I believe I decided to read The Magicians by Lev Grossman when I saw it described as Harry Potter for adults. Call me a sucker, but that's enough to reel me in. What I discovered was a book that was more like Harry Potter meets The Corrections. I enjoyed The Corrections, but I think I might have disliked it in equal measure. That was about my take on The Magicians as well. There were parts that were exciting and scary and clever, but it was not always fun to keep company with Lev Grossman's main character, Quentin Coldwater. Quentin is immature and selfish, prone to terrible life-decisions, but with the self-awareness to recognize how terrible those decisions are later. It's all the more frustrating that he then continues to make terrible decisions.
Grossman is not the first person to write about an unlikeable main character. Literature is filled with unsavory types who are nonetheless so compelling that you can't tear yourself away. Quentin occupies some middle ground. He's far from heroic, but, and this is damning with faint praise, he's not the worst person in the world either. I couldn't quite decide if this made him more realistic or just aggravating.
I must have come down on the side of compelling, because I found I was excited when I learned that the sequel, The Magician King, was coming out. I picked it up the day it came out and went to a reading by Lev Grossman later in the week. My capsule review of that is that Lev Grossman is clever and funny and only sometimes a little pretentious. The question and answer session was interesting. One person asked why the magicians in Grossman's books aren't doing anything more noble with their time, to which he answered that there are magicians who are noble in his world, but they're not the ones he's writing about. The question that I found most interesting in retrospect was the one with the simplest answer. A girl asked how long it had taken him to write the book and he said two years. It took him five years to write the first one. Having finished the book, I think this shortened writing period shows.
Without giving too much away, the book is split between Quentin's story and the story of his high school crush Julia, who had the chance to get into his fancy magician college in the first book, but was rejected. I don't want to sound hopelessly plot-driven as a reader, but I felt like I was halfway through the book and nothing had happened yet. Both of their stories are interesting, but a little underdeveloped. Years of Julia's story are skimmed through and Quentin's quest is resolved so quickly that I found the eventual stakes of it less meaningful and occasionally confusing. The climax of the book, when it comes, is underwhelming, and the grand denouement of Julia's section (which takes place at an earlier time) is noticeably similar to the big fight at the end of The Magicians.
There's also the fact that by the end of The Magicians, I thought Quentin had finally grown up a bit. By trial and error and having his heart broken, he's no longer solely a hedonist. However, at the beginning of The Magician King, he seems remarkably similar. I suppose we could say he regressed, but to me it came across as some retrofitting.
Pluses? Grossman is a good writer and it's generally worth following him through to the end. He has a firm sense of the ridiculous and when characters question the world around them, anyone who's read a fantasy book will feel the pangs once again of wondering why in the world Susan doesn't get to go to Narnia. For a book with awfully sad sections, it's often quite funny and Grossman is nothing if not inventive when creating the various magical spells and worlds.
My final take is that if you liked The Magicians, you'll like The Magician King. You'll see some old friends and meet some new ones. You'll want to strangle Quentin, but you'll stick by him. And if you're me, you will probably begrudgingly pick up the planned third book at some future date.
One last note: I've seen mostly positive reviews for this book, so I'm curious to see what other people think of it. If you're a fan of the first, are you a fan of the second? If you were frustrated by the first one, did you find this one to be an improvement? If you haven't read either one, this review has probably left you wondering whether or not these books are worth reading. Go for it! Take risks in life. Eat ice cream for dinner once, just because you can, and read books that provoke discussion.
