Fillory, where the Beast is believed to have come from, Quentin and friends must come together once more to stop it.
This book, in many reviews and marketing strategies, has been called "Harry Potter meets the Chronicles of Narnia" and blurbed by George R.R. Martin himself saying “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this". These are accurate statements. Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia are decidedly wholesome and hopeful even in their darkest moments, The Magicians... is not. Lev Grossman is a talented writer and has taken on a rendition of two of the most notable fantasy worlds and tells a very different kind of tale.
Yes, the book includes gore, sex, and quite a bit of substance abuse, but that, for me, was not the biggest distinction between this book and those to which it mimics. While all other stories dealing in magic have an air of wonder, joy, and hope, The Magicians is the most depressing, hopeless, and dreary take. Quentin begins the book miserable and remains such for it's entirety. This is most clearly felt when something horrific happens. When Quentin should be suffering extreme guilt or loss, there is no proper reaction. Instead there is a passage of text in which Quentin takes the moment to appreciate fabric or something else completely beside the point. He is numb to everything and so are the people closest to him.
In this book, magic appears to be the culprit of this dark parlor because when everything is at the magicians fingertips nothing really matters to them anymore. This book was agony to read at times due to the unlikability of the characters and the depressing themes the book explored, but it's redemption to me is the fact that this book dared to show the ugly side to ultimate magical power. Jake the Dog from Adventure Time sums it up best: "If you get everything you want the minute you want it, what's the point of living?"
The biggest challenge the magicians face after becoming magicians is finding something to live for. Even before Quentin had mastered magic he was already getting everything he every wanted as soon as magic entered his life. He was given every fantasy he had every dreamed, and because of that, he lost all purpose and turned into a shell of a person. It is grim, and I've never read something as depressing as this, but it makes me think about magic and power in a different way. This book is action-packed and no doubt entertaining, but beware since just because it's magical doesn't mean it's "magical".